Conference napalm::commusic_v1

    Where do you get the spec and how much $.

    $35 (non-member rate for the complete specs, membership is $40/year)
    
    International MIDI Association
    11857 Hartsbrook St.
    North Hollywood, CA	91607
    

    
    gee, if there *isnt* a copyright notice, you could reproduce
    the specs here.
    
    should you be so inclined. Got a page reader for input?
    
    whew.
    
    ron
    
    

    re: -.1  Well, to *paraphrase*:

    "Copyright � 1985,1986 MIDI Manufacturers Association

    Published and distributed exclusively by
    the International MIDI Association,
    12439 Magnolia Blvd., Suite 104,
    North Hollywood, California 91607 USA:(818) 505-8964 

    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in
    any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
    information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in
    writing from the International MIDI Association and the MIDI
    Manufacturers Association

    Printed in the United States of America, 1/87"

    So, bein' the honest guy what I are, I can only *loan* it out,
    and I ABSOLUTELY CANNOT reproduce any "part of this book...in
    any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
    information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in
    writing from the International MIDI Association and the MIDI
    Manufacturers Association".

    
    
    Re: .-1
    
    I can understand your desire to stay on the right side of the copyright
    law.
    
    Thought you'd like to know that the first copy of the MIDI spec
    I saw came across the usenet about 2 years ago. Someone just typed
    it in and distributed it world wide to net.music.synth .
    
    No one objected, - I'm sure that buffoons like Jim Cooper (JL Cooper
    - rip-off - Electronics) new about it.
    
    Robert
    
    

    re: .-1

    You took my reply a little too seriously, I think.  I obviously
    lifted the stuff straight out of the manual.  I agree that they
    probably won't object to spreading around some of the info (for
    educational purposes), but they would probably have strong 
    objections to wholesale copy.  As for the other copy circulated
    through the net, seems to me I have a version of that stuffed in my 
    files, but it doesn't have all the extra stuff this version has, so
    the newer stuff has value.  But, I'm not willing to type in huge 
    sections because I respect the wishes of the MIDI Association.

    I just checked my files.  What I saw was the commentary which can
    be found at note 342.0.  The stuff I have is the more detailed spec
    that note refers to in addition to having the latest on some parts
    of the spec.

    	To bring something up again:
    
    	Is it in the original MIDI specs to include release velocity?
    
    --mikie--

    Yes, it was always in the spec.  They couldn't have changed the length
    of the NOTE-OFF command (3 bytes) without breaking lots of stuff.

Kawai K5 has release velocity (I think their 88 key Kawai M8000 does too).

Chad

    	I read through that spec sheet (342.0) and I'm wondering:
    
    	Sustain (as in a pedal) is not sent as a MIDI control, right?  It
    simply inhibits the note-offs from being sent, right?
    
    	I've noticed that when playing a piano on a synth (read: Kurzweil
    1000PX on a MIDIboard), the pedal sustain doesn't *actually* function
    as many pianos do.  On the pianos I've played, you can mute the sustain
    but not cut it off; it changes the decay of the piano subtly, and I
    haven't heard that on an electronic piano yet.  The sustain pedal, IMO, 
    should be a valued controller, not a simple on-off switch.
    
    	Am I right about the MIDI implementation?  And what do you think of 
    the controller idea?
     
    --mikie--
                                                               

    Re: .11
    
    Sustain is definitely sent as a controller, after all slave SGUs (ones
    without keyboards) respond to sustain.  
    
    In fact, I have an SGU that responds very oddly to sustain pedal.
    Set it for a sustaining type tone (organ, etc.), play a note, hold the
    key down, the note sustains forever until you release the key.  Now
    rekey, but hit the pedal and let go of the note, it slowly starts to
    fade out (takes about a minute to fade away).  Talk about dumb.
    						
    							
    							Brian

    	Oh, ok.
    
    	See, this isn't really important, I'm just designing this "ideal"
    synth, and I wanted to see if I could include a valued sustain control
    within the existing archetecture or if it would be completely machine
    specific.  Just something to pass the time, the Hot Line hasn't rung in
    a while...    :77
    
    --mikie--

	Actually, sustain pedal is controller 64.  How it is implemented 
depends on the individual module receiving the command.

	Dan

	Dr T's sees sustain pedal down as CC (#)64 (value) 127, and
	pedal up as CC 64 0.

	Agrees with the MIDI controller map, although I thought we were past
	1.0 of the MIDI spec by now (didn't MIDI time codes come after 1.0?)

	/pjh

    	So, the specifications could accomodate a valued sustain (CC 64 n,
    where 0<=n<=127), right?  I guess if it did, you'd have to be careful,
    because if you used it and a synth only recongized 0 and 127, it would
    act goofy if your foot wasn't completely up or down on the pedal.  Hmm.
    Bears some extra thought.
    
    --mikie--

    
    re: .16
    
    Most MIDI devices have defaults for "out of range" messages.  This can
    be anything from wrapping around note numbers of octaves that are out
    of the SGU's range to providing "default" velocity (i.e. a CZ-101
    recognizes all nonzero velocities as "64", but a zero velocity as
    equivalent to a note-off), etc.  I would expect sustain is the same,
    that is all non-zero values translate to the max value.
    
    							Brian 

    Usually two-valued controllers will interpret anything from 0 to 63
    as "off" and anything from 64 to 127 as "on".
    
    I don't have my specs in front of me, but I think it is 1.something now,
    to incorporate MTC.  Midi files is a separate spec entirely.

Does the midi spec include anything about programming interface, or is it
purely the physical connection + protocol across that connection? 

Burns

    There is no standard programming interface in the MIDI spec.
    The MIDI File spec does have some sample C routines for reading and
    writing the variable-length-integer codes used for delta-times.
    
    Various platforms have their own programming interfaces, such as the
    MIDI Manager on the Apple Macintosh, but these are generally at the
    level of sending and receiving buffers, not with the construction of
    individual MIDI events.  The coding of MIDI events is so trivial that
    it is hardly worth while building an interface, and how you want to
    deal with them often depends on what your application is doing.

    The MIDI spec gives the PHY specs, and the protocol. No programming
    info. That's up to you.
    
    dp

    There is a MIDI spec for file formats.
    tom