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Chapter 13 MIDI Toolbox

1. Deferred word called by MF PARSE EVENTS Set this to whatever you want for processing system exclusive messages from the file MF PROCESS TRACK size track Deferred word that is called by MF DOFILE when each track is encountered You can use MF PARSE TRACK to break the track into events MF LOAD SHAPE track lt filename gt load notes into MF SHAPE This word loads the note information from the desired track into a shape called MF SHAPE The notes will be stored in expanded form with absolute time If you want to copy the data to another shape use SH COMPRESS NOTES which converts the notes to packed form See the shape chapter for information on SH COMPRESS NOTES LOAD ABS SHAPE shape lt filename gt Use MF LOAD SHAPE and CLONE to load your shape To play these shapes you will need to set the player to absolute mode Here is an example OB SHAPE SH1 OB PLAYER PL1 OB MIDI INSTRUMENT INS1 MIDI Toolbox 13 17 READ MF read a midifile into a shape 0 hmf simple mf Smf load shape loads as absolute expanded mf shape shl sh compress notes convert to compressed PLAY MF play the shape read from MIDIFile shl insl build pll 0 put offset insl 0 offset because stored as MIDI notes use absolute time pl1 absolute not relative time 3 put on dim pll use ontimes of compressed notes pll hmsl play Example of Reading a MIDI File This example just prints notes as it reads them from
2. wait I 0 MIDI NOTEOFF turn off same note TEMPO DELAY I MIDI PRESET change patch LOOP 10 TEMPO 1 6 of a second 40 60 MIDI SCALE Note that in the above example the indices of the DO LOOP should not exceed the number of presets available on the synthesizer in use Tutorial 2 Pitch Bend In many acoustic instruments it is possible to bend pitches up or down as a performance gesture Guitar players violinists trombonists and others often change slightly the pitch of the note s being played Keyboard players pianists organists etc have generally not had a way to bend pitch Now however almost all MIDI keyboards have a lever or a wheel next to the keys that can be used to bend pitch Moving this wheel will cause a MIDI Pitch Bend message to be sent These messages are channel specific Thus you could have a different amount of pitch bend for each channel Here is an experiment Select a preset program voice on your synthesiser that has a sustained sound eg flute Now enter 60 64 MIDI NOTEON play middle C While this is sounding enter HEX 800 MIDI PITCH BEND pitch goes up 1000 MIDI PITCH BEND pitch goes up more 0 MIDI PITCH BEND pitch should be back to normal 1000 MIDI PITCH BEND pitch goes lower DECIMAL Note there is a lower level word called MIDI BEND that takes raw pitch bend values With MIDI BEND a value of 2000 means no pitch bend Alternative Tuning using Pitch Bend The amo
3. MIDI CLocks per metronome clock 32nds number of 32nd notes per 24 MIDI Clocks SAVE ABS SHAPE shape lt filename gt This saves a shape with absolute time format to a MIDIFile in format0 This assumes each note has a separate On and Off event and that times are ABSOLUTE ie ticks since start of player See SSAVE ABS SHAPE SAVE REL SHAPE shape lt filename gt This saves a shape with relative time format to a MIDIFile in format0 This assumes each note has one event and that times are RELATIVE ie ticks until next note The ON time of each note is assumed to be 1 2 of the duration Transferring MIDI files between other programs and HMSL The MIDI Files created by HMSL can be read by other programs that follow the MIDI File Specification These include most sequencers and notation programs The most important issue in this process is timing How do you generate notes using HMSL that will be interpreted as exact quarter notes half notes etc If you are not careful you will end up with very strange dotted triplets plus 64th note rests and other strange creatures This is fine if that s what you intended but if you want whole notes you should get whole notes The secret to this process is a field in the MIDI File header called division which defines the number of ticks per beat When a program reads a MIDI File it will save that division information When it then sees a note on followed by a note off it will compare
4. 4 volume MIDI END SYSEX end a system exclusive message Sends a hex F7 byte then turns on running status MIDI LOCAL OFF disallow keyboard input Removes ability to do local keyboard input 13 6 HMSL Reference Manual MIDI LOCAL ON allow keyboard input MIDI NOTE PRESSURE note pressure set aftertouch pressure Sets polyphonic aftertouch pressure for the note This is not a commonly supported feature on commercial keyboards The Ensoniq EPS however does support polyphonic aftertouch MIDI NOTEOFF note velocity turn off a note This word will turn OFF a note at the given velocity on the current channel Note and velocity are both restricted to the MIDI range 0 gt 127 7 bits The velocity is ignored on most synthesizers for NOTEOFF commands It is included here because the MIDI specification allows for it A velocity of 64 is typically used This word is used in MIDL LASTOFF MIDI NOTEON note velocity turn on a note This word will turn ON a note at the given velocity on the current channel MIDI note and velocity are both restricted to the range 0 gt 127 7 bits Many synthesizers have a minimum note value of 36 which corresponds to the bottom C Sending a note on message with a velocity of 0 will turn the note off See MIDI NOTEON FOR and MIDI LNOTEON AT in the MIDI Utilities glossary MIDI PITCH BEND bend centered at zero This add 2000 to BEND and calls MIDILBEND
5. 5 MSEC LOOP MIDI LASTOFF DECIMAL go back to decimal 50 BENT NOTE See MIDI PITCH BEND MIDI CHANNEL channel sets channel for midi output Sets current MIDI CHANNEL variable for use in multi channel work Number should be between I 16 There is no MIDI channel 0 according to the MIDI standard To transmit in MIDI channel 7 enter 7 MIDI CHANNEL This tells HMSL that all successive MIDI data is sent to channel 7 When MIDI data is sent channel number is encoded in the command in a 4 bit field This field will be zero for channel 1 1 for channel 2 and 15 for channel 16 Associated Error Message MIDI CHANNEL Channel number out of range MIDI CLOCK send one MIDI clock tick This used for synchronizing with external sequencers by providing them with a clock pulse MIDI CONTINUE continue playing an external sequence Used with MIDI START and MIDI STOP MIDI CONTROL control value Send MIDI Control message Sends control bytes over MIDI see the MIDI specification and the specific synthesizer documentation for how to use this This is used in HMSL for example for implementing commands like MIDI ALLOFF It is extremely useful for defining your own custom MIDI instruments in HMSL Here is an example MIDI ALLOFF 7B 00 MIDI CONTROL Here is an example of setting the volume loudness for an entire channel Some synthesizers do not support this 7 32 MIDI CONTROL set to 1
6. 70 MIDI NOTEON 59 110 MIDI NOTEON hear 2 notes 2nd one should be loudest 54 0 MIDI NOTEOFF first note turns off 59 0 MIDI NOTEOFF silence There is a handy command that will turn off the last note played without you having to type it in again Enter 62 90 MIDI NOTEON MIDI LASTOFF For convenience let s make a word that will play a note then turn it off Enter BANG note play a note for 1 4 second 100 MIDI NOTEON play it with velocity value of 100 250 MSEC wait roughly 250 milliseconds MIDI LASTOFF turn off note 56 BANG test it should play 1 short note Now let s use this word in another program Let s write a program to play a random note every quarter second RAND NOTES play random notes BEGIN start looping 96 36 WCHOOSE select random note between 96 and 36 BANG play it TERMINAL key hit UNTIL 7 RAND NOTES Note Refer to the chapter of this manual called HMSL Utilities Distribution Functions for a complete description of WCHOOSE and the related word CHOOSE Let s now write a word called MIDI SCALE which will produce an ascending scale using a different patch for each note Try editing this in a file so you can experiment with changing it ANEW TASK MIDI_SCALE VARIABLE TEMPO MIDI SCALE start end play ascending scale 1 SWAP put in proper order for DO DO I 100 MIDI NOTEON turn on 13 2 HMSL Reference Manual TEMPO DELAY
7. Association MIDI Standard see bibliography MIDI Parser Utilities MIDI PARSE Parse MIDI input if any When the MIDI Parser is on this word is called repeatedly from the top level of HMSL If the user wants to use the MIDI Parser but not HMSL per se then this word can be called from a BEGIN UNTIL loop or similar control structure MIDI PARSE BYTE byte Parse one byte of MIDI data received from somewhere This is called by MIDI PARSE and also by the MIDI File reader This is not normally called by the user MIDI PARSER ON Turns on MIDI Parser HMSL will now call MIDI LPARSE MANY in its loop MIDI PARSER OFF Turns MIDI Parser off MIDI PARSE LOOP calls MIDI PARSE in a loop Test word for seeing if your vectors work Hit any key to stop MIDI PARSE MANY This word actually used in the top level of HMSL will continue to parse as many MIDI messages as are in the buffer The maximum number of messages it will parse is set in the variable MIDI PARSE MAX default of 4 This word will provide better response to MIDI input than MIDI PARSE MP CHANNEL channel of last MIDI message This is used to distinguish messages from multiple inputs to the MIDI parser MP GET ADDR addr count Returns address of the complete MIDI packet Can be used with MIDI PACK See chapter on Recording and Sequencing MP RESET reset vectors to their original state This should be done before an
8. MIDI input stream If there is any data coming in it determines what type of MIDI command it is then collects the appropriate number of bytes Once it has the complete data for an incoming command it passes that data to a word of your choice For example if MIDI PARSE sees a MIDI Note On command it will collect two data bytes It then calls the word whose CFA is stored in MP ON VECTOR The default word is 2DROP MIDI Parser User Vectors The vectors that can be set and the number of bytes passed are Variable Name Number of Bytes MP ON VECTOR passes MP OFF VECTOR passes MP NOTEPR VECTOR passes MP CONTROL VECTOR passes MP PROGRAM VECTOR passes MP PRESSURE VECTOR passes MP BEND VECTOR passes MP SYSTEM VECTOR passes ONRFRFNNNN MIDI Code Hex 90 80 AO BO co DO EO Fx MP SYSTEM VECTOR by default contains a word which further parses the MIDI System Messages as follows MP SYSEX VECTOR passes MP F1 VECTOR passes MP POINTER VECTOR passes MP SELECT VECTOR passes MP F4 VECTOR passes MP F5 VECTOR passes MP TUNE VECTOR passes MP EOX VECTOR passes MP CLOCK VECTOR passes 13 12 HMSL Reference Manual CDCOCCOFRNEFEF FO Fl F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 F8 MP F9 VECTOR passes 0 F9 MP START VECTOR passes 0 FA MP CONTINUE VECTOR passes 0 FB MP STOP VECTOR passes 0 FC MP FD VECTOR passes 0 FD MP SENSING VECTOR passes 0 FE MP RESET VECTOR passes 0 FF For a complete description of these codes see the International MIDI
9. in the MIDI Parser you can process the file as you wish After a MIDI File is parsed the contents of the header will be placed in the variables MF NTRKS MF FORMAT and MF DIVISION MF NTRKS var addr number of tracks in file MF FORMAT var addr file format 0 1 2 MF DIVISION ticks beat For a full explanation of this see the MIDI File spec SMF LOAD SHAPE track filename load notes into MF SHAPE See MF LOAD SHAPE Use this when you want to pass a filename in a colon definition See example MF CHECK lt filename gt print out the contents of a file Try doing this to see what tracks are in a file before experimenting with the other MF words We recommend studying the definition of this word as an example of how to parse a MIDI FIle MF PARSE EVENT MIDI Parse event Reads event from file then calls the MIDI Parser to process the event To process meta events system exclusive events and escape events it will call the deferred words MF PROCESS META etc MF PARSE TRACK size track Analyse events in track Calls MF PARSE EVENT Sets MF EVENT TIME as it reads time from file MF PROCESS ESCAPE size Deferred word called by MF PARSE EVENTS Set this to whatever you want for processing escape sequences from the file MF PROCESS META size MetaID Deferred word called by MF PARSE EVENTS Set this to whatever you want for processing Meta Events MF PROCESS SYSEX size
10. random offset add random offset to program value 1 127 CLIPTO constrain to valid range MIDI PRESET INVERT PLAY MP RESET C INVERT NOTEON MP ON VECTOR C INVERT NOTEOFF MP OFF VECTOR C RANDOM PROGRAM MP PROGRAM VECTOR MIDI PARSER ON turns parser on HMSL play and watch notes printed on screen after quitting HMSL set vectors back to default MP RESET r Then compile the file and enter INVERT PLAY MIDI Parsing Advice There are a few things that should be kept in mind here Many synthesizers do not normally send Note OFF messages They often just send a Note ON message with a velocity of zero If you want something to only occur when a note is pressed then you must check for nonzero velocities Also remember that some quantities are converted to a zero based range when transmitted The MIDI Parser does not convert back MIDI program changes for example are transmitted at a value of one less than the specified value If you select program 7 on your synthesizer the MIDI Parser will give you a value of 6 This is done so that humans can refer to programs 1 to 128 but the computer can refer to them as 0 to 127 which fits in a 7 bit field There are more examples of using the MIDI Parser in the demo_action and master_slave sample programs The MIDI Parsing usually works best if you have a separate keyboard controller and sound generator If you are sending notes back to the same synth
11. the file F DUMP NOTE note velocity MF EVENT TIME print time SWAP CR print note vel DUMP TRACK size track DUP Track CR MF PARSE TRACK MF DUMP show notes in file C DUMP NOTE MP ON VECTOR set as many MP vectors as you want C DUMP TRACK IS MF PROCESS TRACK MF DOFILE MF DUMP HMF TEST MF Writing MIDI Files These words support writing to a MIDIFile MIDIFILEO end a capture session See MIDIFILE0 MIDIFILE1 end a capture session See MIDIFILE1 SCAPTURED gt MIDIFILEO filename save captured in file Writes MIDI data captured using CAPTURE to the specified MIDIFile in format 0 SCAPTURED gt MIDIFILE1 filename save captured in file Writes MIDI data captured using CAPTURE to the specified MIDIFile in format 1 MF BEGIN FORMATO filename position Start writing format0 file Calls MF CREATE writes header and begins track Returns position for MF END FORMATO Here is how it is defined SMF BEGIN FORMATO name pos begin format0O file Smf create 13 18 HMSL Reference Manual 0 1 ticks beat mf write header mf begin track startpos SMIDIFILEO filename Write following MIDI to a format 0 file myfile SMIDIFILEO 60 64 20 MIDI NOTEON FOR MIDIFILEO See MIDIFILEO and explanation of words at the beginning of this section SMIDIFILE1 filename Similar to SMIDIFILEO except i
12. Chapter 13 MIDI Toolbox Most Important Information The commands for the direct transmission and reception of MIDI information are described in this chapter MIDI provides a standard way to communicate between synthesizers and computers The most important output words are MIDI LNOTEON MIDI LNOTEOFF MIDI PRESET and MIDI CHANNEL The low level words that are most important are MIDI XMIT MIDI FLUSH and MIDI RECV The MIDI Parser receives incoming MIDI information and then passes it to your user written functions The most important MIDI Parser words are MP RESET MP ON VECTOR MP OFF VECTOR and MIDI PARSE Tools for reading and writing MIDI Files are also described in this chapter Overview MIDI is an industry standard for the electronic exchange of musical information among a variety of computer assisted musical devices such as synthesizers samplers notation and sequencing software computers mixers signal processors storage media and performance sensors It is a byte oriented serial interface that provides fairly complete control over traditional music synthesizers samplers processors mixers computer software and so on For a good description of MIDI refer to the International MIDI Association MIDI Standard description or any of the MIDI overview articles from Keyboard magazine Computer Music Journal or Craig Anderton s excellent book MIDI for Musicians HMSL contains a complete implementation of the MIDI standard which we
13. IME ticks Uses Event Buffering The virtual time is NOT advanced by this word MIDI NOTEON AT note velocity time This turns on a note at the time given You can turn it off using a velocity of zero Uses Event Buffering MIDI PANIC send ALLOFF to all 16 channels Turn off all notes on synthesizers that respond to the ALLOFF message MIDI RECALL BEND last bend for channel MIDI RECALL PRESET last preset for channel Simply calls MIDI RECALL PROGRAM MIDI RECALL PROGRAM last program for channel MIDI RECALL NOTE last note for channel The last note turned on is stored for each channel This information is used by MIDI LLASTOFF MIDI RECALL VEL lastvelocity velocity of last note This is useful for doing crescendi decrescendi or any sort of velocity function MIDI SCOPE dump MIDI input to screen Dumps MIDI input until user hits any key Useful for seeing what kinds of data transmission is occurring MIDI THRU Passes all bytes received directly to output until a key on the ASCII keyboard is pressed This allows you to play a synthesizer attached to the output of your computer using a MIDI keyboard attached to the input of your computer without having to change any cables MIDI Toolbox 13 9 PUT HIGH BITS addr count highbits Put high bits back on a string of characters MIDI Tests These words were written while testing and experimenting with MIDI You m
14. MIDI WALK N random walk A simple test piece Plays a simple melody with length N Can be aborted by pressing any key Low Level MIDI Words These words will only be needed by users who want to extend the current set of commands Look at the source code in H MIDI for examples of using these words to implement user level MIDI commands MIDI CHANNEL addr Variable which keeps track of current MIDI channel in HMSL To change the current channel set this variable to a number from 1 to 16 The channel should usually be set using the word MIDI CHANNEL see below which checks for valid ranges and does some other housekeeping MIDI COMMON status send status byte for common message Used for implementing commands like MIDI LSONG SELECT MIDI CVM status byte send channel voice message For internal use This ORs the status with the channel then transmits it The value transmitted is saved in the MIDI LAST CVM variable Ifthe variable MIDI IF OPT is true then transmission will only take place if the new message is different from the last This is known as running status which cuts down the number of bytes transmitted MIDI CVM 1D data status byte send cvm 1 data byte Does the following MIDI CVM MIDI DATA XMIT and MIDI FLUSH Result is to send the cvm plus one data byte 13 10 HMSL Reference Manual MIDI CVM 2D datal data2 status byte send cvm 2 data bytes Like MIDI CVM 1D but send
15. Thus if you pass zero you get NO bend If you pass a negative number then pitch bends down Positive numbers bend up This is more intuitive then MIDI BEND MIDI PRESET preset select a preset This command changes the preset patch on the current channel The number of presets allowed depends on the synthesizer used The allowable range is 1 to 128 MIDI PRESET subtracts one from the preset before sending because many synthesizers add one when receiving Not responsible for synthesizers that only receive program change in OMNI ON and other such aberrations This is a purely channel specific preset program change Also this may not change what are often called banks you do that on the synthesizer itself or via some control word you write Preset is referred to as program in the MIDI spec MIDI PROGRAM program same as MIDI PRESET MIDI PRESSURE pressure channel based aftertouch This is more likely to be implemented on commercial synthesizers than polyphonic aftertouch MIDI SONG POINTER position send song position pointer Sends F2 common message Used to set the song pointer in an external sequencer so you can start in the middle MIDI SONG SELECT song send song selection Sends F3 common message Used to select from among several songs in an external sequencer MIDI START start external slave sequencers Sends hex FA MIDI real time message MIDI START SYSEX start a sys
16. a between various MIDI application programs Using a MIDIFile you can import musical information from sequencers etc and export information to notation software etc MIDIFiles are files that contain an informative header followed by one or more tracks Tracks consist of a stream of MIDI events with a time stamp There are also other events called MetaEvents for things like lyrics copyright information tempo changes etc MIDIFiles come in three Formats 0 1 and 2 Format 0 One track containing everything Format 1 Multiple parallel tracks Format 2 Multiple tracks with no specific relation between them Most Sequencers will save in Format 1 We strongly recommend looking at the source code for this MIDIFile support to see how it works You may want to create a modified version of this code to suit your particular needs You will probably also want to get a copy of the Standard MIDI File spec from the International MIDI Society Loading MIDIFlle support To load the MIDIFile package enter INCLUDE HT MIDIFILE MIDI File Glossary You will notice that some of these words take a filename as lt filename gt while some take it as filename Consider MIDIFILE0 and MIDIFILEO There stack diagrams are MIDIFILEO lt filename gt MIDIFILEO filename A parameter in parentheses implies that the name follows the word for example MIDIFILEO myfile SHEP MIDIFILEO If you tried to put this in a colon definit
17. art writing format0 file Calls FILEWORD to get the name then MF BEGIN FORMATO Returns position for use by MF END FORMATO0 to set track size MF BEGIN TRACK position start a new track Save position for MF END TRACK Use with Format 1 amp 2 files MF END FORMATO position Close file created by MF BEGIN FORMATO MF BEGIN TRACK position end a track Use position from MF BEGIN TRACK MIDI Toolbox 13 19 MF WRITE EVENT addr count time to open file MF WRITE HEADER format ntrks division MF WRITE META addr count event type Write meta event of COUNT bytes to the current file See MF WRITE SEQ for example Uses MF EVENT TIME as time MF WRITE NOTEOFF time note velocity to open file MF WRITE NOTEON time note velocity to open file MF WRITE SEQ sequence Write sequence number to open file Defined as MF WRITE SEQ SEQ MF EVENT PAD W store as two bytes MF EVENT PAD 2 0 MF WRITE META 7 MF WRITE TEMPO microseconds beat Write MetaEvent 51 to store tempo MF WRITE TIME abstime write as virtual length number Convert time since beginning of track to time since last event then write to file as VLN MF WRITE TIMESIG numer denom clocks 32nds Write a metaevent 58 to the file to store a time signature The parameters are numer numerator of time signature eg 7 4 denom denominator of time signature eg 7 4 clocks
18. ay find them useful Don t forget to set the MIDI channel to some appropriate value for your studio See MIDIL CHANNEL MIDI BLAST note keeps hitting the note Keeps playing the note until the user presses a key MIDI CONT continuous stream for hardware testing Plays a single note until the user presses any key For test purposes only Will just play one note as quickly as possible This was written for debugging MIDI serial interfaces by looking at the data with an oscilloscope MIDI ORGAN Use computer keyboard like an organ This frivolous word will sound a MIDI note corresponding to the ASCII value of the key you press You can get out by hitting the q key This is useful for testing your hardware connections and sound system before trying anything tricky Velocity sensitive computer keyboards are not supported in this release Note this is purely a test word but a useful one as it will tell you if your cables are ok and that the synthesizer is set up properly etc That is if this doesn t work check lower level possible problems MIDI SEQOUT play 5 notes A simple sequence which plays five notes MIDI TEST quick MIDI test Turns one note on each of channels 1 2 and 3 and gives a message that they will turn off when the user presses any key MIDI TESTPR N tests presets Plays sequence using N preset on current MIDI channel This is useful when deciding which presets to use
19. call the low level MIDI driver This low level MIDI driver is used by HMSL to support MIDI instruments These words can also be used directly for simple experiments in MIDI or used from HMSL morphs by embedding MIDI calls in productions interpreters etc If a particular instrument specific MIDI operation is not supported here it should be fairly simple by referring to the source code to write the driver yourself MIDI channel allocation is done automatically by instruments Users may make use of the MIDI ALLOCATOR object see instruments in their own allocation procedures or may of course change channels directly in productions and actions using the simple MIDI routines listed below One of the main uses of these routines for HMSL users will be in defining custom MIDI instruments Tutorial 1 Simple MIDI Output In this tutorial we will play a few notes manually We will also verify that MIDI is connected properly First make sure that the OUTPUT of your MIDI interface is connected to the INPUT of your synthesizer If you have a keyboard MIDI synthesizer test to see if the audio connections are made properly by playing a few notes on the keyboard MIDI information is sent over 16 channels A typical synthesizer can be assigned to respond to information on one or more channels This allows a MIDI controller eg a computer sequencer or keyboard to control several different synthesizers at once Set your synthesizer to respond to MIDI chann
20. d after using the MIDI Parser to avoid bugs caused by executing the wrong function MP xxx VECTOR addr location of parser vector for function xxx xxx is the name of the MIDI function to be vectored The actual names can be found in the table above The MIDI Parser can be instructed to use a custom function by placing its CFA at the address returned The custom word must consume the appropriate number of bytes as given in the table For example VARIABLE INPUT PRESSURE MY PRESSURE pressure eat one byte INPUT PRESSURE td C MY PRESSURE MP PRESSURE VECTOR MIDI Parser Examples Here is an example of a simple MIDI scope done using this parser MIDI Toolbox 13 13 DUMP NOTE ON note velocity print note played ON swap CR e MP RESET make sure vectors are set to default C DUMP NOTE ON MP ON VECTOR MIDI PARSE LOOP use low level loop play keyboard now MP RESET restore old vectors Here is a fun example that inverts the keyboard and interferes with selecting presets Enter this in a file ANEW TASK NOTE_ INVERTER INVERT NOTE note velocity inverted_note velocity 128 ROT SWAP eo Ne INVERT NOTEON note velocity play inverted INVERT NOTE MIDI NOTEON eo Ne INVERT NOTEOFF note velocity turn off inverted INVERT NOTE MIDI NOTEOFF RANDOM PROGRAM program choose nearby program Program is sometimes known as Preset 9 CHOOSE 4 pick
21. dle C Now enter OSP 121 I gt NOTE BEND S prints 60 4096 OSP 122 I gt NOTE BEND S prints 61 0 Notice how this word calculates the normal MIDI note value and pitch bend value needed to generate indexed quarter tones To hear these enter 120 QTR NOTEON listen 120 QTR NOTEOFF turn it off 121 QTR NOTEON listen 121 QTR NOTEOFF turn it off To hear a quarter note scale add this word to your file with the other words QTR SCALE start end 1 SWAP DO I 64 QTR NOTEON 10 DELAY I 64 QTR NOTEOFF LOOP 7 Compile the file To hear an octave of quarter tones enter 120 145 OTR SCALE Remember that your synthesiser must be set to 1 one semitone bend range for this to be in tune There are some limitations to this technique Because the pitch bend affects every note on the channel this only works with one note per channel If you want microtonal polyphony you will need to use multiple channels Many synthesizers have support for alternative tunings eg Yamaha TX81Z Yamaha FB 01 Ensoniq EPS etc Most of these are accessed via system exclusive messages Carter Scholz has proposed a standard for tuning which has been adopted and which we hope will be supported by the manufacturers 12 tone equal temper has become very common in western music mainly because it is convenient Electronic instruments will allow musicians to rediscover alternative tunings which are often preferable The various forms of just int
22. e received This returns the real time that the last MIDI byte was received at the serial port Call this after MIDI RECV when you are recording MIDI data and want accurate timing MIDI SER INIT initialize low level serial interface Called by MIDLINIT Internal use only MIDI SER TERM terminate low level serial interface Called by MIDLTERM Internal use only MIDI TIME time time when last byte received This returns the advance time that the last MIDI byte was received at the serial port MIDI XMIT byte output a byte over the MIDI line This is the basic output word used to build the specific MIDI commands You may need to call MIDI FLUSH for actual serial output to occur Macine Specific Routines MIDI Manager etc For the Macintosh and Amiga there are a number of very useful and important host specific MIDI words and utilities that are documented in the individual Macintosh or Amiga HMSL Supplements For example the Macintosh makes use of the Apple MIDI Manager and HMSL supplies some routines for changing the size of its buffer If you are working extensively with MIDI programming it will be useful for you to familiarize yourself with the specifics of the machine you re working on MIDI Input Parsing Introduction If you want to interpret MIDI input from a keyboard or other MIDI source the easiest way is to use this MIDI parser When you turn the MIDI PARSER on HMSL looks at the
23. el 1 It probably already is Now tell HMSL to send its information over MIDI channel 1 Do this by entering 1 MIDI CHANNEL no space between L and Now let s send a note on message over this channel For the purposes of this exercise select a preset that sustains well Organ flute or string sounds will do fine Save the drums piano and bells for later MIDI note on messages consist of two data values a note index and a velocity The note index corresponds to a particular note or key on the synthesizer The lowest C note is usually 36 A MIDI note index of 50 is a C note two octaves up The maximum allowable note is 127 but the top note on a 5 octave high C MIDI Toolbox 13 1 synthesizer would be 96 The velocity controls the loudness of the note and typically is a measure of how hard a key was struck Velocities can range from 0 to 127 Enter 50 100 MIDI NOTEON note 50 velocity 100 You should now hear a sustaining note If not check your MIDI connections audio connections and volume levels and repeat the command Eventually you will want to turn this note off Enter 50 71 MIDI NOTEOFF You may be wondering why the OFF command has a velocity This relates to how fast you pull your finger off the key and is part of the MIDI standard Only a few synthesizers can use this number an example being the Kawai K4 Now let s overlap two notes if your synthesizer is monophonic this won t work Enter 54
24. esizer try MIDI LOCAL OFF so that you only hear the notes from HMSL and not what you are directly playing 13 14HMSL Reference Manual MIDI bend messages come in as two bytes Convert them to a single value using 7LO7HI gt 14 Here is an example of a word that will print MIDI bend values BEND PARSER lo hi process bend message 7LO7HI gt 14 pack bytes together HEX CR just print result for now 7 C BEND PARSER MP BEND VECTOR Try doing pitch bend with this installed Notice that when there is NO bend the value is 2000 System Exclusive Due to the current diversity in system exclusive implementations in various MIDI devices there is at present no standard system exclusive library in HMSL However several system exclusive implementations have been written for various devices Roland DEP 5 and SRV 2000 Yamaha FB O1 and several others in HMSL by various composers and these have proved both easy to write and powerful In one such piece a nine dimensional shape was created which controlled an instrument which drove the parameters of the Roland DEP 5 in real time like reverb time chorusing depth and modulation gate time and others For more information on system exclusive techniques in HMSL for use with performance MIDI capable devices please contact the authors Also look in the SySex directory on the HMSL_ User disk for some examples The HMSL BBS also has many system exclusive examples See your release notes fo
25. f 100 ticks beat you would enter 100 120 60 RTC RATE Example of Writing a MIDI File Here is a sample sequence of events for writing to a file This will write to the logical volume HMF which is the MidiFiles directory on the HMSL_ User disk Feel free to write to somewhere else on disk MAKE MF 100 TICKS BEAT define a quarter note HMF TEST MF SMF BEGIN FORMATO MF START POS save starting position 0 50 64 MF WRITE NOTEON write note 100 50 0 MF WRITE NOTEOFF finish it 200 55 80 MF WRITE NOTEON write note 400 55 0 MF WRITE NOTEOFF finish it MF START POS MF END FORMATO Now check it out Enter interactively MAKE MF should write to disk MF CHECK HMF TEST MF It should have displayed the file header and the note events If you read this file into commercial notation program it should display as a quarter note at time 0 a quarter note rest at time 100 a half note at time 200 Example of writing random quarter and eighth notes in MIDI File Here is a quick example that generates random quarter and eighth notes Enter these in a file RAND NOTE 12 CHOOSE one octave range 60 start at Middle c 50 30 CHOOSE random velocity MIDI NOTEON play note TICKS BEAT use global definition of quarter note 2 CHOOSE divide beat by 2 roughly 1 out of every 2 notes IF 2 THEN VTIME advance virtual time MIDI Toolbox 13 21 MIDI LASTOFF turn off the note e
26. ion it would not work For example FOO MIDIFILEO myfile SHEP MIDIFILEO Won t work The compiler will not recognize MYFILE This is because MIDIFILEO reads the name of the file from input only when it is executed Thus this word is legal MOO lt filename gt MIDIFILEO SHEP MIDIFILEO 7 MOO myfile MIDIFILEO grabs filename now If you want to specify a filename in a colon definition you must use the dollar sign version of a word An examples is LOGTO versus LOGTO and FOPEN versus FOPEN This is legal LOO myfile S MIDIFILEO SHEP MIDIFILEO legal When you define words that take a filename you should always have a version for this reason It is then very easy to define a word that takes the filename from input The definition of MIDIFILEO for example is MIDIFILEO lt filename gt FILEWORD SMIDIFILE0 Please note that there are some undocumented but very useful commands in the file HT MIDIFILE Please read the file 13 16 HMSL Reference Manual Reading MIDI Files The file is parsed using a vectored parser This means that you define words that are called as the file is read Your words can then do whatever you want with the data To read a MIDI File we take advantage of the MIDI Parser Data is read from the file and passed to the MIDI Parser Please read the above section in the manual on the MIDI Parser if you are not already familiar with it By putting your own functions
27. nnels This word sends Note Off commands for every possible note on all channels This will work for all synthesizers except ones that cannot handle high data rates It takes several seconds to execute MIDI LASTOFF turn off last note in channel When you do a MIDI NOTEON HMSL keeps track of the last note played for each channel This word will turn off that note Itis an alternative to MIDI NOTEOFF This works best if you are doing monophonic melodies in a channel otherwise some notes will hang For example here s a word that does a glissando on a given MIDI channel Here is an example MIDI GLISS 96 36 DO I 64 note i velocity 64 MIDI NOTEON 100 MSEC MIDI LASTOFF 13 8 HMSL Reference Manual LOOP MIDI MONITOR Print all bytes received as hex numbers until a key is pressed MIDI NORMALIZE reset controllers on all channels This is handy if you have been messing with controllers and want to put things back to normal It is defined as MIDI NORMALIZE reset controllers on all channels midi channel 17 1 DO i midi channel midi pitch bend zero out pitch bend 7 127 midi control full volume 1 0 midi control modulation wheel off 5 0 midi control portamento time 64 0 midi control sustain pedal off 65 0 midi control portamento off 0 midi pressure LOOP midi channe1 MIDI NOTEON FOR note velocity ontime This turns a note on at the current virtual time that lasts for ONT
28. o Ne RAND gt FILE create MIDI FIle with random notes 120 TICKS BEAT define quarter note harddisk myfile mf SMIDIFILEO use any filename you want RNOW set virtual time to now 32 0 DO RAND NOTE LOOP MIDIFILEO se Compile the above then enter at the keyboard RAND FILE MF CHECK harddisk myfile mf 13 22 HMSL Reference Manual
29. onation for example generally sound more harmonious to the ear Hear are some experiments you may want to try 1 Modify the above example to implement a 1 8th tone scale 48 tone equal temperament 2 Use multiple channels to play microtonal chords 3 Write an interpreter that plays quarter tones or define a new MIDI Instrument class that plays quarter tones Tutorial 3 Control Changes Modulation Sustain Pitch bend is not the only way to affect the sound of an instrument Other techniques include modulation wheels sustain pedals breath controllers pedals portamento time etc These are implemented as MIDI Controls There are 128 MIDI controls numbered from 0 to 127 They can have values ranging from 0 to 127 Controls are channel specific Some of the controls have been standardized For a complete list of MIDI controls refer to the MIDI Standard specification Here is a partial list 2 modulation wheel 5 portamento time 13 4 HMSL Reference Manual 7 volume 64 sustain pedal O off 127 on 65 portamento pedal O off 127 on To send a control change use this word MIDI CONTROL control value For example to send a mod wheel value of 50 enter 2 50 MIDI CONTROL Some presets may not respond to various controllers Try different presets different controls and different synthesizers until you get something to work Some synthesizers will let you arbitrarily assign a controller to some timbral paramete
30. r These are often called X controls Check the user manual of your synthesiser for details on how it responds to controller messages To change the volume of a channel enter 7 20 MIDI CONTROL really quiet 60 64 MIDI NOTEON MIDI LASTOFF 7 127 MIDI CONTROL full volume again 60 64 MIDI NOTEON MIDI LASTOFF Here is a fun word that randomly turns on and off the sustain pedal while playing random notes It will occasionally build up clouds of notes then turn them all off Play this on a polyphonic synthesiser You may want to enter this in a file MIDI SUSTAIN flag pedal on or off IF 127 map flag to value ELSE 0 THEN 64 SWAP MIDI CONTROL eo Ne RAND SUSTAIN BEGIN 24 CHOOSE 60 two octave range above middle C 64 MIDI NOTEON default velocity 64 10 DELAY MIDI LASTOFF about every 1 4th note randomize sustain pedal 4 CHOOSE 0 IF 2 CHOOSE MIDI SUSTAIN THEN TERMINAL UNTIL There are also other performance parameters you can send Pressure is a message that corresponds to how hard you press on the keys This is sometimes called aftertouch Some keyboards notably the Ensoniq EPS support a special type of aftertouch called polyphonic key pressure Instead of having one pressure value for the entire keyboard each key can send an individual pressure value This allows you to for example modulate some notes in a chord more than others Experiment with the MIDI words in the glossary to learn wha
31. r information on the HMSL BBS Note that the MIDI PARSER does support all the MIDI Standard system exclusive codes Also note that by using the words MIDI START SYSEX MIDI XMIT HILO MIDI XMIT LOHI MIDI XMIT MIDI FLUSH and MIDI END SYSEX the user may easily write any system exclusive application In addition simple voice editors can be written using the control grid objects in conjunction with system exclusive libraries SYSEX Example Here is an example of code that can be used to modify voice parameters in a Yamaha FB 01 The message we must send consists of the following bytes in hex FO 43 10 ch 15 40 p 11 hh F7 The p is the parameter number expressed as an offset in the voice data block The ll and hh are the low 7 bits and the high 7 bits of the new value All numbers sent within a System Exclusive must be between 0 and 127 Anything higher will have the high bit set and be considered a command byte FB START SYSEX send first two bytes F0 43 midi start sysex 43 midi xmit Yamaha vendor code FB VOICE DATA value offset change voice data parameter fb start sysex 10 midi orch midi xmit send on current channel 15 midi xmit 40 midi data xmit convert offset to parameter midi xmit lohi send new value as two bytes midi end sysex FB LFO SPEED rate set voice LFO rate 8 fb voice data MIDI Toolbox 13 15 Standard MIDI Files Standard MIDIFiles allow the interchange of dat
32. s is completely different on the Macintosh and Amiga versions of HMSL although their usage is the same They are the lowest level of the MIDI toolbox and will only be needed if you want to write your own commands eg system exclusive commands MIDI RECV SIZE addr variable containing buffer size MIDI XMIT SIZE addr variable containing buffer size When the MIDI system is initialized these variables are read to find out how big to make the Serial I O buffers You can change them then reinitialize the MIDI system to get bigger buffers The default size is 2048 bytes 6000 MIDI RECV SIZE MIDI TERM MIDI INIT reallocate buffers To make this change permanent run HMSL but do not initialize HMSL Set these two variables to what you want then use SAVE FORTH to save the changes You can then enter HMSL INIT and run with the bigger buffers MIDI FLUSH flushes all data to output Bytes sent using MIDI XMIT are sometimes held in an internal buffer to optimize the serial I O If you are using MIDI XMIT call MIDI FLUSH after you have sent the last byte in a command MIDI RECV byte true false If a byte has been received from MIDI input it is placed on the stack with a true flag If no data is available a false is left See MIDLTIME MIDI RECV flag have any bytes been received Returns true if any bytes are in MIDI input buffer MIDI Toolbox 13 11 MIDI RTC TIME realtime time when last byt
33. s is useful for sending system exclusive data A byte is 8 bits A nibble is 4 bits GET HIGH BITS addr count highbits Extract high bits from string These are used for packing and unpacking 8 bit data into 7 bit data Used mostly when sending system exclusive messages This is part of the MIDI File transmission standard HILO gt BYTE hi lo byte packs two nibbles into one byte MIDI CLEAR Clears any bytes in input buffer by repeatedly calling MIDI RECV MIDI CVMDIS cvm_byte display name of command Displays that name of the command whose channel voice message byte is on the stack Used internally by MIDI SCOPE MIDI CZ KILL turn off notes on CZ 101 Turns off CZ 101 keyboard restores use of keyboard Specifically useful for CZ 101 1000 don t quite know what it will do on other synthesizers Note a great deal of early HMSL MIDI words were tested on the CZ 101 since it was the cheapest around at the time We have left the two specific CZ words in just for nostalgia S MIDI CZ KILLALL kill all channels on CZ 101 Turns off all channels of CZ 101 1000 keyboard restores use of all channels when done MIDI KILL kill all notes on current channel Used for devices that do not support MIDI ALLOFF Turns off all notes that are playing on the current channel by sending 128 MIDI NOTEOFF commands MIDI KILLALL kills all channels Turns off all notes hopefully on all cha
34. s two data bytes As an example a MIDI note off command is defined as a hex byte 8x where x is the channel number minus one followed by the note and the velocity For channel 3 note 50 velocity 64 the MIDI byte stream would be hex 92 50 64 MIDI NOTEOFF is defined as follows MIDI NOTEOFF note velocity 80 MIDI CVM 2D MIDI CVM 3D datal data2 data3 status byte cvm 3 data bytes Like MIDI CVM 1D but sends three data bytes MIDI ORCH status status_OR_channel Fetches value of MIDI channel variable and ORs it with status This makes it a valid complete channel voice message This is used to construct commands like MIDI DATA XMIT data send valid data Uses MIDI XMIT to send only valid data ANDs data with hex 7F MIDI REAL TIME byte send real time message Used for implementing commands like MIDI CLOCK MIDI XMIT HILO byte transmit byte as two nibbles hi first This is useful in building system exclusive words that dump data to synthesizers MIDI XMIT LOHI byte transmit byte as two nibbles lo first This is useful in building system exclusive words that dump data to synthesizers Host Dependent MIDI Words The above words are all host independent They should run on any host specifically either the Macintosh or the Amiga that can support the following host dependent words The following words provide the lowest level of MIDI data transmission The source code for these word
35. t creates a format 1 file SSAVE ABS SHAPE shape filename Identical to SAVE ABS SHAPE except filename is passed on stack These can be used inside a colon definition where SAVE ABS SHAPE cannot be used For example SAVE SH1 shl harddisk mf1l SSAVE ABS SHAPE SSAVE REL SHAPE shape filename Identical to SAVE REL SHAPE except filename is passed on stack MIDIFILEO lt filename gt Reads the filename from the input stream and calls MIDIFILE0 All subsequent MIDI output will be routed to a format 0 MIDI File and stamped with the current Virtual Time The data is first collected in Packed MIDI form using CAPTURE This ensures that the data is sorted in time order Then it is written to the file Here is an example MIDIFILEO myfile SHEP MIDIFILEO Play with the shape editor then quit This file should be loadable into a sequencer To speed up this process you may want to use the software clock instead of the hardware clock When we call USE SELF TIMER HMSL will advance the clock itself as it plays the piece Thus it will run as fast or as slow as it can while still keeping everything in sync Here is how to do that MF ECHO ON hear while saving INCLUDE HP XFORMS USE SELF TIMER MIDIFILEO myfile XF PLAY MIDIFILEO USE HARDWARE TIMER MIDIFILE1 lt filename gt Similar to MIDIFILEO except it creates a format 1 file MF BEGIN FORMATO lt filename gt position St
36. t is possible Reference Words that correspond to standard messages defined in the MIDI Specification are in the following glossary Look also at the MIDI Utilities glossary for more handy but non standard words If you need to implement new standard messages see the Low Level MIDI glossary MIDI Toolbox 13 5 Standard MIDI Messages MIDI ALLOFF turn off all notes on current channel Any note that was turned on with MIDI NOTEON and not turned off with MIDI NOTEOFF stays on Sometimes if things go wrong notes can be left on after a piece finishes This word is useful in this embarrassing situation This word derives the current channel from a variable called MIDI CHANNEL Many MIDI synthesizers for example the CZ 101 do not respond to this command MIDI BEND bend send pitch wheel change command Sends pitch bend value for current MIDI channel This can be used for traditional articulation or for experimenting with different tuning systems The amount that the pitch changes for a given change in this number depends on the synthesizer used and how the bend range is set Bend values can range from hexadecimal 0 to 3FFF the maximum 14 bit number Hexadecimal 2000 is considered NO bend For example BENT NOTE note play a note then bend it 100 MIDI NOTEON turn on note use a preset that sustains HEX use hexadecimal numbers for input 100 0 DO I 20 2000 numbers from 2000 to 3Fe0 MIDI BEND
37. tem exclusive message Turns off running status and sends a hex FO byte This is typically followed by a vendor code which you must send and then it s up to you and the company whose workers you are supporting by buying their stuff Consult the manual for the synthesizer to which you are sending because they are all different See MIDI END SYSEX and MIDI XMIT HILO MIDLSTART SYSEX is very important and useful if you want to write system exclusive code for a specific MIDI device This can be hairy stuff because many synthesizers are not very well documented in this regard SYSEX can also be a useful way to pass information between two computers using HMSL That is you can send commands data and so on back and forth over MIDI cables by just agreeing on a simple use of the SYSEX protocol Related Words MIDI XMIT HILO MIDI XMIT LOHI MIDILEND SYSEX MIDI XMIT MIDI FLUSH SHIFT AND OR MIDI Toolbox 13 7 MIDI STOP stop external slave sequencers MIDI Utilities These words can be useful when working with MIDI 14 gt 7LO7HI 14 bits lo7 hi7 MIDI data bytes can only use the bottom 7 bits If the 8th bit is set then the byte is a command and not data This word takes a 14 bit data value and breaks it up into two legal 7 bit values This is used internally by MIDI BEND and is often used to generate system exclusive messages 7JLO7HI gt 14 107 hi7 14 bits BYTE gt HILO byte hi lo breaks byte into nibbles Thi
38. the duration of the note to the ticks per beat and determine whether it is a quarter note or whatever The HMSL words that create MIDI Files use a variable called TICKS BEAT When they write a header they use the value in this variable for the division parameter in the header Thus by setting this variable and then generating a MIDI File whose notes are ratios of this number you can generate exact note durations suitable for staff notation Many composers have thus used HMSL to generate scores for human performers 13 20 HMSL Reference Manual To avoid getting lots of undesired rests in the score generate the notes as legato In other words the ON times should equal the duration This can be accomplished for example by setting the duty cycle in a player to 1 1 See PUT DUTY CYCLE In the Score Entry System you would enter the word LEGATO Another factor to consider is the tempo By adjusting the real time clock rate you can match tempi from other programs The best way to determine what values to use is to create MIDI File using the other program and then examine it Enter a few notes into your program then write out a MIDI File Then use MF CHECK to look at the division in the header using HMSL s MF CHECK Let s suppose the tempo in the other program is defined as 120 00 beats per minute Let s define the division as D in ticks beat You should then set the real time clock to R ticks second D Tempo 60 For a tempo of 120 and a D o
39. unt that the pitch raises or lowers for a given pitch bend value can be set in the synthesiser For information on how to set the range look in your synthesiser s user manual For this next experiment set the pitch bend range to one 1 semitone This will allow us to use the full pitch bend range to move up or down one semitone Using this technique we can produce many pitches between the normal 12 tone equal tempered pitches Thus we can experiment with alternative tunings or microtuning One simple tuning is called quarter tone tuning This could also be referred to as 24 tone equal temperament To play a note that is halfway between two regular notes we can send a pitch bend value that is halfway between zero and the maximum The maximum is hexadecimal 1FFF so we can use 1000 as a halfway value 1000 is 4096 decimal Enter the following words into a file so that you can experiment with them ANEW TASK QTR_TUNING 2000 2 CONSTANT BEND I I gt NOTE BEND note index note bend 2 MOD remainder quotient note SWAP BEND I QTR NOTEON index velocity quarter note on SWAP I gt NOTE BEND velocity note bend MIDI PITCH BEND SWAP MIDI NOTEON MIDI Toolbox 13 3 QTR NOTEOFF index velocity quarter note off SWAP I gt NOTE BEND MIDI PITCH BEND SWAP MIDI NOTEOFF 7 Compile this code then test it interactively Enter OSP 120 I gt NOTE BEND S prints 60 0 Thus 120 corresponds exactly to a mid

Chapter 13 MIDI Toolbox

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