Re: [Denemo-devel] Jackmidi Status?

[Richard Shann]

On Tue, 2009-09-22 at 22:41 +0100, Richard Shann wrote:
> > This has been wired up to d-playMidiKey
> d-PlayMidiKey that is, yes that's what I had in mind
Thinking about it, it is a very bad name - I didn't really understand
what the parameter it accepts meant when I named it. In fact, it takes a
three byte number: presumably it just issues this as a MIDI message.
Ah, no, it must actually ignore the NOTEON/OFF part of this message and
the channel, and separately issue these by itself.
Time for a clean up. There will not be many scripts using the current
d-PlayMidiKey, so I suggest we alter them if need be and get the
naming/functionality straight.

What do we really need a script to be able to do?
      * output an arbitrary midi message
      * output a note of a given duration using current values

anything else? The second of these could be scripted, given a set of
commands to get the "current values", but I guess it is important enough
to build in. Names? How about

d-OutputMIDI 
d-PlayNote

Parameter convention? I am not sure. I have tried to keep to a string
passing convention in general, and to LilyPond notation as the means of
describing notes, durations etc.  There is no LilyPond for MIDI velocity
(volume) though, apart from things like \mf for mezzo-forte etc, which
wouldn't cover the 0-127 values allowed by MIDI. And likewise channel
and program/instrument. So unless someone with a good insight can come
up with a comprehensive scheme here, we will be using the numbers.

 Another point about the passing strings convention: I dislike those
NULL separated strings appearing in the scripts. On the other hand, a
haphazard collection of different types of parameters, which would then
require a whole apparatus of documentation seems unattractive.

Anybody any thoughts on this?

Richard