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-
- MIDI Capture
- By Talin
-
- MIDI Capture is a little utility that uses camd.library to capture all
- incoming MIDI data and store it in an internal memory buffer using the
- Standard MIDI File format. Once the data is captured, it can be sent out again,
- or saved to a file. You can also load any Standard Midi File into the memory
- buffer as well.
- Each incoming messages is appended to the internal buffer, which expands
- and contracts dynamically as needed. (In the current version, there is no way
- to turn off this capturing feature). The window displays the number of bytes in
- the buffer.
- Note that Capture ignores all timing information. Incoming data is
- timestamped with a time of zero, and timestamps of Standard MIDI files which
- have been loaded in is ignored. When sending, all the data is sent at once.
- The main purpose for this utility is to capture System Exclusive messages
- such as patch dumps, audio samples, tuning maps, and other device data, and
- store them on disk.
-
- Gadgets
- ~~~~~~~
- The "Load..." button loads a standard MIDI file. The current contents of
- the buffer is discarded before the new data is read in.
- The "Save..." button saves the current contents of the buffer to a Standard
- MIDI file. The buffer is not affected by this operation.
- The "Send" button sends the contents of the buffer out via MIDI.
- The "Clear" button empties the buffer. There is no confirmation prompt.
-
- Menus
- ~~~~~
- The Clear, Load, and Save menu items operate exactly like their gadget
- counterparts.
- The Quit menu item quits the program.
- The About menu item shows the program information.
- The "Set Input Link..." and "Set Output Link..." menu items allow you to
- redirect where the MIDI input is coming from, and where it will be sent to. A
- scrolling list of MIDI cluster names will be presented, along with a string
- gadget where a custom name, one not in the list, can be typed.
-
- Notes
- ~~~~~
- Capture has no support for editing the data in the buffer, or
- re-channelizing on output. It is assumed that another CAMD utility could be
- created for this purpose.
-
- Standard MIDI Files often contain "Meta-Events" which are special message
- events such as text strings, clef changes, etc. These cannot be transmitted
- over MIDI, and are ignored during a send. However, loading a standard MIDI file
- and saving it back out again will preserve these events (The Capture utility
- just loads the file raw into memory and writes it back out again). In addition,
- all timing information is preserved, even though Capture ignores it.
-
- Possible Future Enhancements
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- A checked menu item to disable the capturing of new messages.
- A checked menu item to support realtime.library for using the time stamp
- information. (Although, I don't want to have to deal with issues like Tempo and
- such, that's really the job of a true sequencer. Perhaps I would only enable
- this for MIDI files which have actual rather than metric timing).
- The ability to load "raw" midi dumps (i.e. not standard MIDI files).
-