Pattern Guide Cookbook 04: Sending MIDI

Sending MIDI out with Patterns

Sending MIDI is the job of the MIDIOut class and the \midi event type. A MIDIOut is created to talk to a hardware device; the MIDI channel is provided when an event is played. MIDIOut's newByName makes it easier to identify a device.

The \midi event type supports the following commands, chosen in the event by the \midicmd key: \allNotesOff, \bend, \control, \noteOff, \noteOn, \polyTouch, \program, \smpte, \songPtr, \sysex, \touch. The default is \noteOn. When playing a note (noteOn), by default the corresponding noteOff message will be sent after the note's sustain time.

If you want to synchronize events played by a MIDI device and events played by the SuperCollider server, the MIDIOut object's latency must match the server latency. You can set the latency any time to affect all future events.MIDIClient.init; // if not already done ( // substitute your own device here var mOut = MIDIOut.newByName("FastLane USB", "Port A").latency_(Server.default.latency); p = Pbind( \type, \midi, // this line is optional b/c noteOn is the default // just making it explicit here \midicmd, \noteOn, \midiout, mOut, // must provide the MIDI target here \chan, 0, // degree is converted to midinote, not just frequency \degree, Pwhite(-7, 12, inf), \dur, Pwrand([0.25, Pn(0.125, 2)], #[0.8, 0.2], inf), \legato, sin(Ptime(inf) * 0.5).linexp(-1, 1, 1/3, 3), \amp, Pexprand(0.5, 1.0, inf) ).play(quant: 1); ) p.stop;

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