Crypto wrote: > Defined in the MIDI specification is that for each NOTE ON message there has > to be a NOTE OFF message (or a NOTE ON message with vol.=0). > > BUT: > > There are many instruments that in real life never need a manual action to > stop their sound, for example most if not all percussion instruments and > drums. [...] So: why do we have to send NOTE OFF messages for these kind of > instruments? Because the specification says so. ;-) > Wouldn't it be sufficient to simply sent the NOTE ON message for > that sound and omit the NOTE OFF message? If the synth can decide by itself when the sound is finished, then it doesn't need a note off. > This would save us up to three bytes which can make a difference in delay. If the note-off command isn't really necessary, then you can send it at some later time when it doesn't take bandwith away from other commands. > I'm not sure either how to introduce such a feature in the MIDI world, > however, I can see that it might be rather difficult. Both sender (MIDI > keyboard) and receiver (synth, expander, some software) need to agree that a > particular sound does not need NOTE OFF messages and therefore the devices > neither need to transmit nor wait to receive it. > > Maybe it could be done by introducing a new controller that disables NOTE OFF > messages for a particular channel, so that all instruments that play on that > channel would never need any NOTE OFF messages. If note-off messages aren't sent, there is no difference between a channel that expects note-off message and one that doesn't: All sounds will sound as long as they naturally sound. The interesting case is when note-offs are sent: a synth might stop a sound before it would naturally stop. Therefore, your setting would effectively tell the synth to ignore any note-off messages. As it happens, both the GS and XG standards have a SysEx for exactly this, and it is enabled by default on the drum channel. Best regards, Clemens _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.linuxaudio.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-audio-user
