buzzylucy79
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MIDI-OX Rules!
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MIDI OX as a MIDI input interface for notation
« on: Apr 14th, 2011, 8:00am » |
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I am running a stoneage music notation program ("Score") through DosBox, in an environment referred to as "ScorBox" (as in www.scorbox.com). It's the only way to run the program on a 64-bit machine. While the native DOS version of Score has a MIDI facility for playing in music, when running the software in ScorBox, MIDI input will not work (the MIDI setup in DosBox is ineffective). So I have started experimenting with MIDI OX as a tool to bridge this gap, and the initial results are very positive, indeed. In order to play a line of music into ScorBox via MIDI OX, I capture the monitor content of MIDI OX and via a macro utility transform that content into an input string that the Score program can then understand. So for instance, this monitor content:
00164B7D KEY 1 90 30 64 1 C 3 Note On
00164C1D KEY 1 80 30 40 1 C 3 Note Off
00164D25 KEY 1 90 32 64 1 D 3 Note On
00164D85 KEY 1 80 32 40 1 D 3 Note Off
is automatically transformed into:
C3/ D3;
which is an input string that will yield the desired notation in the Score program that reflects what I've played in MIDI OX. So far so good.
In order for MIDI input for notation purposes to be effective, one has to be able to include additional information. In Score, that will include information such as additional accidentals, barlines, rests, and a few other items. Without being able to indicate rests, for example, MIDI input becomes pointless, as one would have to spend so much time editing the input after the fact to account for required rests that the potential benefits of MIDI input are outweighed by the cumbersome after-the-fact editing requirements.
The native Score MIDI input facility solves this issue by relegating certain extreme pitches to signify other items. So for instance, if, while you are playing in your pitches, you then play a C2, that "pitch" is then re-interpreted to signify a barline (in other words: you enter a barline by playing C2); playing E2 is reinterpreted as indicating a rest and so forth.
Not to worry, I thought. I'll just remap the keynote.ini file so that certain keys on my computer keyboard (that's what I'm using for the moment) play certain extreme pitches, and then I'll use the same macro utility to translate those extreme pitches into the items they are meant to signify. As an example, my keynote.ini now includes "SLASH=40", which, with my base octave beginning at C4 yields an E7 as a pitch result, which my macro utility then translates into "m", the indicator for a barline. So now, when I type "Z-X-/", which sounds like "C4-D4-E7", the pitch string is translated into:
C4/ D4/ m;
which is exactly what I want.
NOW, after all this, here is the problem. When I RESET my base octave, that approach no longer works. Typing the same "Z-X-/" now yields "C3-D3-E6" (for instance), which is fine for the C and D, but the E6 remains as a pitch, as the translation DEPENDS on E7 as a flag for a barline. So because of the likelihood that I will frequently have to shift my base octaves around during input, I still have not found any practical way to convey these required elements during input.
Can anybody think of a way of making this work? Or is there a different approach I could explore?
Thanks for having read this much!
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