ELAN DESIGN

             		     MIDI DOCUMENTATION
        		          


Included on the ELAN PERFORMER 2.0 disk is an ARexx program called MIDI, 
that works with a MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) connector on
the Amiga's serial port.  If you don't have an Amiga MIDI interface, one can
be obtained through your Amiga dealer. The MIDI program also requires the
ARexx program to be installed, as the ARexxSysLib.library must be in your
libs directory. 

Each time a note is played on a MIDI instrument, a "Note-on" command is sent
over the MIDI cable connected to it. With the MIDI program and a little help
from ARexx, ELAN PERFORMER 2.0 will listen to MIDI note commands and behave
as if an image key has been pressed on the Amiga's keyboard.

With a MIDI instrument, such as a keyboard, and an external sequencer which
records MIDI events, you can create music tracks, and then record another
track that will be used to play back imagery in time with the music.

When the MIDI program is started it listens to the MIDI port and sends
messages to ELAN PERFORMER 2.0, telling it which MIDI note is being played.

There are 128 different MIDI notes (0-127) and 112 available PERFORMER keys
(including shifted keys) that imagery can be assigned to. The MIDI notes
correspond to the PERFORMER keys across and down the keyboard, so MIDI note 0
would play the image on F1, MIDI note 1 would trigger F2 and so on.  


The MIDI program has two user-definable settings: CHANNEL and KEYOFFSET.

CHANNEL
There are 16 channels of MIDI. Elan's MIDI program can be instructed to
listen to any one or more of these channels.

KEYOFFSET
There are 128 different note commands (0-127) used by MIDI instruments. The
leftmost key on many keyboards is not actually "note 0", and middle C
is "note 60". The MIDI program can be instructed to "offset" the first key,
so that the first note on your keyboard will correspond to the F1 key in
the imagery environment.

These settings can be changed from either the CLI (Command Line Interface)
or the info (Icon) file.  If not specified, they will default to ALL Channels
and NO Key offset.

To change the settings used when starting from the Workbench Icon:

* Click once on the MIDI program Icon
* Pull down the "Workbench" menu and select "Info"

    The INFO window will appear. At the bottom of the window there is a
    text box labeled "TOOL TYPES". The setting CHANNEL=1 will show in the
    box. The small arrow buttons next to the window let you scroll
    through and view any entries.

* Click in the TOOL TYPES box and change the entry to the desired channel.

    More than one channel can be entered, separated by commas. 
    For example:  CHANNEL=1,4,9,12,16

* Click on the down arrow button next to the box
* Click in the box and change the KEYOFFSET= entry to the desired number.
* Click on the SAVE button at the bottom left of the INFO window.

To change the settings when starting the MIDI program from the CLI:

* type the CLI command as follows: MIDI -o# -c#,#,#,#

    -o indicates the MIDI note number that will represent F1 on the 
       Environment.

    -c indicates the channel number(s) that the MIDI program will respond
       to and send messages to PERFORMER.

    For example, the command  MIDI -o36 -c1,12  would start the MIDI
    program and listen to channels 1 and 12.  If it recieves a note 36 on
    either of those channels, it will send a message to PERFORMER to
    disply the image assigned to the F1 key. Note 37 would trigger the F2
    key, and so on.






To use the MIDI program with ELAN PERFORMER 2.0:

* Make sure that your MIDI system is connected properly to the AMIGA.
* Make sure that the channel and offsets are set correctly.
* Start the MIDI program by clicking twice on its icon or by running
  it from the CLI as described above.  A window will open that says
  "To Exit, double-click on MIDI".  Ignore this until you want to exit
  the MIDI program.  
* After this window appears, start ELAN PERFORMER 2.0.
* Load or create an environment with your images and/or animations assigned
  to keys.
* Press the ESC key to enter the Display Mode 
* Start sending MIDI note information to your image keys with the desired
  sequence and timing.  

To close the MIDI program:

* Double click on the MIDI icon. 
* A window will appear that says "Program
  Alert Message: Closing MIDI Port.  Select Ok to Proceed."  Click
  on the OK requestor. 


Note: Due to the limitations of the ARexx language,there is a slight delay
between when the MIDI note-on is sent and when the image is diplayed. Precise
synchronization is possible by slightly anticipating the rhythm of the midi
sequence. If a sequencer is being used, the image track can be pushed
slightly ahead of the music tracks, or the music tracks slightly after the
image track. Please note that images in different resolutions and formats
tend to delay by different amounts of time.