Csound instruments can now be activated by MIDI events stemming from a local
MIDI_FILE (standard or MPU401) and/or from an external MIDI_DEVICE (keyboard).
You can try the first feature by synthesizing an ordinary soundfile and hearing
it back with your normal Play command.  You can try both of these features
if your machine is A) fast enough to generate audio in realtime, B) has an
audio output device to which the Csound user program can send audio directly,
and C) has a serial port that can take in converted MIDI data.

This directory contains orchestra files that make use of new Csound statements,
recently added to handle MIDI information.  While their use is illustrated here,
you should consult the new Csound manual for a more complete description.

The directory also contains some midi scorefiles (filenames ending in .mf),
which serve to illustrate the use of midi-oriented instruments.

To have Csound read a midifile and create a normal soundfile:

	csound -o soundfilename -FPrelude#1.mf sine.orc sine.sco

To have Csound read a midifile and send its output to the local audio device:

	csound -o /dev/audio -dm6 -FPrelude#1.mf sine.orc sine.sco

In the above, Prelude#1.mf is a midifile encoding a performance of the
first Prelude from J.S.Bach's Well Tempered Clavier.
The file sine.orc defines an instrument (called a 'program' in MIDI),
and sine.sco defines the stored function tables it needs.
The latter also sets a time limit (here 10 minutes) for listening on the
midi input channels.  Use Control-C to stop Csound after a performance.
The flags -d and -m6 above will suppress displays and amplitude messages,
which can compromise realtime performance.  Leave them on if interested.
The flag -F holds the midifile name.  This flag will take either standard
midifiles or MPU401 files--Csound will accept either format.

If the above works for you, try

	csound -o/dev/audio -dm6 -FPastoral.mf sine.*

The file Pastoral.mf is actually an MPU401 file.  It is an exerpt from Liszt's
piano transcription of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony (no. 6), as played by
Mike Hawley on our Boesendorfer downstairs.  The file is 90% sustain pedal data
you probably don't want to know about.   Csound has a pedal threshold flag -P,
whose default value -P128 will filter out all pedal information.  Use -P127 or
perhaps -P120 to retain some of this.  Note that the normal MIDI-switch setting
of -P64 will grind the system almost to a halt.

If you have a midi-to-serial converter (Midiator) and a 38400-baud input port,
you might prefer to play the Beethoven yourself on a midi keyboard.   Type
something like:

	csound -odevaudio -dm6 -M/dev/tty00 sine.*

and the rest is up to you.  The -M flag holds the device name which is
to receive the serialized midi data.  It should have a system-supplied
interrupt handler that simply stores the midi characters for Csound to read.
No time-stamping is necessary.

If you have a really fast machine, you might try the following:

	csound -odevaudio -dm6 -M/dev/tty00 -Fpastoral.mf sine.*

since Csound can be driven by a midifile and a midi-keyboard simultaneously.
This means you can add to Beethoven, play music-minus-one with Mike Hawley ...

You may have noticed that Pastoral.mf came in on midi channel 9, yet was
assigned instrument 1.  Instruments are assigned by channel no. when available
(instr 1 to chnl 1, instr 2 to chnl 2, etc.), but if a requested instrument is
absent then instr 1 is substituted.

THE NEW GENERATORS

The MIDI-oriented unit generators have names and functionality like:

 ival	notnum		;get midi note_number at note_on time
 ival	veloc		;get midi veloc at note_on time
 icps	cpsmidi		;get cps of note_num, at note_on time
 iamp	ampmidi	  n	;get velocity (0-127), and linearly rescale 0 to n
 kaft	aftouch	  n	;get aftertouch (0-127), and rescale 0 to n
 kbend	pchbend	  n	;get pitch-bend semitones (-64, +63), scale by n

See the Csound Manual for a complete listing.  These units can be freely mixed
with standard csound generators.  You may wish to convert your favorite-sounding
current instrument to a midi-controllable one;  conversely, you may find that
MIDI keyboard control provides a convenient way of testing a new instrument
under development.  The main difference will be that p3-dependent envelopes
are replaced by MIDI note-off dependent ones, and that other parameters will
come from controllers.  As was always the case in Csound, the mapping of
controller information to signal-processing effect is entirely up to you.

You'll find there's a new ftable generator, GEN17, which creates a step
function useful for mapping note-numbers into different sampled data tables.
You'll also notice some .sco files request function tables whose size is 0,
and whose parameters include a "quoted string name".  These are new features
of GEN01, whose size can be deferred for automatic allocation when reading an
AIFF file, optionally named by an ascii string.  Since AIFF sampled sound can
be mono or stereo, orchestras can too.  The new LOSCIL unit operates as either.
The FTP directory contains two sets of mono AIFF files (Guitar, TRUMP) and two
stereo (Bosendorfer, Violins).  These are tar files -- uncompressed since that
makes little difference.  Each will create a unique subdirectory when untarred.
Their use is illustrated in various orchestra/score pairs of this directory.
Set an environment variable SSDIR to the master directory that contains them.
If your machine has sufficient memory, you might try the composite orchestras
123.orc and 123s.orc.  These will come up using instrument 1 (from sine.orc),
but if you have a MIDI keyboard connected you can invoke other instruments
by sending MIDI program changes (1, 2, 3).

Although the above is not a proper tutorial, I hope you get the idea from this.
There should be enough info here for you to start building interesting things.

Barry Vercoe