MIDI, Operating Systems, and Software Inter-application

Listening

Morton Subotnick, Silver Apples of the Moon (1968)

First electronic work composed especially for LP.

MIDI Review

Performance/control languageEvent-orientedKeyboard-orientedInformation sorted by “channels.” (16 per

port)Ports, devices, interfacesMessages: Note-on (off), program change,

continuous controller, pitch bend.

MIDI and OS X

MIDI functionality built in to OS X. CoreMIDI and CoreAudio (library/CFM support) Audio MIDI Setup Equipment with built-in computer interfaces

show up as interfaces. “Devices” attach to interfaces. Some software

will communicate with an interface; some will communicate with devices.

Inter-application MIDI

Software applications can send MIDI messages to other applications running on the same computer.

Usually, each application has to have this feature enabled by the user.

Typically, an application will create one or two ports for inter-application MIDI communication.

Reason

Reason is a virtual studio, with a “equipment rack” interface metaphor.

Includes: MIDI and audio interface for inter-application

routing and connecting Reason to hardware interfaces.

14x2 mixer Synthesizers, Samplers, Processors, Drum

Machines Sequencer

SubTractor Analog Synth

Our focus: 14:2 Mixer and SubTractor Analog synth (along with some effects to come later).

SubTractor is an emulation of a miniMoog analog synthesizer.

Setting up Reason

Launch Reason.With version 3, you can set up a “control

surface” for automatic MIDI control. Add the 14:2 Mixer first (Create | …).

Additional equipment will automatically connect to this mixer now.

Add a SubTractor synth.

Reading Assignments

Kothman/Kostka: ch. 12 of Materials and Techniques of 20th Century Music, sections on the Classical Electronic Music Studio, and MIDI. (online at http://kkothman.iweb.bsu.edu/mumet140/Kostkach12.pdf )

Roads: Subractive Synth, pp. 184 - 193, especially filter types, response curves, Q.

Roads: Time-varying waveform synthesis, pp. 95 - 98.