Musical Time MIDI Recording
One question I often get asked about Cantabile is "why can't program X load MIDI recordings from Cantabile"? The answer is that Cantabile records in SMPTE time format. SMPTE time is well documented in the MIDI Specification, but few MIDI players and editors seem to support it.
I chose SMPTE because it's the correct format for real-time (as opposed to musical time) recording.
Anyhow, my new approach to Cantabile is going to be everytime I get asked a support question more than once I'm going to take a least one step to try prevent being asked again. So...
Cantabile now supports a few MIDI recording formats:
- Realtime SMPTE - Encodes the MIDI file in SMPTE time code format with millisecond accuracy. This is the correct format for non-musical time encoding however it is not widely support by MIDI players
- Realtime Compatible - Encodes the file at 120 bpm 4/4 time with 500 ticks per beat. This gives millisecond accurate recording in a format that is compatible with all MIDI players.
- Musical Relative - Encodes the file using a synchronised musical time format that matches the time signature, tempo and play position of the master transport. The recording starts from the beginning of the current bar. For example, if the first event to be recorded occurs when the master transport is at bar 40, beat 2, the first recorded event will be time stamped at beat 2 in the first bar.
- Musical Absolute - This format is the same as Musical Relative except the recording's origin is set to 0. Using the above example, the first event would be at bar 40, beat 2 (with 39 bars of silence before it)
- Musical Auto - Operates in Musical Absolute when a media file is the master transport. Operates in Musical Relative when the metronome is the master transport. This mode is intended to avoid accidentally recording large sections of silence when the metronome is left running and multiple recordings are made.
The default format is Real-time Compatible which should at least let just about any other MIDI program load Cantabile's recordings.
Related to this I've moved the audio recorder format from the options dialog to a per-session setting on the Record Tab.
Posted on March 5, 2009
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