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 language Event-oriented Keyboard-oriented Information sorted by “channels.” (16 per port) Ports, devices, interfaces Messages: 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 ch12.pdf ) ch12.pdf Roads: Subractive Synth, pp , especially filter types, response curves, Q. Roads: Time-varying waveform synthesis, pp