Greetings all,

I haven't posted to the list in a while, but I wrote earlier this year
about an optical roll scanning system I've been working on.
(If there is any interest, I'll make some MIDI files of scanned rolls
available on my web page this fall, along with pictures and technical
information about the scanner.)

I've been reading about how various sequencers and MIDI file players
aren't displaying the lyrics in Robbie Rhodes' JEFFDL.MID file
(which I enjoyed!).

For the past few months I've been working on a freeware MIDI file player
for PC's that will solve these problems.Not only does it intelligently
display the embedded text and lyric messages in MIDI files, but it also
shows the status of all 128 MIDI notes on all 16 channels during playback.
I tried playing JEFFDL.MID with it and it worked just great!(Watching
all the notes toggling in a scanned piano roll is almost as much fun
as watching the real keys go up and down!)

The program runs under DOS and uses only textmode, so it will run on
virtually any graphics adapter.It supports true MPU401 MIDI interfaces,
MPU401 UART-mode, MusicQuest MidiEngine parallel-port interfaces, serial-
port MIDI, and Soundblaster-type MIDI interfaces.

There are some extra features for users of General MIDI and Roland GS
devices, including automatic resetting of tone modules before playback
and onscreen display of the patches assigned to each channel.

Sometime after the first version is released, I plan to add a feature
that will let you "pump" MIDI files by pressing alternating keys on
a velocity-sensitive keyboard, while overall dynamics could be controlled
with a data slider.This will allow me to play back my scanned piano rolls
with some expression.

Eventually, I'm planning on writing a utility that would let me take
a MIDI file of a scanned piano roll and add individual velocity information
to every note.This would be accomplished by interactively letting the
user skip around in the MIDI file and more or less play the roll by ear
(in sections) on a velocity-sensitive keyboard.The program would monitor
the incoming note data and assign relevant key velocities to the nearest
instance of those notes in the MIDI file.The user interface will be
tricky, because there not only needs to be an onscreen roll-style display,
but also an assortment of commands for moving around the MIDI file
and replaying sections after new velocity information has been added.
But I certainly think such a program is feasible.Has anyone already
done something similar?

Anyway... I digress.The MIDI file player mentioned above will be freeware
and I hope to release it on the net in mid-September.If anyone is
interested in beta-testing it, please let me know by email.

Mark Fontana