Discussion:
[Audacity-devel] MIDI playback cases; no scrub or seek
Paul Licameli
2017-07-17 00:41:21 UTC
Permalink
This is a list of cases of playback, not counting keystroke shortcut
equivalents:

- The various commands in Transport sub-menu of Ext-bar
- Some other commands such as play/stop-and-set-cursor, play/stop (the
spacebar), play looped (Shift + space)
- Quick play click in the time ruler (unmodified, or with Shift, or Ctrl)
- Play button of a realtime effect
- Transport toolbar button (unmodified, with Shift, with Ctrl)
- Recording with overdub
- Transcription toolbar

All of the above may also be affected by a time track, with the exception
of cut preview plays (C key, and Ctrl modified quick play or transport
button) and the transcription toolbar.

All of the above need some exercise with MIDI tracks. All of the above
except cut previews can mix note and wave tracks together.

A wave track played with Transcription or a time track changes pitch and
tempo, but a note track played at other than 1x speed changes tempo only.
We will consider that appropriate. They are not quite the same sort of
animal.

There is also

- Effect preview

but that will always play temporary wave tracks, never any note tracks, so
ignore it.

Finally:

- Scrubbing and seeking

I am declaring this one off the table for 2.2.0. I will add some code so
that scrub and seek simply omit the note tracks.

Pokechu22 has made some effort toward scrub and seek. There is question
whether these really make sense with MIDI play, and he couldn't figure out
how to do it backwards.

I think seek might make sense, even backwards, if the short stutters are
each played forward at 1x speed, but the sequence of these excerpts
progresses backwards.

But figuring these things out will be left for future versions.

I'd like the GitHub fork to be enough memory of the attempt at scrub for
now. I don't want to put it into master just yet, not even with an
EXPERIMENTAL. But that much may be done at the start of the next release.

PRL
David Engebretson Jr.
2017-07-20 16:27:10 UTC
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Steve the Fiddle
2017-07-20 16:45:04 UTC
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On 20 July 2017 at 17:27, David Engebretson Jr.
Post by David Engebretson Jr.
Wow this is fun to hear some of my midi stuff in Audacity.
Windows 7 64bit, JAWS 18
· If I import midi after opening Audacity, Audacity reports it as a
Note Track and I’m able to control the midi output device.
· I am unable to loop play
· I am able to record audio on a separate track
· If I find the file, press applications key, arrow to Open With and
select Audacity, the file doesn’t open as a note track and doesn’t allow me
to change the output device.
· I am able to loop play
· I am unable to record an audio track.
·
The second case has some really wonderful side effects. It’s like an 8bit
synth that I can’t figure out where it is coming from. I hope we don’t lose
that functionality, instead I’d hope to be able to switch between whatever
crazy synth that is, and my predictable synth.
Thanks for all your hard work,
David
Case 2 is FFmpeg importing the MIDI file as a "MOD" file
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOD_(file_format)

That has just been disabled in a recent commit, but you can still
achieve the same result by changing the file extension from .MID to
.MOD

Steve
David Engebretson Jr.
2017-07-20 17:11:30 UTC
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Steve the Fiddle
2017-07-20 18:27:41 UTC
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On 20 July 2017 at 18:11, David Engebretson Jr.
Post by David Engebretson Jr.
Thanks Steve,
Is there a way to control the sounds the MOD file outputs while playing in Audacity?
Not with Audacity. You would need to use a 'Tracker' program.
Although MODs and Tracker's are based on old technology (predating
MIDI sequencers), there is still an active "scene". One tracker that
is still being actively developed is OpenMPT https://openmpt.org/

Mod files can also be played from the command line if you have FFmpeg installed:
ffmplay filename.mod

The well known media player VLC can also play MOD files.

Steve
Post by David Engebretson Jr.
Best,
David
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David Engebretson Jr.
2017-07-20 18:40:25 UTC
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-----Original Message-----
From: Steve the Fiddle [mailto:***@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2017 11:28 AM
To: Audacity-Devel list <audacity-***@lists.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [Audacity-devel] MIDI playback cases; no scrub or seek

On 20 July 2017 at 18:11, David Engebretson Jr.
Post by David Engebretson Jr.
Thanks Steve,
Is there a way to control the sounds the MOD file outputs while playing in Audacity?
Not with Audacity. You would need to use a 'Tracker' program.
Although MODs and Tracker's are based on old technology (predating MIDI
sequencers), there is still an active "scene". One tracker that is still
being actively developed is OpenMPT https://openmpt.org/

Mod files can also be played from the command line if you have FFmpeg
installed:
ffmplay filename.mod

The well known media player VLC can also play MOD files.

Steve

+1 outputting MOD file output to a MOD interface to be plated and sounds
adjusted. No need to implement a player if the MOD data is sent to a Mod
Port. There is a MOD interface Host, right?
Post by David Engebretson Jr.
Best,
David
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James Crook
2017-07-20 16:56:05 UTC
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Crazy-synth is actually a bug, and I do think it needs to be addressed
(=disabled) for 2.2.0., per Paul's fix:
https://github.com/audacity/audacity/commit/cfab325af


I would suggest that for 2.2.1 we allow mix and render (or similar) to
render a MIDI track to waveform. Then you could get you loop play etc.
I am wary of providing an endless selection of 'distortion' effects in
Audacity. We will want 'effects' for MIDI in time, and one can imagine
building up even more crazy effects that the ffmpeg one from simple
component effects, and with more artistic flexibility.

--James.
Post by David Engebretson Jr.
Wow this is fun to hear some of my midi stuff in Audacity.
Windows 7 64bit, JAWS 18
* If I import midi after opening Audacity, Audacity reports it as a Note Track and I’m able to control the midi output device.
* I am unable to loop play
* I am able to record audio on a separate track
* If I find the file, press applications key, arrow to Open With and select Audacity, the file doesn’t open as a note track and doesn’t allow me to change the output device.
* I am able to loop play
* I am unable to record an audio track.
*
The second case has some really wonderful side effects. It’s like an 8bit synth that I can’t figure out where it is coming from. I hope we don’t lose that functionality, instead I’d hope to be able to switch between whatever crazy synth that is, and my predictable synth.
Thanks for all your hard work,
David
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