MIDI Record

Controls: Sgram/PT Dialog >> Pitch-to-MIDI >> MIDI Record
Macro : MIDIrec

When you activate MIDI Record, a standard Windows Save As dialog appears prompting you for a file name. The default is ' PitchTrk.MID'.

The default folder for MIDI Record is "My Music", which is where MIDI players expect to find .MID files. You can create and/or navigate to another folder from the Save As dialog, and that will become the default for future sessions.

As soon as the name is accepted, the Save As dialog closes and recording begins. A small red indicator square is shown on the depressed MIDI Record button. The main Daqarta title bar shows the name of the file being recorded.

When you are done recording, click MIDI Record again to toggle it off. A message box pops up showing the file name and prompting you to "Save this MIDI file (OK) or delete it (Cancel or ESC)?". If you hit OK (or Enter) the message line above the trace area shows the number of bytes written to the file, and on the line above that the amount of disk space remaining.

Note: Daqarta does not include a player for .MID files. To listen to a .MID file using the current default MIDI player, navigate to it from Windows Explorer or My Computer and double-click on it.

Tip: If you want the recording to start at the beginning of a Pitch-to-MIDI performance, you can hit MIDI Record while Pitch-to-MIDI is off. You will be prompted for the file name as usual, and when the name has been accepted Pitch-to-MIDI will be toggled on automatically.

(See the Macro Notes below for a way to start recording directly, without any Save As dialog.)

If you want some leading silence in the recording, hit Pause before you hit MIDI Record. That will stop the Pitch Tracker so that no MIDI notes will be generated. Once the red MIDI Record indicator appears, wait the desired amount of time and then unPause to start the MIDI notes.

Alternatively, you could use Changes script commands to Wait for a specified number of beats before toggling any instruments on.

Macro Notes:

The same base MIDIrec command is used in different ways to start and stop MIDI recording.

MIDIrec= without a name will open the Save As dialog showing all .MID files, with the default set to PitchTrk or the most recent .MID file name.

MIDIrec="MyFile" will open the Save As dialog with the default name set to MyFile. (Note that quotes are needed around all filenames in macros.) If you accept this by hitting Enter or the Save button in that dialog, Daqarta will assume you want to record a file named MyFile.MID. If that file already exists, you will be prompted to replace it.

A.MIDIrec="MyFile" will start recording to MyFile.MID directly, without any Save As dialog. Note that if the file already exists, it will be overwritten without any confirmation prompt.

MIDIrec can use string variables and complex strings. For example, MIDIrec=Field1 will use the contents of Field1 as the default file name, and A.MIDIrec=Field1 will start recording using that name directly.

Similarly, if the Macro Variable Var0 holds a value of 12, then MIDIrec="Test"+Var0 will set a default file name of Test012.

A.MIDIrec= will start recording directly using the current default file name. If you have previously set file names to Auto-Increment, either manually or using AutoInc=1, then this will save using the next file name (MyFile-001.MID, MyFile-002.MID, etc).

See Macro Variables for a way to use a Field to supply the initial name that AutoInc starts with.

MIDIrec=0 toggles Record off if it is on, and results in the normal save/delete prompt. If Record is already off, this command does nothing.

MIDIrec=S toggles Record off and saves the file without any save/delete prompt.

MIDIrec=D toggles Record off and deletes the file without any save/delete prompt.

See also Pitch-to-MIDI dialog, Pitch Track Toolbox - Overview, Spectrogram / Pitch Track Controls, Spectrogram / Pitch Track (Sgram/PT)