Maximum MIDI : Music Applications in C++ [Paperback]

Paul Messick (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1997

More than a dozen example programs, along with ToolKit's source code, gives programmers everything they need to develop music computer programs using Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI).

Product Details

• Paperback: 479 pages
• Publisher: Manning Publications (August 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1884777449
• ISBN-13: 978-1884777448
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #323,704 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I was quite dissapointed with this book., April 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Maximum MIDI : Music Applications in C++ (Paperback)

The book is great for someone who wishes to use the Author's DLLs to write MIDI programs. Unfortunately, I bought it to learn how to write MIDI programs using the Microsoft Multimedia SDK functions and this book was not adequate for my needs. Note that some of the things his DLLs require (such as transmitting SysEx one byte at a time) is, at best, a kludge and surely not to be looked upon as elegant coding.

You can find out a lot more about Windows MIDI functions by reading Microsoft's SDK, as poorly written as they are. For instance, no mention is made at all in this book about an entire section of MIDI functions, those which deal with using MIDI streams.

It wouldn't have been so bad if the author had at least spent time going over the code in his DLLs and explaning how he did what and why. But, I don't feel enough of that was done.

Unfortunately, there is still not one good book available detailing how to write MIDI apps using the Microsoft Multimedia SDK.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Only book devoted to MIDI application programming, March 19, 2006

By 

calvinnme - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Maximum MIDI : Music Applications in C++ (Paperback)

This book hovers between three and four stars in usefulness, but ultimately I decided to give it four stars because it is the only one of its kind. As you probably already know, MIDI is an industry-standard electronic communications protocol that defines each musical note in an electronic musical instrument such as a synthesizer, precisely and concisely, allowing electronic musical instruments and computers to exchange data, or "talk", with each other. MIDI does not transmit audio - it simply transmits digital information about a music performance.
This book is not a MIDI primer, nor is it about how to use existing MIDI applications. It is about how to program applications in C++ that use MIDI. It does begin with an in-depth explanation of how MIDI works in chapters one and two, but then proceeds into the nuts and bolts of programming.
Both the book and the toolkit are in desperate need of another edition, since both concentrate on Windows 95 pre-DirectX style-programming. In fact, the author's toolkit is very entrenched in Windows 95. This to me is the book's largest shortcoming. The author does go into great detail to show you how to do common MIDI tasks using his toolkit, including fundamental algorithms for musical timing, toolkit-based synchronization, recording and playing MIDI events, and finally writing sequencers. Complete sourcecode for the toolkit is included on the accompanying CDROM. The author does a very good job of documenting his code and his method, which makes it ideal for what I am trying to do with it, which is adding some additional MIDI functionality to a Java program I am writing above and beyond what Java Sound does. Most of the work involves crow-barring the code's algorithms loose from all of the Windows-centric stuff. If you have similar needs, there just isn't a better or more detailed source in print, and with the advent of full-fledged music applications like Mac's GarageBand, there is not likely to be.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You use Windows? You want to USE MIDI? You want Maximum MIDI, October 10, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Hambledon, England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Maximum MIDI : Music Applications in C++ (Paperback)

I hate computer books. They are all over two inches thick, and cost their weight in gold, but most of them are only worth their weight in paper.

However, there is always an exception, and Paul Messick's 'Maximum Midi' is it. It's a GOOD book. You know, like Citizen Kane is a GOOD film.

I can now write MIDI applications in Windows. I feel like a bit of an expert. My first sequencer already loads, saves, plays and records. I've got time to concentrate on making it highly usable.

The author assumes that you or I, the reader, is intelligent. There's no assumption that you are a C++ whizz, or an electronics genius; just intelligent, and consequently ideas are explained from first principles by a writer who obviously knows his stuff well enough that he doesn't have to prove it by using long words and big ideas.

But from first priciples comes lasting knowledge, and by the time the author moves on to explain the less pretty bits of MIDI implementation you realise that you UNDERSTAND everything that's gone before. The learning curve is so smooth, you don't realise you're climbing.

But you are climbing, and quite rapidly at that. If ,like me, you read the book from cover to cover (some books just make you want to do that, don't they) by half-way through you KNOW what Sysex is, and how it works, and what's good about it, and why you have to be careful with it. You KNOW why Windows 95 makes timing algorithms difficult, and how to get around it. By this stage you also know that on the CD of the book, there is a toolkit.

The toolkit contains functions that allow you to use MIDI in your programs, without also having to care about 'callbacks', 'thunks' or anything else that gives you a headache. (They are explained lucidly, but kept at a safe distance). Midi Input/Output, synchronisation and reading and writing of standard MIDI files are all introduced, fully explained and, finally, implemented in the toolkit. Although you now feel that could write your sequencer, or patch editor, or desk automator from the bottom up, it's nice to know you don't have to. The toolkit is there, it's tested, it works and it's royalty free. There is no reason not to use it. (It's provided as a pair of DLLs, so you can use it from any language. I'm now calling it from Delphi, and hardly knew what a DLL was before reading this book. A set of C++ classes encapsulate the toolkit's functions into a higher level, and very useful form).

Don't you just loathe getting to page 800 of 'Mastering your Scroll-Lock key' and realising you learned as much from the introductory chapter as you have from the rest of the book. Well, Mr Messick's book (a mere 1.3 inches thick, if that's important to you!) is full of new knowledge from cover to cover, even the margins are sometimes used for 'by the way...' type information. For once, a publisher has realised that their readers are not fooled by the 'never mind the quality, feel the width' spin.

Any useful book review has balance, so here it is: 'Silicon Etching for Dummies' and 'Adjusting your Windows Colour scheme in 21 days' are very bad. 'Maximum Midi' is very good. Is that balanced enough for you?

Paul Spbm Clarke