JavaSound MIDI Playback

The playback of MIDi files has been possible by saving the file and using any MIDI player, or by using the QuickTime player.
Version 1.3 of Java comes with the JavaSound libraies that inlcude MIDI playback.
jMusic can now playback directly using these libraries thanks to Mark Elston's MidiSynth class.

This tutorial shows how simply you can access this playback option by using the Play.midi() method in the jm.util package.

Click here to view source.

Lets have a closer look.

import jm.JMC; import jm.util.*; import jm.music.data.*; import jm.music.tools.Mod; import jm.midi.MidiSynth;   public final class MidiSynthTest implements JMC{> /** * Main method where all good Java programs start */ public static void main(String[] args){ Score s = new Score(); s.setTempo(130.0); for(int i=0; i<3;i++) { Part p = new Part("part",i*5,i); p.setTempo(120.0 + (double)i * 0.5); for(int j=0; j<1;j++) { Phrase phrase = new Phrase(); phrase = makePhrase(0.0, 50); p.addPhrase(phrase); } s.addPart(p); } Play.midi(s); }

Above is the whole file, apart from the composition method (shown below).
Starting from the bottom the Play.midi(s); line does all the work of interest to this tutorial.
It plays the score "s" via the JavaSound General MIDI sound set - as simple as that.

The rest of the code is dedicated to building a score of 3 parts each with one phrase.

private static Phrase makePhrase(double startTime, int length) { Phrase phr = new Phrase(startTime); int pitch = (int)(Math.random()*60+30); for(int i=0; i < length; i++) { pitch += (int)(Math.random()*10-5); Note n = new Note(pitch, CROTCHET, (int)(Math.random()*70 + 30)); phr.addNote(n); } return phr; } }

The score to be played is made up of phrases created by the method above.