Has everyone seen the SendMIDI project? It provides a simple command-line interface for sending MIDI commands.
I was thinking, this could be really useful for Cantabile users, particularly for doing custom MIDI stuff from a batch file, and triggering that batch file from a binding.
Neil
Pretty interesting - one could send a ton of setup stuff to a hardware synth with this. I wonder about its getting access to the MIDI output ports while Cantabile has them, though? (I’m on a PC, where multi-client MIDI interfaces are a rarity. I get around the limitation by using two MIDI interfaces which go into a merger/mapper device - an old Opcode 8-Port.)
Terry
Good point. Another approach might be to use a virtual MIDI port, so SendMIDI sends into Cantabile, which then sends out to the actual ports.
Hey Neil, just wondering what this achieves that a midi file can’t?
It looks useful, but what kind batch stuff would you be talking about?
Hmmm, not sure if I need an external tool for that - Cantabile can send sysex chunks on song load or on state change; good enough for most setup stuff.
But it might be interesting for special sequences of controllers that are too tedious to enter as a series of bindings, or for sequences that are different for every state, etc.
So, definitely a good tool to have in your arsenal. Thanx, @Neil_Durant for finding and sharing!
Cheers,
Torsten
Well for example, you could write a batch file that detects what computer it’s running on, and sends different MIDI data accordingly. Or it could scan a folder for sysex files matching a certain filename wildcard, and transmit them sequentially. All sorts of stuff that wouldn’t really be possible with just a fixed MIDI file, or a block of sysex in Cantabile. This stuff doesn’t have to be triggered from Cantabile either; you could for example write a batch file that sends a particular MIDI message every hour, or even something that reads note names in a text file and plays them on your synth.
Admittedly, these seem like quite esoteric examples, but I’m sure someone here will need something like that sooner or later 
Yeah, that would also be my focus in using something like SendMidi: not so much for use withing Cantabile, but rather to send some batch files for specific tasks directly from the desktop; e.g. set my master keyboard to a specific configuration whenever I log on to my production PC, or to automatically send a project specific set of sysex patches to my VoiceLive (production vs. live) via one click on shortcut on my desktop.
The value to me would be to do this quickly and easily, instead of having to load a specific editor and call up configurations - one click only…
