File interface for Fluidsynth
=============================

MIDI libraries can be a pain. In some cases, a simpler API is better.
Device files are a simple way to expose MIDI devices, which is how OSS
does it.

Playing raw MIDI data with fluidsynth
-------------------------------------

If you have a program generating a MIDI stream, you can play it back in
Fluidsynth like so:

    $ ./yourprogram | fluidsynth -is -a alsa \
        -o midi.driver=oss \
        -o midi.oss.device=/dev/stdin \
        /path/to/your/soundfont.sf2

This works because the OSS MIDI API is a device file that simply
consumes and produces MIDI bytes as-is. An application using OSS could
use another file stream as its source. Instead of stdin, one could read
from a named pipe:

    $ mkfifo /home/you/midipipe
    $ ./yourprogram | fluidsynth -is -a alsa \
        -o midi.driver=oss \
        -o midi.oss.device=/home/you/midipipe \
        /path/to/your/soundfont.sf2

Reading/writing raw MIDI data as byte streams from/to devices
-------------------------------------------------------------

TBD, Alsa OSS emulation, amidi...

Quick notes about MIDI
----------------------

-   Note on with velocity 0 should be treated as note off.
-   System real-time messages may at any time interrupt a
    longer message.
-   Status bytes only need to be sent once for any sequence of data
    bytes for that same status. For example, a note-on status byte for a
    particular channel may be followed by any number of key-velocity
    data byte pairs.
-   A status byte should reset any internal parsing state: the receiver
    should be able to handle an interrupted message. For example, a
    note-on status followed by only one data byte, then a new status
    byte is OK and should be handled by the receiver.