On Sun, 17 Jun 2001 gregory_rayee@yahoo.com wrote:

> > RUNNING STATUS:Strips out any redundent midi status bytes, thus
> > reducing the amount of data being sent.
>
> what would a 'redundant midi status byte' be?

I don't know Tunesmith at all (yet), but I do know enough about MIDI to
know what Running Status is (and Cubase has it as well). :) Here it is:

Without running status, striking a C accord gives the following MIDI data:

Note on command, note number C, velocity
Note on command, note number E, velocity
Note on command, note number G, velocity

Note off command, note number C, velocity
Note off command, note number E, velocity
Note off command, note number G, velocity


However, WITH running status, the following MIDI data is the result:

Note on command,
note number C, velocity,
note number E, velocity,
note number G, velocity

Note off command,
note number C, velocity
note number E, velocity
note number G, velocity

(IE the status (command) byte keeps on being interpreted for extra data,
it keeps running). :)

..and when working without release velocity it becomes even less, because
then a Note On with velocity 0 is used instead of a Note Off. So in that
case, only one single command byte would have to be sent for an entire
channel as long as nothing else (program change, control data etc)
happens.

Running status depends on the fact that MIDI instruments can cope with
extra databytes. This is easy because command bytes are always >127 and
databytes are always <=127. But just in case some exotical MIDI devices
couldn't cope with this, you can switch off running status.

So, leave it on unless strange things happen. :-)

Maurits.