Hi everyone,
I've started using [cyclone/seq] for MIDI sequencing, with the intention of writing and reading saved .mid files, and also importing the .mid files into a notation editor like Lilypond or Musescore. However I realize when opening this file that I don't ever store any tempo information into [cyclone/seq], so that even though I recorded it at 120bpm, Musescore interprets the notes and rythm at 190bpm (I can make notation examples if this isn't clear ).
As far as I understood from a quick read through this and this, I could either:

• send the midi clocks i.e. [248( 24 times per beat into [cyclone/seq] while recording. However this seems to show one single bar without tempo in Musescore. Maybe I need to send also start [250( or continue [251( and stop [252( into [seq]?
• instead of "clock", use "ticks" every 10ms that the sequencer can somehow also use to play the midi file at a different tempo than recorded. However I couldn't figure out if ticks are indeed a different value in realtime midi, what I found was 0xF8 = 248, i.e. same as "clocks"...

Do I understand this right? What would be the proper/preferred way to store beat information in [cyclone/seq] and eventually in the midi files?

Thanks for your help!
Zig

So, I eventually got to this page and finally to this one, which describes the message FF 51 03 tt tt tt as a tempo change in the MIDI signal.
Long story short, I built a small patch to convert 120BPM into [255, 81, 3, 7, 161, 32( , which I store in [text define midi_tempo] and then send its content to [cyclone/seq] right after [record( .

Unfortunately I still get no tempo when importing the MIDI file to Musescore, and I can see only the first 255 byte in the seq editor (the 2nd line is when I started recording notes after ~6.9 seconds).

I'm open to any ideas!

@zigmhount Maybe [$1, $2, $3, $4, $5, $6(
A comma in Pd determines "new message" so you have broken up the packed tempo message into its parts..... dropped one at a time..
[$1 $2 $3 $4 $5 $6( keeps it as one message, but is unnecessary as it does not change the message it receives.
Also, in the links you posted the data is FF 51 03 tt tt tt and not FF 81 03 tt tt tt.
David.

Thanks @whale-av, I actually did that on purpose since I understand that [seq] expects a stream of real-time midi bytes from [midiin].
But thanks for noticing the mistakes in the numbers, I'll try again with the correct ones!

Edit: ah but wait no, I did that because 51 in hexadecimal equals 81 in decimal (just like FF->255) is it wrong?

@zigmhount No, your numbers were not wrong.....Yes, I was wrong about the 51 81.

Hex to dec and back is simpler since pd 0.48 as [f] can now convert a Hex symbol to decimal ..... Hex.pd ...(8-bit decimal to Hex and back.... vanilla).
So your message was therefore correct...... but probably needs to be sent into the midi file as one list.

It does seem Musescore is not doing tempo correctly though...... the link you posted says sequencers should set 120bpm for midi files with no tempo information.
David.

8-bit Hex with keyboard entry, and for converting sysex lists....... hex2dec.zip

@whale-av Oh that's great, thanks for the [makefile] trick!
I've tried again to send the message as a list and importing it in different notation tools - both Musescore and lilypond do assume the default 120bpm when I do not send any tempo message (not sure how I got the 190bpm yesterday, I can't reproduce...), and all bars disappear when I inject the tempo message (either as a list or as a stream, which in both cases just add a line 0 255; in [seq] ). Might be a limitation of [seq] itself.

To make that clear, I've updated the default-tempo midi file in Musescore itself to edit the tempo to 89bpm, exported it as midi (reopened it in Lilypond to confirm the tempo is properly interpreted again), and then sent it via [read file_musescore.mid( to [seq] and again [write file.mid( ... Turns out that the tempo information is lost in the transition through [seq], so this probably just means that tempo changes are not supported by [cyclone/seq] ! too bad.

Looking for alternatives, I've found that [mrpeach/midifile] interestingly uses midi ticks.
But I will follow the sequencing tutorial of ELSE instead, and hopefully [else/midi] also supports midi tempo.

@zigmhount Seems you are getting somewhere.
I also noticed here..... http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~ich/classes/mumt306/StandardMIDIfileformat.html
........ that you can set time signatures..... FF 58 04 nn dd cc bb Time Signature

And if you eventually want to sync Pd with Musescore @ddw_music did some good work here.....
https://forum.pdpatchrepo.info/topic/14244/video-tutorial-pd-sync-with-ableton-link-and-with-daw-plugdata
There is a detailed thread about it too..... somewhere on the forum.
David.

I also noticed here..... http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~ich/classes/mumt306/StandardMIDIfileformat.html

Great resource, thanks! that's going to be useful in future (hopefully I will finish my project before MIDI 2.0 is widely available )

@ddw_music's video will definitely also be useful, in fact I'm working on a patch I want to run with plugdata in Ardour, so it's spot on, thank you very much!