i'm pretty sure there is no external to send and recieve midi start/stop messages.

so i thought this might be my chance to see if i can have a go at writing one of these bastards.

my first question:

1. what software do i need? the code is c++ or whatever, right? i'm on mac os X..is there free software that's gonna so this? what about a tutorial or something to set me in the right direction.
   
   are midi objects hard to program or something??? the ones in the documentation are kinda half finished, and many work only under linux.
   
   of course, if there is already a midi start-stop object then i can just go back and focus on making the crazy beats )

woo! i don't have to learn this programming stuff after all...(wipes brow)

the pd list came thru with an answer to midi start/stop/tempo issues:

*****

how about using pd's [midiin] or [ctlin] objects, then filtering the
messages
acording to [url=http://www.borg.com/~jglatt/tech/midispec.htm ]http://www.borg.com/~jglatt/tech/midispec.htm

so 0xFA (250 in decimal) will be midi start, 0xFC (252) is midi stop.
0xFB (251) is midi continue.


> also, what about tempo? anyway to send or recieve that?

0xF8 (248) is the midi clock signal, which gets emitted 24 times every
quarter
note by your midi master. catch this signal and use [timer] to calculate the
bpm out of it, if you want.

last but not least, there is the song pointer 0xF2 (242) which gives the
current
song position of your master in 16/th notes.

hope that's what you wanted to know

:::::

thanks a lot, list poster christopher charles ))