From alsa-devel-owner@alsa.jcu.cz  Sun Jan 24 15:59:14 1999
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Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 14:58:54 +0000
From: Thomas Hudson <thudson@cygnus.com>
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To: alsa-devel@alsa.jcu.cz
CC: Fred Floberg <emng@geocities.com>, alsa-devel@jcu.cz
Subject: Re: Note-Off
References: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990124110658.31384B-100000@entry.jcu.cz>
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Jaroslav Kysela wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 24 Jan 1999, Fred Floberg wrote:
> 
> > P.S. My cheap Radio Shack 'Concertmate' keyboard seems to be giving 2
> > note-on's rather than a note-on and a note-off for each keypress/release.
> > The keypress note-on has an apropriate velocity value, and the release note-on
> > has a velocity of 0. Is this a valid (albeit cheesey) way of doing note-off's?
> > (This keyboard, at $200 US, is the world's crappiest midi keyboard. So it
> > wouldn't surprise me in the least to find that this was a cost cutting measure.)
> 
> This is usual MIDI event used in cheap keyboards. My small keyboard does
> this thing too. The question is: Should ALSA MIDI driver translate this
> event to correct Note-Off or leave it unchanged?

I don't think this is just in cheap keyboards. Many expensive models
do the same thing. The reason being that it cuts down on MIDI traffic
due to running status. If my last message is the same as the previous
one, I don't have to resend the status byte. Thus you transmit one less
byte per key release.

All good MIDI software should expect this. Note-on w/ velocity 0 is
equivalent to Note-off.

Thomas

