MIDI beat clock
clock signal broadcast via MIDI
MIDI beat clock, or simply MIDI clock, is a clock signal that is broadcast via MIDI to ensure that several MIDI-enabled devices such as a synthesizer or music sequencer stay in synchronization. Clock events are sent at a rate of 24 pulses per quarter note. Those pulses are used to maintain a synchronized tempo for synthesizers that have beats-per-minute-dependent voices and also for arpeggiator synchronization.
The clock is presented as a stream of single-byte MIDI messages. Playback at the tempo presented by the beat clock can be started, stopped and resumed with other single-byte MIDI messages. Location information can be specified using Song Position Pointer messages.
MIDI beat clock differs from MIDI timecode in that MIDI beat clock is tempo-dependent.
Messages
MIDI beat clock defines the following real-time messages:
clock (decimal 248, hex 0xF8)
start (decimal 250, hex 0xFA)
continue (decimal 251, hex 0xFB)
stop (decimal 252, hex 0xFC)
MIDI also specifies a System Common message called Song Position Pointer (SPP). SPP can be used in conjunction with the above real-time messages for complete transport control. This message consists of 3 bytes; a status byte (decimal 242, hex 0xF2), followed by two 7-bit data bytes (least significant byte first) forming a 14-bit value that specifies the number of MIDI beats (1 MIDI beat = a 16th note = 6 clock pulses) since the start of the song.
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This entry incorporates text from “MIDI beat clock” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.