MIDI file formats

Where can I get the specifications for the various MIDI file formats?
(e.g. a book, a URL,...)

I got a book on MIDI that talks about status and data bytes, 16 channels,
note on and note off, etc. But that's all real time and no talk of codes for
note duration.

On my PC I have this program called "Creative MIDI" along with some small
files. Feed the program the file & out comes some cheesy music. I dumped some
of the files out in hex. What I see sure doesn't look anything like those
status and data bytes that my MIDI book talks about!

I want to write some programs to generate various note sequences & then
listen to them. These MIDI files seem like a nice intermediate file. Write
such a file out of my program, then feed the file to "Creative MIDI".
Unusual tunings may not be so easy. But I'd be happy enough just to
start with 12TET.

I haven't looked into csound, scala, or any other programs. I get the
impression that these programs have interactive user interfaces for manually
entering a sequence of sounds that the program then plays. Since I want to
write programs to generate sequences, it seems these programs won't do the
job for me.

In the end I may be driven to learning the low level device
interface to whatever sound card I have, and then writing assembler or
something. I sure hope I find a way around that.

Any advice or pointers to useful information would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Jim


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