tooll3--t3/.help/docs/using/MidiFileImport.md

Importing MIDI Files

TiXL can load standard MIDI files (.mid / .midi) — a track exported from a DAW, a downloaded arrangement, a generated pattern — and use their notes and controller curves to drive visuals, without any hardware attached.

Drop a MIDI file onto the timeline and it becomes a [LoadMidiFile] clip with the file's real duration. Drop it onto the graph to get the operator without timeline placement. Either way the file is converted into the same data-channel format that live session recording produces, so everything that works with recorded .data clips works with imported MIDI too.

What's in the clip

Each note and controller in the file becomes one channel:

MIDI content	Channel path	Events
Notes	Midi / <file name> / Ch<n> / N<note>	One interval per note, spanning NoteOn→NoteOff, value = velocity (0–127)
Control changes	… / CC<controller>	One event per change, value = raw CC (0–127)
Pitch bend	… / PB	Raw pitch value
Channel pressure	… / CP	Raw pressure (0–127)

Times come from the file's own tempo map (including mid-file tempo changes), so events land where they sound. Values stay in raw MIDI range — remap downstream where needed.

The clip body on the timeline shows the events as tick marks and bars; select the clip to inspect all channels in the details pane.

Driving parameters

Two sampler ops read channel values directly at the playhead:

• [SampleFloatFromDataClip] — the value of the last event at or before the current time. Use for CC curves and pitch bend. A dropdown on its Channel parameter lists every channel of the connected clip.
• [SampleGateFromDataClip] — for note channels: Gate is true while a note is held, Velocity carries its velocity.

Both also expose WasHit, true for one frame whenever an event starts — the reliable trigger signal even when consecutive events carry identical values, or a note falls entirely between two frames.

LoadMidiFile(track.mid).Clip ─► SampleGateFromDataClip(Ch1/N36).Gate ─► [flash on every kick]

Simulating a device

Alternatively, replay the file through the MIDI input system — useful when a project is already wired up with [MidiInput] ops for a controller:

LoadMidiFile(track.mid).Clip ─► SimulateIoData.Clips ─► Execute

[MidiInput] ops receive the file's events as if a device named after the file (e.g. track.mid) were playing them. Set the op's Device parameter to the file name, and channel/controller filters work as with real hardware.

Notes

• The clip is a normal TimeClip: move, trim, split, or place the same file several times.
• Clip length converts the file's duration at the project BPM — a file authored at a different tempo won't end exactly on a bar boundary, same as audio clips.
• Edits to the file on disk are picked up automatically (file-watch).