A
MetaMessage
is a
MidiMessage
that is not meaningful to synthesizers, but
that can be stored in a MIDI file and interpreted by a sequencer program.
(See the discussion in the
MidiMessage
class description.) The Standard MIDI Files specification defines
various types of meta-events, such as sequence number, lyric, cue point,
and set tempo. There are also meta-events
for such information as lyrics, copyrights, tempo indications, time and key
signatures, markers, etc. For more information, see the Standard MIDI Files 1.0
specification, which is part of the Complete MIDI 1.0 Detailed Specification
published by the MIDI Manufacturer's Association
(
http://www.midi.org).
When data is being transported using MIDI wire protocol,
a ShortMessage
with the status value 0xFF
represents
a system reset message. In MIDI files, this same status value denotes a MetaMessage
.
The types of meta-message are distinguished from each other by the first byte
that follows the status byte 0xFF
. The subsequent bytes are data
bytes. As with system exclusive messages, there are an arbitrary number of
data bytes, depending on the type of MetaMessage
.