MIDI Song Request message

The MIDI song request message (also known as a "song select message") tells a MIDI device to select a sequence for playback.

This message belongs to the category of MIDI system common messages.

This message consists of two bytes of data. The first byte is the status byte and has a hexadecimal value of 0xF3 signifying that this is a song request message. The second and last byte of data is a number between 0x00 and 0x7F (0 and 127) and represents the number of the song to be chosen. When the sequence is selected the device should also cue to the beginning of the sequence at MIDI beat zero.

The following is an example of a song request message.

0xF3 0x01

The first byte is 0xF3 signifying that this is a song request message. The second byte is 0x01 which means that the device is to select song 1 for playback.

See also:
Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI)

Comments

admin: First posted on 2015 10 23

Bad D, 2015 10 23: great, thanks, but what is 'x'? basic channel? and what devices can send this,other than a software sequencer, etc. ?

mic, 2016 11 18: I just realized what this question is asking. The answer is: 0x is a standard prefix used to signify that the number that follows is a hexadecimal number. A parser that translates programming code into something the computer will understands uses this prefix to understand that this is a hexadecimal number. The zero is a good choice as it tells the parser this is a constant. The x itself was arbitrarily chosen. You should ignore the 0x and interpret only the rest of the number. When programming, you obviously need the 0x

Alfiel, 2017 12 03: I want to use this command to instruct Set List Maker to select the correct lyric to go with Midi Files played on my keyboard. Is there a maximum number e.g. 128 or can I extend that to any amount? Would it work better to use Set List Maker to select the midi file and if so where do I assign a midi ID number in the file? In the header information perhaps?

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