Music event timing and delivery in a non-realtime environment

A computer, comprising:

• an application program;
• a music processing component;
• wherein the application program initiates repeated calls to the music processing component and provides a group of music events to be sent to the music processing component during each call;
• wherein said group of music events comprises a plurality of individual music events and associated timestamps indicating when the music events are to be played, wherein the timestamps of the individual music events of a particular group indicate that the individual music events are to be played at varying times subsequent to being sent to the music processing component.

A computer, comprising:

• an application program;
• a music processing component;
• wherein the application program initiates repeated calls to the music processing component and provides a group of music events to be sent to the music processing component during each call;
• wherein said group of music events comprises a plurality of individual music events and associated timestamps indicating when the music events are to be played, wherein the timestamps of the individual music events of a particular group indicate that the individual music events are to be played at varying times subsequent to being sent to the music processing component
• a port object associated with the music processing component, wherein the port object has an interface that is called by the application program to initiate the calls to the music processing component.

A computer program stored on one or more computer-readable storage media for receiving music events from an application program, which, when executed by a host computing system, implements a method comprising:

• receiving groups of music events from the application program;
• wherein each group of music events comprises a plurality of individual music events and associated timestamps indicating when the music events are to be played, wherein the timestamps of the individual music events of a particular group indicate that the individual music events are to be played at varying times subsequent to being received and reflect any inherent processing latency in rendering the music events by a synthesizer;
• and
• providing the individual music events of the groups to the synthesizer in accordance with the timestamps of the individual music events.

A method for sending music events from an application program to one or more music processing components, the method comprising:

• time-stamping music events with times at which the events are to be played, wherein the timestamp reflects an inherent processing latency of each of the one or more music processing components;
• and
• sending the music events and their timestamps to a plurality of music processing components prior to the times at which the events are to be played;
• playing the music events at the times indicated by their respective timestamps, regardless of the times at which the music events were sent;
• wherein the plurality of music processing components all use a common time base to interpret the timestamps of the music events.

A computer, comprising:

• an application program;
• a plurality of music processing components;
• wherein the application program is programmed to time-stamp music events with times at which the events are to be played and to send the music events to the music processing components prior to the times at which they are to be played;
• wherein the music processing components play the music events at the times indicated by their respective timestamps, regardless of the times at which the music events were sent;
• wherein all of the music processing components use a common time base to interpret the timestamps of the music events.

A music generation system comprising:

• a music processing component having a latency between the time at which it receives a music event and the earliest time at which the it can play the music event;
• the music processing component having an interface that is callable to return the earliest time at which the music processing component can play a new music event;
• an application program that initiates repeated calls to the music processing component and provides a group of music events to be sent to the music processing component during each call;
• wherein said group of music events comprises a plurality of individual music events and associated timestamps indicating when the music events are to be played, wherein the timestamps of the individual music events of a particular group indicate that the individual music events are to be played at varying times subsequent to said earliest time at which the music processing component can play a new music event.

A computer program stored on one or more computer-readable storage media for playing music events, which, when executed by a host computing system, implement a method comprising:

• calling a music processing component to determine the earliest time at which the music processing component can play new music events;
• compiling a group of music events that are to be played after the earliest time at which the music processing component can play new music events;
• time-stamping the music events of the compiled group with the times at which the music events are to be played by the music processing component;
• and
• sending the compiled group of music events and their timestamps to the music processing component as a group in a single call.