| Microsoft DirectX 8.1 (Visual Basic) |
Every playing sound consists of one or more parts. A part might be a MIDI channel, a part in a DirectMusic Producer segment, or a wave. Often a part corresponds to a single musical instrument.
A performance channel is the route between a part and an audiopath. Every message that contains information about a part also specifies the part's performance channel, so that it can be routed correctly.
Performance channels are similar to MIDI channels, but whereas traditional MIDI playback is limited to 16 channels, the number of performance channels is virtually unlimited.