Platform SDK: DirectX

MIDI System Messages

System messages are not exclusive to any channel. They are of three kinds, as shown in the following table.

Message type Purpose
System common Miscellaneous commands and data.
System exclusive Equipment-specific commands and data.
System real-time Synchronization of clock-based MIDI equipment.

Unlike other MIDI messages, system-exclusive messages can contain any number of data bytes. After transmitting the data, the sequencer sends a system-common message called an EOX, which signals the end of the system-exclusive message.

[C++]

In DirectMusic, the DMUS_SYSEX_PMSG structure contains the length of the data and a pointer to an array of data bytes.

[Visual Basic]

DirectX for Visual Basic does not give applications direct access to system-exclusive messages.