lv2 plugin development - how to read MIDI time and note simultaneously

Question

I'm using Moony to prototype some components for a MIDI only lv2 plugin I'm building. I've been trying to work out how to get some sort of song position value from a noteOn event, meaning that I need to know the beat and bar that the note belongs to when it invokes the midiResponder. Even a total time or total frames will do to calculate. The way Moony works with timeResponder and midiResponder callbacks means I can know the time position or the note... but not both simultaneously. Looking at the lv2 midi spec it looks like only the event type, note number and velocity are properties of a noteOn event atom... so then I will face the same issue when I rewrite in C++ and integrate this code into my lv2 plugin? Is this right? Is there a work around?

Answer 1

The spec you looked at there describes the payload of an LV2 MIDI event, which is literally MIDI. The time stamp is available, but it is in the (generic) Event which contains the MIDI. In this way, all events are time stamped (in frames relative to the buffer), regardless of their payload type.

If you were to write this in C++, you would get a single buffer of events which includes time changes, MIDI events, and whatever other events the plugin may support. So, all the information is available, but managing this state so it is available where you want is up to you.