How can I limit the PPQ of my MIDI output?

Question

Is there a solution or software out there that will recieve MIDI data from my MIDI software and patch my MIDI data into to an output device/synth with a PPQ limit? I'm imagining a system where notes would queue themselves when the notes cannot keep up with the limit and play them as fast as the PPQ limit allows until it has caught up.

This is a common behavior that USB-MIDI interfaces and many keyboards already do when their (ppq?) capabilities have been exceeded, and gives the effect of songs slowing down at intense times and speeding up until it catches up.

I want to have something like this mostly so I can play songs into my keyboard without running into chances of glitching my keyboard's note display and polyphony on more intense MIDI sequences, and also partly to emulate the behavior that older/cheaper PPQ-limited keyboards exhibit.

Answer 1

Limiting the PPQ definitely wouldn't 'fix' the first problem, though it would certainly emphasise the second one - noticeable event queuing.

The trick is not not let the situation happen in the first place, by selectively moving note on & off events to keep the apparent throughput high.

• Drums & bass, on-beat, strings/pads early or late - make sure nothing is sending a note-off & note-on in consecutive ticks.
• Keep note-offs away from significant beats.
• De-quantise controller events away from significant beats.
• Avoid sending sysex during song playback, use a blank bar at the head of the track if you must send complex setups.

This is an example audio file of a single-box midi demo, done in the 90's, back when more than 96 PPQ was still a dream in hardware devices - all done exactly as I outlined above. 32 simultaneous midi channels, live into one device, without hearing any event queuing. [long track, takes a minute or so to really get going. Peak data rate is achieved at around 2:45 onwards]