MIDI Specification Definitions is the Python package pymididefs: a resource for Python developers, used in the author's other projects. Its source is on GitHub.

PyMidiDefs

Comprehensive MIDI 1.0 and 2.0 constant definitions for Python.

A zero-dependency reference library providing named constants, lookup dictionaries, and utility functions for the MIDI specification. Covers note numbers, Control Change assignments, General MIDI instruments and percussion, status bytes, Standard MIDI File meta-events, MIDI 2.0 Universal MIDI Packet (UMP) message types, and MIDI-CI capability inquiry constants.

Why PyMidiDefs?

If you're building a Python synthesiser, sequencer, DAW, MIDI controller interface, music generator, or any application that sends or receives MIDI messages, you need the same set of protocol constants: note numbers, CC assignments, program change values, status bytes. These numbers are defined by the MIDI specification and never change, yet most projects end up re-defining them from scratch or copying them from unreliable sources.

PyMidiDefs gives you a single, authoritative package with every protocol constant taken directly from the official MIDI specifications. It has no runtime dependencies and works with any MIDI library or framework -- python-rtmidi, mido, pygame.midi, or your own socket-level implementation.

It holds only what the specifications define. What a particular model of synth or drum machine answers to -- its controls, its note range, its voicing -- is a different kind of fact, read out of manufacturers' manuals rather than transcribed from a standard, and it lives in PyMidiInstrumentDefs, which builds on this package. Version 0.4.0 carried it here as pymididefs.instruments.

About MIDI

MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard for communication between electronic musical instruments, computers, and audio devices. It began in 1981, when Ikutaro Kakehashi of Roland proposed an international standard for synthesizers to talk to each other, and Dave Smith of Sequential Circuits outlined a Universal Synthesizer Interface, developed with Chet Wood and presented to the Audio Engineering Society that autumn. The MIDI 1.0 specification was published in August 1983, with its copyright assigned to the International MIDI Association (IMA) -- one of three bodies, with the MIDI Manufacturers Association (MMA) and Japan's JMSC, that formed independently to manage MIDI's development. It has remained backwards-compatible ever since.

General MIDI (GM), standardised in 1991, defined a common set of 128 instrument sounds and a percussion key map so that a MIDI file created on one device would sound broadly similar on another. The Standard MIDI File (SMF) format, first published in 1988, became the universal way to store and exchange MIDI sequences.

In January 2020, the MIDI Association and AMEI adopted the core specifications of MIDI 2.0 -- the first major update to the protocol in nearly four decades -- and published them the following month. MIDI 2.0 introduces the Universal MIDI Packet (UMP) format with higher-resolution velocity and controller values, per-note controllers, and bidirectional communication via MIDI-CI (Capability Inquiry) for automatic device configuration, profile negotiation, and property exchange. It extends MIDI 1.0 rather than replacing it: MIDI 1.0 messages remain valid, and the Universal MIDI Packet carries them too.

Installation

pip install pymididefs

Requires Python 3.10 or later. There are no runtime dependencies.

To install the latest unreleased code straight from the repository:

pip install git+https://github.com/simonholliday/PyMidiDefs.git

Modules

Usage

import pymididefs.notes
import pymididefs.cc
import pymididefs.drums
import pymididefs.gm

# Note constants
pymididefs.notes.C4    # 60  (Middle C)
pymididefs.notes.A4    # 69  (Concert pitch)

# Note name conversion
pymididefs.notes.note_to_name(60)     # "C4"
pymididefs.notes.name_to_note("Db4")  # 61

# Control Change numbers
pymididefs.cc.SUSTAIN_PEDAL    # 64
pymididefs.cc.FILTER_CUTOFF    # 74
pymididefs.cc.CC_MAP["pan"]    # 10

# GM percussion
pymididefs.drums.KICK_1              # 36
pymididefs.drums.HI_HAT_CLOSED       # 42
pymididefs.drums.GM_DRUM_MAP["snare_1"]  # 38
pymididefs.drums.KICK                # 36  (unnumbered "primary" alias of KICK_1)
pymididefs.drums.GM_DRUM_PRIMARY_ALIASES["crash"]  # 49

# GM instruments
pymididefs.gm.ACOUSTIC_GRAND_PIANO   # 0
pymididefs.gm.VIOLIN                 # 40
pymididefs.gm.GM_INSTRUMENT_NAMES[40]    # "Violin"
pymididefs.gm.GM_INSTRUMENT_MAP["flute"]  # 73

RPN and 14-bit values

import pymididefs.rpn
import pymididefs.cc

# Standard Registered Parameter Numbers
pymididefs.rpn.PITCH_BEND_SENSITIVITY  # 0
pymididefs.rpn.MODULATION_DEPTH_RANGE  # 5  (CA-026; required by GM2)
pymididefs.rpn.NULL_PARAMETER          # 16383  (sent as MSB=127, LSB=127)

# 14-bit pack/unpack — works for any MIDI 1.0 14-bit value
# (Bank Select, Data Entry, RPN/NRPN parameter numbers, pitch bend, ...)
pymididefs.cc.pack_14bit(8192)         # (64, 0)   pitch bend centre
pymididefs.cc.unpack_14bit(64, 0)      # 8192

MIDI 2.0

import pymididefs.ump
import pymididefs.ci

# Universal MIDI Packet message types
pymididefs.ump.MIDI2_CHANNEL_VOICE  # 0x4
pymididefs.ump.MIDI2_NOTE_ON        # 0x9   (a UMP opcode, not the 0x90 status byte)
pymididefs.ump.PROTOCOL_MIDI2       # 0x02

# MIDI-CI
pymididefs.ci.DISCOVERY       # 0x70
pymididefs.ci.PROFILE_INQUIRY # 0x20

Sources

Every constant is transcribed from the specifications published by the MIDI Association and AMEI, its Japanese counterpart:

• MIDI 1.0 Detailed Specification (MMA/AMEI), with what later documents added to it: CA-026 (Modulation Depth Range), CA-031 (High Resolution Velocity Prefix), CA-034 and the MPE specification (the MPE Configuration Message), RP-021 and RP-023 (controller defaults), and RP-049 (3D Sound Controllers)
• General MIDI Level 1 Specification (RP-003)
• General MIDI 2 Specification
• Standard MIDI File 1.0 Specification (RP-001), with RP-019 (Program Name, Device Name) and RP-032 (XMF Patch Type Prefix)
• M2-104-UM v1.1.2 — Universal MIDI Packet (UMP) Format and MIDI 2.0 Protocol Specification
• M2-101-UM v1.2 — MIDI-CI Specification. midi.org now serves v1.2.1, which is not publicly readable and has not been compared; the constants here were checked against v1.2

Some specifications require a free MIDI Association membership to download.

A few things are not transcribed from those documents, and the modules that hold them say so:

• pymididefs.meta.MIDI_PORT (0x21) is in no specification. It is an unofficial convention, now obsolete, and it is here because real files still carry it and a reader should be able to name what it meets.
• The drum numbering KICK_1/KICK_2 and SNARE_1/SNARE_2 is Roland GS's. General MIDI names those notes Acoustic Bass Drum, Bass Drum 1, Acoustic Snare and Electric Snare, and numbers only its crashes and rides as pairs. The unnumbered KICK, SNARE, CRASH and RIDE aliases are this package's own choice.
• The octave names are a convention. The specifications fix note 60 as middle C but name no octaves; this package calls it C4.

The values here, and the prose around them, were last checked against these documents in September 2026.

License

MIT -- you are free to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and sell copies of this software in any project, including commercial and closed-source applications. The only requirement is that you include the LICENSE file when redistributing the software. See LICENSE for the full text.