Windows provides a High level API for playing both digital audio and MIDI. Windows also provides a high level API for recording digital audio, but not yet a corresponding API for recording MIDI. The goal of the high level API is for the operating system to do as much work as possible in playing or recording digital audio or MIDI data, and your program merely gives overall "instructions" to the operating system such as telling it the name of the MIDI or WAVE file to load and play.

Furthermore, one of the goals of the High level API is to allow the playback or recording to be done by the operating system in the background while your program goes on to do other things. In order to implement such a scheme, the Windows operating system incorporates a software entity (ie, a software library/driver/program/however-you-want-to-think-of-it) known as the "MCI Wave Device" which can play or record a digital audio waveform all by itself after receiving a few instructions from your program. It does all of the Low level API stuff on your behalf. The operating system also incorporates a software entity known as the "MCI Sequencer Device" which can play a MIDI song (ie, an entire song stored as a series of MIDI messages) all by itself after receiving a few instructions from your program.

In fact, because multimedia programmers often have to support both digital audio and MIDI in their programs, Windows tries to make things even simpler by having you pass your instructions (ie, commands) to the MCI Wave Device in the same way (and using the same API function) as you pass instructions to the MCI Sequencer Device. In other words, if you learn how to send commands to the MCI Wave Device, then you already know how to send commands to the MCI Sequencer Device (or vice versa). (You also will know how to send commands to other MCI devices such as the Audio CD Player and Video Player).

Indeed, many of the documented commands are the same for both. For example, you can tell the MCI Wave Device to "start playback" (of a waveform) just like you can tell the MCI Sequencer Device to "start playback" (of a MIDI song). It doesn't matter to you that these devices are dealing with entirely different data and/or audio hardware, because after all, those devices are managing the actual data and hardware entirely on their own. You need give them only some general instructions to follow, and one such command for both of them could indeed be to "start playback". In other words, if you know the commands to tell the MCI Wave Device to do something simple such as start playback, then you already know the same commands for the MCI Sequencer Device (or vice versa).


Message or String interfaces

In order to make it even easier for a programmer to use these devices, they offer two different ways to send them a command.

In one approach, you can pass them binary values, or addresses of structures filled in with values. For example, let's say that you want the MCI Wave Device to record a waveform. Prior to doing this, you need to tell the MCI Wave Device your desired sample rate, bit resolution (ie, 8 for 8-bit, 16 for 16-bit), and number of channels (ie, 1 for MONO, 2 for STEREO, etc). You can fill in a structure that has an unsigned long field where you store your desired sample rate, plus another unsigned long field where you store the number of channels of digital audio you wish recorded, and another field where you store your desired bit resolution. And then you call a function that passes this structure to the MCI Wave Device, as well as passing a "Command" value that indicates to the MCI Wave Device that it should expect this structure, and to use those values to set its record parameters. Passing binary values and structures to an MCI device is referred to as using the "Command message interface". You use the function mciSendCommand() to send commands using this approach.

Furthermore, when you use mciSendCommand() to command the MCI Sequencer or Wave Audio Device to return some information to you, (for example if you ask it to tell you what bit resolution and sample rate is currently set for recording), then these devices will fill in structures with binary values. For example you can pass that above structure and have the Wave Audio device fill in its sample rate, channels, and bit resolution fields.

In the other approach, you instead pass null-terminated strings. For example, let's take that same job of telling the MCI Wave Device to set itself up for recording a 11025 KHz sample rate, stereo, 8-bit waveform. You instead format a null-terminated string that looks like "set bitspersample 8 channels 2 samplespersec 11025" where set is the command and the other (italicized) words are the record parameters followed by the desired value for each. It's really the same command that you issued above, but now it takes the form of a string instead of passed binary values/structures. Passing strings to an MCI device is referred to as using the "Command string interface". You use the function mciSendString() to send commands using this approach.

When you use mciSendString() to command the MCI Sequencer or Wave Audio Device to return some information back to you, (for example if you ask it to tell you what bit resolution and sample rate is currently set for recording), then these devices will return strings like what you see above. For example it may return a string that looks like "bitspersample 8 channels 1 samplespersec 11025". Your program would then have to parse that string to extract the individual record parameters.

Why 2 different approaches to do the same thing? The MCI Sequencer and Wave Audio devices are meant to be controlled by programs written in languages where it is easier to deal with simply sending (and receiving back) binary values and structures (such as C), as well as languages where it is much easier to deal with strings (such as Basic). And there are other cases where you may find it easier yourself to use strings, or easier to use binary values. You've got your choice (or you can use both).


Overview of using the device

To use the MCI Sequencer or Wave Audio Device, you need to first open that device. To open either of these devices, you issue an "open" command using mciSendString() or mciSendCommand() (depending upon whether you want to specify your open command by passing formatted strings, or binary values/structures, respectively).

After opening the device, you can then issue commands directly to it using mciSendString() or mciSendCommand(). Some commands you issue can cause the device to return data to you.

After you're done using the device (and have no further use for it), you must close that device. To close the device, you send it a "close" command using mciSendString() or mciSendCommand().

The Wave Audio and Sequencer Devices are referred to as compound devices. This is just a fancy way of saying that when you open the device, it has to be associated with a WAVE file or a MIDI file (for the Wave Audio or Sequencer Device respectively). In essense, when you open the device, you tell it what WAVE or MIDI file to also open. If you're going to subsequently do a play operation, this will be the file that gets played. If you're going to do a record operation, this will be file into which recorded data is stored. Indeed, for any operation that you do, this is the file that is operated upon.

In fact, you can open either device several times (simultaneously) if you want to open several WAVE or MIDI files. Since you need to specify a particular WAVE or MIDI file each time that you open the device, the act of opening the device is sort of equivalent to opening a MIDI or WAVE file. The device ID (or alias) you obtain from each instance of opening the device is akin to a file handle. In essense, when you open the Wave Audio device, think of it as if you were opening a WAVE file that can perform operations upon itself, such as to playback any waveform that is stored in it (using whatever default Digital Audio Out hardware device is in the system), or to store (ie, record) the digital audio input (of the default Digital Audio In hardware device). When you open the Sequencer device, think of it as if you were opening a MIDI file that also can perform operations upon itself, such as to playback any MIDI data that is stored in it (using whatever default MIDI Out hardware device is in the system). You can also give commands to these files to have them perform other operations upon themselves.

And of course, if you opened several files, you'd have to close each one. So too with opening multiple instances of the Wave Audio or Sequencer Devices.

Although many of the commands are the same for both the Wave Audio and Sequencer Devices, and therefore this article could detail the common operations such as open, play, record, etc. for both devices, instead the Wave Audio Device is discussed further in High level Digital Audio API, and the Sequencer Device is discussed further in High level MIDI API.