I am programming a MIDI sequencer and SIMPLE digital song-writer for my game, which will have a soft techno-esque soundtrack. I want the internal data structures to be based off of musical notes, and the output to be either to the speakers or to an audio file. I just don't know how to interface my internal data structures for notes/timing and the computer's audio output. I was thinking about MIDI, but I am not sure if learning the entire MIDI spec through-and-through is really necessary for just outputting a few notes. How do you output digital musical notes in Windows? I was thinking about eventually adding MIDI file support later, do you think making the entire thing MIDI-based will do me good? How do you output MIDI notes in Windows?

If you are programming this in a high level language like C++ or Java, you can use the included classes for sound file playback. If you want to synthesize the sound in real time there are a few audio libraries out there that can do that too. It would really help to know what language/IDE you are using.

If you are programming this in a high level language like C++ or Java, you can use the included classes for sound file playback. If you want to synthesize the sound in real time there are a few audio libraries out there that can do that too. It would really help to know what language/IDE you are using.

considering he tagged winapi one can infer that he's on windows and is probably using c or c++

considering he tagged winapi one can infer that he's on windows and is probably using c or c++

Yes, I am using C, and was thinking about using the Windows API.

I use SDL I can write into the audio buffer and generate tones. Probably not worth to move your game into SDL unless your game is already using SDL for other stuff.