how about a patch that reads the midifile and stores the data, which you
then play as you wish? for an instalation I'm working on, I prepared a
patch that reads a midifile with +50K events, puts them into a data
structures "score", and then the info can be used for playback. It's not
"one object", but it does what you wish.

Thanks, using data structures is a nice idea. Somehow once (15+ years ago) 
used them but where slow doing tracing objects, but maybe the new 
implementation is more usable.

The problem is how to handle noteon/off in reverse, there should be different 
modes. So mabe I store it in reverse order in another text.

which new implementation? :) 

I'm not sure if I know of any changes in the drawing, but I might be wrong. anyway this only affects the result if a) you need to see the structs (if you don't, there is no lag) and b) even if you need to see them, you might notice something only when opening the canvas for the first time, afterwards is no issue. My patches usually have a reading point marker for live visualisation as well, and doesn't affect the performace.

Making 2 score versions (forward + backward) might be the best idea as well - it's not that hard to do a forward-playing patch, but since [pointer] doesn't have a "previous" method, it would need lots of creative thinking and calculations to make that happen (although surely possible). Using "next" in a reversed score makes it much simpler.

Here is a picture of a small section of my canvas, for reference.

Joao

mfg winfried

so a midifile  can be played forwards backwards with dynamic tempo.

If not, then maybe a message sequencer, e.g. a "text" object, otherwise
I'll probably have to write one myself...

and yes, I know it's not as trivial as it sounds, especially the midifile
player.

I would be grateful for any advice.