Reading of MIDI Pitch bend data is now implemented in E.P.S.S. MIDI engine. I have also prepared reading the adjustment of the Pitch Bend. The normal default range of the Pitch bend is +/- two semitones but of course it adjustable through the so called RPN functionality so it took some digging to understand that, but that should now also work.
The next thing was how to test it and I remembered I had an old MIDI controller keyboard back in Sweden where I recently went so I have now brought it back with me to the UK.
I am also very curious of trying to implement SoundFont (.sf2) in E.P.S.S. in some form. E.P.S.S. could then be used as a real “standard” MID-file player and even play some material not made especially for it, of course with some limitations. SoundFont requires for example a player to have 32 voices and also support of various other effect which would be hard if not impossible to achieve on an Atari, but we have to start somewhere and see where it leads.
Another thing is of course memory limitations. SoundFonts sourced from internet are usually pretty large so it will not be possible to load those in an Atari memory without some preprocessing but I have some ideas there as well. Initial proof of concept could however use smaller SoundFonts I found, like the original AWE32 1MB which should be possible to read and use.
The format it quite well specified but as always it will take some time to understand all terminology and see how everything is really connected. Initially I will use the EPSS Editor for Windows to load the SoundFont and then convert the relevant parts of the sound and other information to a new version of the SPI format which will add possibility to change active sounds with MIDI Program Change and so on.