Fatman: any experiences with self made Ep

[John Simonton]

>>couple of days (Can someone tell me why in the world a CZ-1 _doesn't_ use
>>running status but still sends zero velocity Note-ons instead of Note-offs?
>>- that's rhetorical actually, but if you have a clue ...). 
>
>Umm.. in the earliest version of the  MIDI protocol this was accepted as a 
>method of sending Note off's, and there ares several other 84/85 vintage
synths 
>that do it too......
>

It is an acceptable method of sending note-offs, just very wasteful. Since
the "extra" Note-On Status byte isn't really needed, the data requires a
full 50% more bandwidth than is necessary. If running status is _not_ going
to be used, why not use Note-Off Status so you can at least have the
release velocity data as well. 

It caused me problems because the extension to the midi2cv8 code that does
Low-Key Transpose (so that the lowest key on a MIDI keyboard is transposed
to zero volts out - like an analog keyboard) didn't expect an explicit
(i.e. w/Status Byte) Note-On w/vel=0 and wasn't working on the Casio. Once
you know what's happening, no problem - and it only took a second with a
sniffer to see what was going on.

I guess it was more a lament than a question. You expect people
(manufacturers are people too :-) to do logical things, but they don't. Or
sometimes they do logical things, it's just that I don't see the wisdom of
it immediately and I guess I was asking if this was the case here. Is there
some advantage to using half again as much BW as necessary that I'm missing?
Or is there some historical perspective I'm missing - it was thought to be
too hard to keep track of running status or something?

Just thinking out-loud, maybe (I _have_ been talking to myself a lot
lately), why would they do that?

-John



---------------------------------------------------------
John Simonton                  PAiA Electronics, Inc
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