[sdiy] MIDI isn't musical : Flame bait?

[Thomas Hudson]

On Sunday, January 13, 2002, at 04:34 PM, Ian Fritz wrote:

> I agree with this. MIDI appears to have plenty of bandwidth for 
> transmitting controller information to a synth. A MIDI data stream 
> sends about 1000 messages per second, comparable to what the most 
> virtuostic pianist can produce. Musical limitations stem from 
> limitations in the design of controllers and how synths are programmed 
> to respond to controller information. The lack of musicality in MIDI 
> performances is not due to limitations of MIDI per se. To say that a 
> communication protocol is "unmusical" seems pretty silly.


I think Don's original point is still valid. Guitar synths have to send 
six separate channels of MIDI
notes, along with copious amounts of pitch bend info. Secondly, there is 
nothing in the protocol
to represent many common guitar techniques. You press a key on a 
keyboard and it sends the
NOTE ON message with note number and velocity, then sends NOTE OFF (or 
NOTE ON w/
zero velocity) when you release the key. But how do you represent a 
pulloff on guitar?

MIDI may be good enough for keyboard players, but if falls woefully 
short for guitar, sax, trumpet,
harmonica, etc. Basically any instrument where the technique of playing 
a note involves more
than how fast you press a key.

Secondly, most of today's multitimbral synths still only have a single 
MIDI input port. So while there
may be enough bandwidth for a single part, there isn't enough for 16 
parts. Of course this isn't
so much the protocol as the interface, something like Yamaha's mLan 
could solve this.

But if even if someone came up with the theoretically perfect guitar to 
MIDI converter, and resurrected
Hendrix from the dead (the former probably being more difficult) to play 
it, what would get recorded
into a MIDI sequencer could in no way equal what was played.

And it's why you'll never find a MIDI file on the web of Hendix' "Star 
Spangled Banner" or
"Machine Gun" that would even fool a non-guitarist.

Tomy