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

[James Husted]

There has been an new spec for a newer version MIDI since 1995. It's called
XMIDI. Do a google search for EXTENDED MIDI. The MIDI association had some
problems with it (and good ones at that), so it was never endorsed.

I think a new midi that was faster and had backward compatibility could be
developed by just using the unused 2 pins on the current MIDI cable/jacks.
Just shoot the info that legacy MIDI devices could understand on the pins
that are used now, and have a parallel serial stream with more midi stuff on
the unused pins. You could gain stuff in the newer models that would have
these pins wired up, and still use the older MIDI setups that didn't. It
wouldn't be much more hardware than doubling the optos.
-j
-- 
James Husted
james at ersatzplanet.com
www.ersatzplanet.com
HM:206.781.2984
CEL:206.618.5305


> From: "Thomas Hudson" <thudson at tomy.net>
> Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 17:33:51 -0800
> To: synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
> Subject: Re: [sdiy] MIDI isn't musical : Flame bait?
> 
> 
> 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
> 
>