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

[Ian Fritz]

At 06:33 PM 1/13/2002, Thomas Hudson wrote:

>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.

I don't understand this. Why are six channels (as opposed to six-voice 
polyphony) required?

Six voices and pitchbend doesn't sound to me like any more information than 
is commonly handled by a poly synth with aftertouch. Pitchbend changes 
quite slowly.

>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?

Be careful not to confuse (1) how to generate control information and (2) 
how to transmit it over MIDI. Within the MIDI protocol there are *plenty* 
of CC messages available to transmit this kind of information. Making a 
control device that could sense the pulloff gesture (and others) would 
certainly be a challenge. Designing a synth to use this information 
effectively would be another challenge. But these are not MIDI issues.

>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.

I disagree. For example the Yamaha and Synthophone wind controllers allow a 
wide range of expression. The Yamaha WX controller, for instance, sends up 
to 5 control messages simultaneously. Another good place to learn about 
what MIDI can do is Bouvard Hosticka's Elect-RO-Clar:

http://windsynth.org/iwsa_labs/non_commercial_controllers/Elect-RO-Clar/


>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.

Again, I'm not following you. Are you saying that 16 MIDI channels 
simultaneously are needed? Why?

>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.

What do you base this statement on? Human beings can only produce and 
process information at a finite rate. Exactly why don't you think MIDI can 
handle this rate?

>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.

Do you mean not now or not ever. Well, people made similar statements about 
how a computer could never play a world-class game of chess. But it happened.

   Ian