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

[Henri Kovalainen]

Just had to do this, I guess...

I'm actually quite surprised how shallow you people are, taking into
account the type of instruments we're dealing with.

I'd just like to point out how ridiculous the whole subject is if you
don't limit the huge scope the terms actually cover. So far I've seen
comments from both extremes.

In my opinion it would be technically possible (as far as plain MIDI is
concerned, which is to say only as a method of transmitting the control
information) to do some pretty neat B3 playing with MIDI. The problem is
that the keyboard and the device that produces the sound should be
designed to match each other very carefully (and possibly the bandwidth
would be a problem too if the same interface would be used for other
instruments). The guitar thingy sounds impossible but then again, the
problem isn't MIDI anymore, it's detecting the information in the first
place.

The bottom line is (in my opinion again), for what would we need either
of these? If you can play the hammond so well that such precision would be
required from the bus, I don't think there would be much quantising or
editing to do? Also, even if you had a perfect controller and the means to
transmit the information of you humping your rickenbacker to a stack
while it feedbacks, what the hell would you use it for? You would
hardly want to play it using another guitar sound (or _any_ other sound
for that matter), what would the corresponding parameters be? And I
certainly don't see how I could edit the information. I bet there's no way
to store or transfer vocals with all the singer's nuances digitally as
controller information, but why should there? And, again, the bus wouldn't
be the problem.

So is MIDI musical? What do you consider musical anyway?

I can happily listen to Ray Brown and Reinhard Voigt during the same day
and I consider them both music and art even though they are very
different. It all depends on what you choose to do with the tools. I love
the stuff Brown does with the double bass, but I also enjoy Voigt's 20
minutes of electric hum, crackling and banging. Sure, if old jazz or acid
rock is the only type of music musical enough for you, you might have a
problem with MIDI. But then again, I wonder why you subscribed to this
particular list anyway.

By the way, I apologise I haven't posted anything new about the questions
I've asked on the list recently (and to which some kind people answered,
too). But I have just been too damn busy to do any building lately. It's
dreadful to think that I'll never have time to do DIY again until my
retirement, perhaps.

| henri kovalainen   | peltokatu 19 b51   | hekovala at kovalainen.fi
| phone: 0400-683750   90120 oulu finland   hekovala at paju.oulu.fi

| Practice economy at any cost.