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

[Glen]

At 10:00 AM 1/16/02 , Ian Fritz wrote:

>Yes, that agrees with some of the studies I've been reading about. Test on 
>timing simultaneity, for example, show that the best that the most gifted 
>people can resolve is around 10 ms.  People here who claim being able to 
>resolve 1 - 2 ms don't appear credible according to these results. Also the 
>fastest most people can tap a finger is about 9 Hz. 

Even if that last line is true, please remember that one isn't limited to using
a single finger on a polyphonic keyboard. The peak "event rate" could be much
higher than 9 events per second, even with "normal" people playing the keys, if
we allow them to use all ten fingers.


Lastly, I just want to mention that Steinberg has an MP3 demo file of their new
LTB MIDI interface, which offers greatly increased MIDI timing accuracy, at
least when used with CuBase. If you play that demo, you will hear a brief
passage played through a "standard" midi interface, and then the same passage
will then be played using the "improved" accuracy of the Steinberg LTD MIDI
interface.

There certainly is a noticeable improvement in timing accuracy, when the
passage is played through the Steinberg interface. However, I have to say that
I'm not really sure if I actually like the sound of so much accuracy! Maybe I'm
weird, but I think that the drums in that demo sound a bit better when played
on the standard MIDI interface, timing errors and all! If anyone else downloads
the demo, I'd like to know what you think of my opinion.


Later,
Glen