Mirage (Re: [sdiy] MIDI DCOs)

[Glen]

At 09:56 AM 1/9/04 , Ingo Debus wrote:

>I too own a S-330. What's the limiting thing here? You could assign 
>each output to a separate MIDI channel, isn't this what you want?

I think the original idea was to play polyphonic MIDI data from one MIDI
channel. Most keyboards or sequencers don't put each note of a polyphonic
MIDI performance on a separate MIDI channel.

If you had an automated "MIDI note router" that accepted a single-channel
polyphonic MIDI stream at the input, and assigned the various notes to
different MIDI channels, then you could execute your idea. 

However, the "MIDI note router" would add an extra step to the process, and
the lag time between key press and sound output would increase a little
bit. I'm not sure if this is enough to worry about. Then there's also the
idea that you are using 16 MIDI channels to play one polyphonic voice. That
might be fine in some cases, but what if you had wanted to play more than
one synth from the same MIDI source, by placing the synths on different
channels?

Even with it's limitations, it would probably still be an interesting thing
to try, especially if you have multiple MIDI ports available. Since it
would have to be custom-designed anyway, the automated MIDI router could
also easily supply gate or trigger signals for each output channel. That
would help with interfacing analog gear at the different audio channel
outputs of your synth. You would probably also want to be able to modify or
remove the MIDI note off commands, to let each channel play past the actual
note off. Your downstream analog circuitry will probably be expecting your
"oscillators" to be playing continuously, or at least well past the gate
signal.

Your S-330 certainly isn't the only synth with multiple audio outputs,
which can each be assigned different MIDI channels. This idea could be
implemented with several different synths and samplers, without even the
need to modify the synth. The more I think about it, the more I wish I had
the automated MIDI note router.  :)


later,
Glen Berry