[sdiy] MIDI HD

[Rainer Buchty]

On Sat, 19 Jan 2013, Gordon JC Pearce wrote:

> Can you hear the steps when you move the cutoff slider on a Juno 106? 
> Me neither...

Uhm. There's a reason why e.g. the SID's filter register is 11 bits 
wide, PWM even 12 bits, and frequency even 16 bits.

Here are your 3 use cases where finer-grained control is definitely 
desired, if not outright necessary. (For instance, Filter originally was 
planned to be 12 bit also, but that gave no audible improvement over 11 
bit. Same tests were done for the other two.)

The 7-bit range usually only works because controllers applied within a 
limited interval, for instance using the pitch-bending within a third 
up/down. Already with an octave up/down, you're down to about 5 steps 
per semitone (128/(2*12)) which musically-trained ears will perceive.

Rainer