[sdiy] Vibrato range

[rsdio at audiobanshee.com]

On May 9, 2016, at 3:04 PM, Mattias Rickardsson <mr at analogue.org> wrote:
> On 7 May 2016 at 10:31,  <rsdio at audiobanshee.com> wrote:
>> Your example seems to prove that 14-bit MIDI Pitch Bend has no problem with unwanted stepping over 10 octaves. If my math is correct, there are 136.5 pitch bend steps per 100 cents when bending 10 octaves. Why do people complain about MIDI being "limited?"
> 
> Because it takes 15 seconds to do that sweep with those 2^14 pitchbend
> messages. Even more if you want to do something else while waiting.
> 
> MIDI is slow and limited in temporal sense, not always in precision. :-)

I know that MIDI has its limitations. I'm not talking about that aspect. I realize I wasn't clear with my rhetorical question.

I'm responding specifically to the claims that OSC is "better" because it has more precision. The thing is, I don't think there is any physical sensor with more than 10 bits that could drive MIDI or OSC, so it's rather moot to brag about how OSC exceeds the 14-bit limitations of MIDI. There's no practical sensor that would be limited by MIDI. And, apparently, there's not even a practical limit on the sound generation side, either.

Sure, you can create a control on a Lemur or Surface that outputs a 16-bit value, but the graphics only have about 10 or 11 bits of precision (maybe 12 at best), and it's doubtful the touch sensor is precise to 10 bits. Looking at motorized faders instead of virtual controls, you again have position sensing limits of just 10 bits for the commercial hardware I've seen.

And, as others have pointed out, the update rate for something like an OSC control input device is going to be about 100 Hz. That wouldn't really provide any advantage over MIDI.

If anyone can point me to a 16-bit precision input position sensing device that updates faster than 1 kHz, I'd be willing to admit that something like OSC might be necessary. Otherwise, the MIDI complainers are focusing on the unimportant numbers and missing the important ones.

Brian Willoughby
Sound Consulting