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Subject: RE: [motm] MIDI sucks (get your attention?)

From: improv@...
Date: 2000-08-11

>It's true that the nature of MIDI is discreet notes, with Pitch bend
>controller messages to modify the pitch within a small range.
>
>But couldn't a MIDI ribbon controller be programmed to output it's
>'position' as a continuous controller message, rather than a discreet pitch
>"number"? That CC stream could then be converted to a control voltage for a
>fairly smooth sweep.
>
>No?

Yeah, this can be done, but it seems like quite a kludge, to be basically
converting a CV signal to MIDI, then back again.
>
>I admit that it's a work-around, and I wish MIDI were a bit less 'discreet,'
>but couldn't this be done? The CC messages, I believe, have a much higher
>resolution than the Pitch Bend, Mod Wheel, etc., controller channels.
>
Actually, standard CC Messages only have values from 0-127, which means
pretty discrete stepping when sweeping across wide ranges of pitch, for
example. Pitch bend is, I believe, 12 bits, and there are some double
precision CC's that use 2 bytes for values, but programming them is a pain
in the butt, as I recall from my MAX hacking days.

____________________________________________
Dave Trenkel : improv@...
Minus Web Site: http://listen.to/minusmusic
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