Mellotronists

Donald Tillman wrote:
>    > There's nothing ridiculous about midi.
>
> MIDI has neither the vocabulary, the resolution, nor the speed to deal
> with real music.  
Don, Don, Don...that is patently absurd. Actually, it's worse than that; 
it's patently untrue. I had to struggle with MIDI for a while, but it 
was down to my lack of understanding rather than anything else. As for 
the terms 'vocabulary' and 'resolution'; these are essentially 
meaningless, emotive terms. Holy mokes, they would have been used 
against Mellotrons not all that long ago.

> MIDI's vocabulary abstracts everthing down to
> note-on and note-off events, 
>   
That is also patently downright absurd. This could also be said of a 
drum. Or a piano. Or a bugle. Or a whole orchestra. You start. You make 
a noise. You stop. Whether you *like* the result is either down to taste 
or the skill of the player, but it's entirely wrong to pitch the 
argument against the technology. *And even if it were true* MIDI has 
given a -huge- scope to empower the player into places they'd never have 
enjoyed before.

> And for keyboard work, the resolution of MIDI is such that the nuances and
> subtleties of the performance are missing entirely, so you really
> can't tell if it's Horowitz or someone unskilled like myself playing
> the piano sample over a MIDI stream.
Is it beyond you to say that this tool doesn't lower Horowitz but 
instead elevates Tillman? Have you ever used a high-end sampler? If you 
can tell the difference then you're not the player you think you might 
be. I can *get by* but I am certainly am no great shakes at playing, yet 
even I am inspired by what I can do with MIDI.

I'm much in favour of old stuff if it sounds better, but your personal 
form of Luddism is strange to my ears and even harder to justify. My 
M400 sits under a MIDI keyboard and they both co-exist perfectly well. 
It's not what you do, but the way that you do it, as three bubble-heads 
would have put it.

-- 

Mike Dickson (tron@...) M400 #996
The Official Cynic of Streetly Electronics
Streetly Sample Library http://www.blackcat.demon.co.uk/tron/