MIDI does NOT support non-Western music (or anything else)

[Jean Piche]

Albert,

The reason MIDI is a standard is because it was the first inter- 
synthesizer communication protocol out of the gates in 1983. It is not  
a good standard because MIDI was specified to convey the minimum  
amount of data over a bit less 32 kbps to be musically useful. Thus  
the restriction to 7 bit pitch definitions or 127 discrete notes. No  
one is claiming you cannot take the 127 values and make them do  
whatever you want at the other end,  whether a hardware synthesizer or  
a software engine (like Csound). The point is that its a bad thing to  
have only 127 discrete values to define pitch. The "pitch-bend"  
approach to defining pitch is a really bad kludge. To begin with, you  
need to use a different MIDI channel if you want to have more than one  
sounding note at the same time. You need all 16 channels of MIDI to  
support 16 notes of polyphony on a single instrument.

It is simply wrong to say that MIDI "supports" anything. MIDI is  
simply a low-resolution transmission protocol. With the possible  
exception of input devices, MIDI is hardly used anymore by  
professional musicians. Most MIDI sequencers now talk directly to  
software synths (like Csound) and MIDI is handled internally at clock  
rates that are much faster than 32kbauds. A new standard is on the  
rise called OSC (Open Sound Control) which is variable bit rate and is  
transmitted over TCP/IP. "Note cards" are sent over TCP/IP and these  
can contain as much or as little information as one wishes. It is not  
prevalent yet but will soon be for aything that needs to send and  
receive musical (and sound) data.

All this doesn't mean that MIDI should not be supported on the XO.  
There are millions of (mostly awful) MIDI files out there that should  
be playable on the XO.  Csound has complete MIDI support, probably  
more than any hardware synth you can find. Making a MIDIfile player is  
trivial. Albert, why not make this your project? You have the world's  
most powerful software synth at your disposal. This would surely be  
more useful than dancing on a soapbox..   ;-)

In TamTam, we chose to go with something different than MIDI because  
we wanted to parse time in a way that is difficult in MIDI. MIDI has  
no awareness of time and makes things more complicated when it comes  
to designing music generators and editors. Could we have done what we  
are doing using MIDI?  Possibly. Would it have made reading MIDI files  
easier?  Probably not because in TamTam, we are restricted to 5 tracks  
of audio and MIDIfiles contain more than that. The restrictions in  
TamTam are largely due to graphics display.

Best,


ethrop (of TamTam)




On 22-Jan-08, at 11:56 PM, Albert Cahalan wrote:

> imm ian writes:
> On 22 Jan 2008, at 4:11, Albert Cahalan wrote:
>
>>> You don't need to abuse pitch bends. MIDI lets you
>>> redefine the pitches of the notes. You can redefine
>>> middle C to be 1234 Hz if you like.
>>
>> Mmm, well, yes, but...
>
> No "but". You can redefine at will, for individual notes.
>
> If you need a player, try timidity. If you have obsolete
> equipment that can only do pitch bends, you can use Scalia
> to convert a MIDI file. Scalia can also convert back.
>
>> It's not so much the pitches that are the issue, it's the
>> intervals, and MIDI kind of constrains what you can do about
>> that, so you do kind of end up abusing pitch bend...
>
> Nope. (not that abusing pitch bend is a tragedy though)
>
> Since 1996, the MIDI tuning specification has allowed you to
> set the pitch to within 1/16384 of a semitone.
>
> Since 1999, the MIDI tuning extensions have made this a bit
> more efficient.
> _______________________________________________
> Devel mailing list
> Devel at lists.laptop.org
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
>
>