Is MIDI obsolete?

[vurt]

gm midi sax
that alone should be enough to keep midi alive forever

[daGuru]

MIDI is not obsolete. It's just old, like father time, should that be "timing"

[Cosmic Bandito]

I read an interview with BT (I know everyone's favorite) where he said he did extensive testing with midi and the timings off, so he does everything as audio. To an extent I think that's true. Some things (even with the lowest latency setting) I pull my hair out trying to capture the right "feel" but it seems MIDI makes it very tricky (drums and piano parts the hardest for me). But part of that is probably just my bad timing

[ew]

I read an interview with BT (I know everyone's favorite) where he said he did extensive testing with midi and the timings off, so he does everything as audio. To an extent I think that's true. Some things (even with the lowest latency setting) I pull my hair out trying to capture the right "feel" but it seems MIDI makes it very tricky (drums and piano parts the hardest for me). But part of that is probably just my bad timing

Well, then he'd better be using ALL hardware and not a MIDI controller, etc.
There's going to be slop, etc. in ANY MIDI system; mainly because MIDI's a serial interface- that is, it doesn't support parallel data streams for each note.

A quick example- say your synth has a 2ms time between pressing the key and getting the note to sound (which is actually quite good). Now, play a six note chord. The first note will be sent, and then the second, and so on. This means that in a BEST case scenario, you're suddenly looking at 12 ms between the first and last note of a chord. Exceed the instrument's polyphony, and everything goes to hell very quickly. Rapid note ons and offs (such as drums) will slow things down even more.

Keyboard magazine did a couple articles on MIDI timing in the late '80s- early '90s. They're worth digging up...

ew

[Ildon]

I enjoy using MIDI and I don't think it should be obsolete. It makes everything easy and it's a great alternative to standard notation. I guess I'm just oldschool?

[Vegetarian]

If I didn't have MIDI, my studio would fall to bits. Probably because I'd throw my sampler through a window.

Not all my hardware have the same ideas of tempos as the rest of it, and especially not with my computer. I guess the old DIN sync standard would have been fine for all my purposes, but having all the little tempo lights blinking in time with each other makes my life less stressful not to mention having one cable to do everything control-related rather than having one for everything you need to do is much better, and less expensive

[NAD]

MIDI works and it's everywhere. So the incentive to update to the modern era isn't as strong as it might be.

People made the switch to CD's, didn't they?

which is something you just can't do with regular automation or CC#'s.

You can do that if you consider the modular apps
most of them (reaktor , synthedit, synthmaker , max etc) handle midi input and can transform it into another midi output.
with :cc,velocity,note number,after touch,clock etc you can perform some massive transforms beetween i/o
'THE' midi plugin doesn't exist yet (but it 's a modular one i think)

Even in a modular host you still can't get a single instance of a synth to play two notes played simultaniously with different panning. You also can't have two slides going two different ways simultaniously. Midi operated synths (i.e. - all of them) just aren't built that way.

Bit like saying music theory is obsolete ...

No it's not like that at all! Midi hasn't been around for quite as long and I think there's still room for improvement.

Hmmm, I'm sure MIDI will stand the test of time ...

How else would I connect my keyboard to my PC and let Cubase tell it what to play without using a MIDI Interface?

Cheers, Dumb Question? MIDI's all I use

I've heard lot's of people cursing midi but look how far all these composers have been able to stretch it to the limits! The worst midi comment i've heard to date is "midi's crap, it's only good for pinging settings into a hardware Reverb unit".

I enjoy using MIDI and I don't think it should be obsolete. It makes everything easy and it's a great alternative to standard notation. I guess I'm just oldschool?

If I didn't have MIDI, my studio would fall to bits. Probably because I'd throw my sampler through a window.

Please read my post again. Here, I'll make it easy for you:

Or more precisely, should it be obsolete?
I look at the stuff you can do in FL with individual MIDI notes like set cutoff and resonance etc.... You can even have two simultaneous notes panned differently which is something you just can't do with regular automation or CC#'s.
What get me the most are those slide notes which are so awesome. You can have simultaneous slides going all over the place as long as you use the different colors and it's just so much tidier and more efficient than writing in or recording the pitch bend wheel.
So all this got me thinking: Wouldn't it be nice if we could do that with all our VSTi's? Wouldn't it be nice if MIDI were replaced by something more like what FL has going on? Is it time for a change?.... Has this been asked before?

I'm not saying that we should completely do away with MIDI or that it's currently obsolete. What I'm saying is that it would be nice if somebody came up with a new alternate interface that could possibly be slightly more sophisticated than MIDI, like what you've got in FL Studio. Then perhaps if it's good enough companies might start to adopt the interface for newer products (you could have it as an extra option to MIDI) and eventually it might become standard. It might even be possible to develop something that could be transmitted over a regular MIDI cable.

[HelgeG]

For those interested in an alternative to MIDI, check out OSC (as suggested earlier in the thread).

[NAD]

For those interested in an alternative to MIDI, check out OSC (as suggested earlier in the thread).

Sorry HelgeG, I'm kind of stupid.... Could you please explain what OSC is?

[Meffy]

For the record: I use MIDI too, of course, and enjoy using it. But I also enjoy driving in a car powered by an internal-combustion engine. Both have outlived their usefulness, or are getting there pretty quickly. (Obsolescent means in the process of becoming obsolete.)

ew's mention of the articles is right on target IMO.

[edit] Oh, yes -- I switched to CDs... in the mid-1990s. :-D Still have more music on vinyl than on CD.

[HelgeG]

There's a link there

But here's a quick synopsis:

OpenSound Control ("OSC") is a protocol for communication among computers, sound synthesizers, and other multimedia devices that is optimized for modern networking technology and has been used in many application areas.

OSC Features

* Open-ended, dynamic,URL-style symbolic naming scheme
* Numeric and symbolic arguments to messages
* Pattern matching language to specify multiple targets of a single message
* High resolution time tags
* "Bundles" of messages whose effects must occur simultaneously
* Query system to dynamically find out the capabilities of an OSC server and get documentation

Currently OSC is supported in (among others) the following applications: Reaktor, Max/MSP, Plogue Bidule.

[krushing]

Does anyone actually use OSC instead of MIDI? It seems like a great solution, but I've yet to see an easy "real-world" application of it...

[Meffy]

Well, the programs Helge listed above use OSC. :-)



"He likes it! Hey, Mikey!" (In other words, once the right person tries something new and better [like Life cereal] others will realize it's worth trying themselves; until then there will be resistance.)

[JonHodgson]

MIDI is most definately out of date, it's a protocol developed at a time when communication speeds were lower, hardware was more expensive, processors were slower, and people just wanted to control several synths from one keyboard.

We do a lot more with it now, but it would make life a lot nicer if we had a new standard protocol which incorporated the things people do today in music, rather than abusing MIDI.

For example 128 step controllers are really a shame.

Drums messages should be able to include where the drum is hit as well as how hard

Guitar controllers should give position of the pick.

There should be mixer channel level and EQ messages, rather than using controllers which are mapped arbitrarily.

[krushing]

Well, the programs Helge listed above use OSC.

Yea, I know that a couple of progs support it, but all of those support MIDI as well and I think most people still revert to that. I'd just like to hear from someone that's moved on to OSC...probably at least the Lemur users out there?