Tag: DAW
The dark side of Midi
by muser on May.24, 2009, under Musings
A huge thank you to Shueh-li of Xenovibes for being our first artist guest blogger, and for starting off with such an interesting and thoughtful post on Midi. There’s really no substitute for the perspective of an artist who has actually used technology to make a living. When your music and career’s on the line, that’s when you find out if a gizmo works or not.
However, I think it’s worth exploring some of the downsides of Midi in more detail.
It’s important to distinguish between Midi as a control protocol (eg, Midi pedals and mixers that use Midi to control parameters like volume and panning) and Midi as a medium for recording music performances. The former relies primarily on Midi continuous controller (CC) signals – turn a knob and a stream of info gets sent to gradually adjust a setting; while the latter relies on Midi note signals – press a key on a Midi keyboard and the corresponding note gets played by a synthesizer or sampler and/or recorded.
M.i.d.i. makes the world go round
by shuehli on May.22, 2009, under General, Musings
It’s most interesting how Midi has taken the world by storm, yet very little is known about this humble but intelligent servant.
Born in 1981 to audio/design engineers Dave Smith and Chet Wood, Midi brought the world together by becoming the universal language for synthesizers and computers to exchange information about a musical performance (the tune “It’s a small world” plays in the background.)
Within the shell of the interface that gave inter-connectability to electronic musical instruments was the common language that later took on a role that extended far beyond its beginnings as a musical slave.
This protocol consists of the parameters of a musical performance and the operations of the synthesizer, and could include note-on and off messages, velocity, pressure, continuous controller expressions, use of the pitch-bend wheel, footswitch, etc. Represented by bits, bytes, words and nibbles these messages are now being used to gain control of other “intelligent performance machines” such as lighting boards, theatrical equipment and computer graphic generation in real-time interactive shows.
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