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From: | Bernard Hurley |
Subject: | RE: two bugs (?) |
Date: | Thu, 11 Jul 2002 12:02:32 +0100 |
You are probably right about the soundcards, I tend to use MIDI as MIDI, i.e. through the MIDI interface. It's quite easy to pick up second hand MIDI synths quite cheaply, and I've got lots of bits and pieces left over from running a business that sold MIDI interfaces etc. That was back in the days when everyone's computer worked differently.
You can configure more than one MIDI interface to be working at a time. So if, for instance, you had 2 soundcards, you could have two external and two internal MIDI devices - 64 instruments. I think, but I will have to look up the spec (or should I say specs, there are 3 types of MIDI file), that you can control this from one MIDI file.
BTW You can get GPL'd software (Midishare see: http://www.grame.fr/MidiShare/) That can control up to 256 MIDI devices, and connect them together in wierd and wonderful ways. I haven't used it for a long time so I can't say much about how well it works.
Bernard
-----Original Message-----
From: David Raleigh Arnold [mailto:address@hidden]
Sent: 10 July 2002 15:06
To: Bernard Hurley
Cc: 'Mats Bengtsson'; Simon Bailey; address@hidden
Subject: Re: two bugs (?)
On Wed, 10 Jul 2002 16:43:42 Bernard Hurley wrote:
> The situation is a bit more complex than that. As far as I can recall
> (I
> wrote the embedded code for a midi interface many moons ago):
>
> 1) A midi channel can only have one instrument at a time assigned to
> it, but
> it is possible to change instruments.
> 2) A midi channel can be specified to be polyphonic, so that it can
> control
> a polyphonic synthesiser.
>
> In theory, the midi spec allows you to do things like start a note,
> change
> instruments and start another note, chnage back to first instrument
> and stop
> its note then change to second instrument and stop second note all on
> one
> (polyphonic)channel.
>
> Problems:
>
> A) You need a synthesiser that can cope with this sort of complexity,
> many
> don't. Synthesisers on even good soundboards are rather basic.
I thought you were using timidity. All the soundcard gets is
a .wav file. Why would anyone use a midi synthesizer at all?
Even the best are lousy compared to sample players.
But even with timidity, unisons are a problem. Even for rough
error checking, it would be better if midi were in voice
contexts instead of staff contexts. I improved the sound
greatly and got rid of all the errors by having one staff
for each voice, in spite of how ridiculous it would have looked
to me if I had ever looked at it, which I never did.
Get that done first.
The rest of the problem if there is any
is with the midi format itself, I think, drawing from
my vast fund of ignorance on the subject.
Making split midi versions is the easiest way to go IMHO. If
you have a really big score,
divide the parts into several simultaneous midi versions, make .wav
files out of each, and then mix those. You could also get
more subtle dynamics that way if you want to work that hard
at mixing. :-)
------------------------------------------------------------
Information is not knowledge. Belief is not truth.
Indoctrination is not teaching. Tradition is not evidence.
David Raleigh Arnold address@hidden
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