issue01

EMUSIC-L Digest                                      Volume 54, Issue 01

This issue's topics:
	
	[OBSOLETE MIDI] (59 messages)
	Fortran Lives (9 messages)
	Rejected by Custodian (3 messages)

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------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date:         Sat, 3 Jul 1993 02:53:15 -0800
From:         Mike Friesen 
Subject:      Future MIDI Protocol?

In the July 2 Digest Michael O'Hara writes:

>There may be some small possibility that Apples new FireWire (very fast)
>serial protocol could replace MIDI.  This may be a possibility for
>future roland systems among others (there is *some* discussion, I
>understand).  Let your people know if you want to see new faster
>methods of "note event" transmission from device to device.  Just think;
>*one* daisychained cable for even large systems!  At the same time,
>we could make the data structures more modern; lets dump the "channel"
>thing already!

Suggestions and comments:
1. The 'firewire' is HIGHLY unlikely to supplant MIDI because Apple would
need near-unanimous approval before making this a viable option. MIDI was
developed in the first place to be a standard. If IBM and Atari and
Commodore start developing their own high-speed protocol's we'll be back in
the pre-MIDI compatibility soup.

2. Single-daisychained systems will only work under two conditions: first,
that your cables are bidirectional; and second, that you have a static
system configuration. It seems that the single-chain system will have
limited flexibility in dynamically allocating synthesis resources among a
variable number of drivers (keyboards, guitars, computers, drum pads...)

3. It used to be that program numbers were relatively simple. Then synth
makers started playing the one-upmanship game (my synth has more programs
than yours...) and programmers had to start coping with myriad bizarre bank
accessing schemes. Now we want to abandon channels? I would suggest that
the channel offers a sensible logical structure for the handling of
messages. I have no complaint with the suggestion that the number (and
nature) of channels be expanded; but I can't see the benefit of doing away
with that type of structure.


Regarding the 'limitations' of MIDI and the Atari -- last summer a friend
and I did a synth-orchestration for a musical. All the parts were covered
(and quite convincingly, I might add) with an Atari STacy, a single MIDI
output (we did have to squeeze to fit everything into 16 channels, I'll
admit), and a pair of synths (Emu Proteus Orchestral and Kurzweil K1000 w/
KXA). The moral? There's a heck of a difference between necessity and
convenience.

"invention is the mother of necessity..."



Michael Friesen             North Peace Secondary School
        Fort St. John, British Columbia, Canada
It is a tale told by an idiot; full of sound and fury...
********************************************************

------------------------------
Date:         Sat, 3 Jul 1993 18:26:59 -0700
From:         Michael O'Hara 
Subject:      Re: Future MIDI Protocol?

1. The 'firewire' is HIGHLY unlikely to supplant MIDI...

        Well, only IF everyone agrees!  But that takes "grass roots" support.
And that is just the point of my statement.

2. Single-daisychained systems will only work under two conditions: first,
that your cables are bidirectional; and second, that you have a static
system configuration...

        Yes, the cables are bidirectional.  I disagree with the second point.

3. It used to be that program numbers were relatively simple. Then synth
makers started playing the one-upmanship game (my synth has more programs
than yours...) and programmers had to start coping with myriad bizarre bank
accessing schemes. Now we want to abandon channels?

        Well, the concept of using an abstract "number" for each device is
rather dated, as is the whole MIDI standard. The "new" (whatever it may be)
would use named devices, and automatically assign numbers, in a transparent
fashion. At least I hope it would.


        I also would like to add the idea of different data formats for
"real time" controller data, and "playback" controller data. During play-
back, the MIDI player device would recieve starting value, ending value,
and rate-of change (dynamically "delta" updated as needed). This would reduce
zippering problems often found with equipment.

You must LIKE pcs. :)

------------------------------
Date:         Mon, 5 Jul 1993 03:39:41 -0400
From:         Chris Gray 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

Just a few musings:

- barring sysex transfers and sample dumps, MIDI ain't all that slow. A
  device which delayed THRU traffic by store-and-forwarding on an octet
  (byte) basis would only do so by 8/31250 = 0.000256 seconds. You could
  multiply that by 100 and it would still be scarcely audible. Similarly,
  most MIDI events only require 2 or 3 octets, allowing for upwards of
  1300 events/second.

- today's, and thankfully even yesterday's, computers are quite fast. That
  1300 events/second gives the computer 750 microseconds per event. Even
  my old Atarai STe executes a good few hundred instructions in that time.
  Of course badly designed, bloated, inefficient system and sequencing
  software can destroy the processing power of any machine: rumour has it
  that one popular family of computers has difficulty handling a 19200
  bit/second serial port...

- they blame the protocol, they blame the computer, they never blame the
  synth. Why? 'Cos nobody knows what's inside the synth. (But I know my
  MIDI switch box has a Z80 inside :>). We know what's inside the PC (we
  put it there) or the Atari (we read the magazines), even the Mac (but
  no thanks to Apple), and the poor darlings have been benchmarked to death
  - but the synth remains a black box.

- nowt wrong with channels, but 16 is too few. My 6(?)-year-old FB-01 is
  capable of occupying eight all by itself (BTW there _does_ seem to be
  a problem with using 8 sounds at once, but that's another thread). I guess
  16 channels sounded like a helluva lot of polyphony in the days when 64
  kbyte sounded like a helluva lot of memory. Ditto programs, and for that
  matter pitches. Channel names are a software matter - even if intelligent
  devices negotiate numbers for named channels when you connect them up, the
  ``real'' traffic will use numbers, trust me.

That much being said, I can understand the desire for a new protocol - as
well as the reluctance of users (and owners) of loadsa equipment to ditch
it all. Therefore I propose that any new protocol should have a subset
sufficiently similar to the old MIDI to enable cheap, reliable, adaptors
to be built.

Now why don't we start a thread along the lines of ``what I'd like to see
in MIDI Mk II''? E.g.
- hundreds of channels and thousands of programs. Maybe even infinite?
  (major drawback - requires variable-length encoding)
- more pitches, e.g. 96 per octave. Less important IMHO, more velocities.
- more intelligent continuous controllers, as mentioned by a previous
  correspondent. Come to think of it, c.c.'s and on/off velocities are
  just two aspects of envelopes/waveforms - a new ``unified theory''
  approach to this subject would be nice.
- while we're at it, up/download algorithms, not patches. It must be
  possible to agree on a way of expressing most of the established ways
  of synthesising sounds - e.g. FM, additive, subtractive - and new
  methods could be allocated code space as they mature.

Only 9:30 on Monday morning, and so many ideas already... maybe I should
try applying some of this intellectual energy to my work :).

bye,

Chris

__________________________________________________________________________
Chris Gray        cgra@se.alcbel.be         Compu$erve: 100065.2102
   Ignore my broken mailer - the addresses above are the only truth
__________________________________________________________________________

Thanks to Andy Kershaw, I awoke this morning to the strains of Niel Diamond
"unplugged". An I never even knew he'd been plugged in in the first place.
Am I out of touch or what?

------------------------------
Date:         Mon, 5 Jul 1993 02:44:05 -0700
From:         Michael O'Hara 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

Your "musings" are most satisfying to read re: Midi is obsolete.

I *can* put a few words into the ear of a person charged with fixes
to that "bloated" system.. :)

The unification of alg's into midi is a good idea as well.

Any and all suggestions (pro or con) will be forwarded to the ears
of a couple of important persons, at least.

More good ideas, please!

Maybe I *can* do something good for the world... eh, meybe not.
Probably not.. but then again.. das fruten comp, Inc. can pull
a little weight?  Maybe.

------------------------------
Date:         Mon, 5 Jul 1993 13:29:37 ADT
From:         Alan Edwards 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete

Arne Claassen ISE writes:
> I figure since we're already dreaming of the new and improved MIDI...
> If we change the system, why not hook through a wire that is already in
> many synths, provides more than enough transmission rate and could actually
> give us the hoped for daisy chain for Satan.
>
> SCSI.. SMIDI is already out there. The bandwidth is certainly high enough
> for a few hundred MIDI channels, plus smaple and waveform transfer, and all
> the SCSI equipped units would hae to go through a ROM and a software change
> only to adapt.
> Of course here comes the limitation. Only 7 (or is it 10) units in one chain.

it is 7

> Hey that should suffice for the average user,

I think MIDI as it is is good enough for the average user...

> and if you are more ambitious

like a lot of us on this list ?

> an extra SCSI pot for your computer to start a new chain should not cost more
> than your higher level MIDI patchbay, or Studio X interface.

I think it would be considerably more expensive...and what about folx like
me that would require 5 SCSI ports at only 7 instruments/port...( I am
running 9 full MIDI ports now, and have no problems with the speed...)

> PS: BTW, is traffic low areound here or am i getting only half the messages?
>     I don't think i've seen a message from familiar names, like Joe, Mike
>     or Nick. Am i getting only half the picture?
>
Things are really quiet here, also. Is everyone away on vacation ?

Alan

------------------------------
Date:         Mon, 5 Jul 1993 10:56:46 -0500
From:         Arne Claassen ISE 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

I figure since we're already dreaming of the new and improved MIDI...
If we change the system, why not hook through a wire that is already in
many synths, provides more than enough transmission rate and could actually
give us the hoped for daisy chain for Satan.

SCSI.. SMIDI is already out there. The bandwidth is certainly high enough
for a few hundred MIDI channels, plus smaple and waveform transfer, and all
the SCSI equipped units would hae to go through a ROM and a software change
only to adapt.
Of course here comes the limitation. Only 7 (or is it 10) units in one chain.
Hey that should suffice for the average user, and if you are more ambitious
an extra SCSI pot for your computer to start a new chain should not cost more
than your higher level MIDI patchbay, or Studio X interface.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Arne F. Claassen                            |
|                                                     |
| "It is by my will alone I set my mind in motion"                       |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
PS: BTW, is traffic low areound here or am i getting only half the messages? I don't think i've seen a message from familiar names, like Joe, Mike
    or Nick. Am i getting only half the picture?

------------------------------
Date:         Mon, 5 Jul 1993 13:26:11 PDT
From:         metlay 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

>    I don't think i've seen a message from familiar names, like Joe, Mike
>    or Nick. Am i getting only half the picture?

I've been busy trying to convince an uncaring world to buy my CD. Joe
was up here for dinner a couple of weeks ago. Nick, I won't speak for.

--
mike metlay * atomic city * box 81175 pgh pa 15217-0675 * metlay@netcom.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Wow, now my hand's all sticky! Yum."                       (metlay's wife)

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 6 Jul 1993 10:07:43 EDT
From:         Tim Thompson 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

> - they blame the protocol, they blame the computer, they never blame the
>   synth. Why? 'Cos nobody knows what's inside the synth. (But I know my
>   MIDI switch box has a Z80 inside :>). We know what's inside the PC (we
>   put it there) or the Atari (we read the magazines), even the Mac (but
>   no thanks to Apple), and the poor darlings have been benchmarked to death
>   - but the synth remains a black box.

Within the last year or so, either Keyboard or Electronic Musician (I forget
which) did a fascinating and detailed benchmark of the delays produced by
a variety of synths.  So, now you can blame the synth, too.  ...Tim...

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 6 Jul 1993 19:28:42 GMT
From:         "Daniel S. Riley" 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete

Arne Claassen ISE writes:
arne> SCSI.. SMIDI is already out there. The bandwidth is certainly
arne> high enough for a few hundred MIDI channels, plus smaple and
arne> waveform transfer, and all the SCSI equipped units would hae to
arne> go through a ROM and a software change only to adapt.  Of course
arne> here comes the limitation. Only 7 (or is it 10) units in one
arne> chain.

And Alan Edwards said:
aedwards> it is 7

More if you use luns, though support for luns is still somewhat
spotty.  Also bad is the cable length limit of a few meters for
singled-ended SCSI (more for differential, but few vendors support
differential, and converters are not cheap).  And the cables
(reasonable quality ones) tend to be pretty expensive, and not very
flexible.  SCSI also doesn't give you any bandwidth guarantees, so
that sample transfer could interfere with the timing of that sequence
playing at the same time.

Anyway, isn't ATM supposed to take care of all our problems?

--
-Dan Riley                          Internet: dsr@lns598.tn.cornell.edu
-Wilson Lab, Cornell University     HEPNET/SPAN: lns598::dsr (44630::dsr)
              "Distance means nothing/To me." -Kate Bush

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 7 Jul 1993 00:19:23 -0700
From:         Michael O'Hara 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete

Comments on a few points:

Using SCSI:
        SCSI has far too little in the way of nodes, the cables are just
plain too expensive and the limitations on length are too severe.  Tests
(rumors here) say 10 meters max per length of firewire cable.  Adaquate.

        The number of nodes is like 64 max in a single "chain" i think..
this is just about enough.

Pitches: Yes, 256 sounds like a nice round number to me. (Per octave)
At least 16 octaves as well.

Unification of data formats:
        Yow what a good idea; I don't know if that one could be pulled
off.. manufacturers being what they are.  But the holy grail to be sure.

        Certainly however; we could agree on some better and more common
formats for moving patch data.  And standard "variables" like LFO1 etc
may be possible; even if the synths use that data in much different ways.


Things that make you go Hmmm.
cetacean@netcom.netcom.com

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 7 Jul 1993 11:06:32 GMT
From:         "P.U.Computer Sc. Dept." 
Subject:      


On (Mon, 5 Jul 1993 03:39:41 -0400) Chris Gray 
said Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

> - more pitches

Yes, please!

>                  , e.g. 96 per octave.

Actually, even more. People around here are quite unhappy about the difference
between 2^(1/3) {equal temper true third} and 5/4, which is about 14 cents.
Assuming the pitches are to be equally spaced (to do anything else MIDI/II
needs to make assumptions about what is desired by the users), I figure 256
pitches per octave, which affords a resolution of about 5 cents, may be just
enough.

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 7 Jul 1993 13:48:11 EDT
From:         JFOOTE@BROWNVM.BITNET
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete

  Why not piggyback MIDI on a serial audio format? I know AES/EBU has at
least 1 bit per sample for user defined info; at 48 kHz stereo that's
about one and a half times MIDI bandwith, ON TOP OF the audio. With a slight
enhancement to the specs, you could have a mode where the audio data is
used for sysex or sample dumps -- unset the valid bit so dumb D/A's won't
try to play it. Hopefully, everything sooner or later will talk some
digital audio format; it'd be a shame if that's all the format was used for.



  Jonathan Foote           :                        :
Division of Engineering    :        internet:       :      BITNET:
Brown University,  Box D   :    jtf@lems.brown.edu  :   JFOOTE@BROWNVM
Providence, RI  02912      :                        :

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 7 Jul 1993 16:18:10 EDT
From:         Simon Weatherill 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete

Is AES/EBU realtime though?  I was under the impression that it was
batched.

                                Simon A.T. Weatherill
                                Senior Network Engineer

+---------------------------------------------------------------+
+ Burlington Coat Factory      Voice: (603) 643-2800            +
+ Schoolhouse Lane               Fax: (603) 643-3945            +
+ Etna, NH 03750            Internet: simon.weatherill@coat.com +
+---------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 8 Jul 1993 04:33:53 -0400
From:         Andy Farnell 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

Just a quick comment,

MIDI will not be replaced by SCSI, firewire, Ethernet or any other physical
level system which cannot offer guarunteed delivery. Remember MIDI is real
time, even if it is a slow asynchronous transfer method its maximun transfer
time is limited. For a next generation MIDI it will be the protocol which
changes significantly probably offering something like the the interface
between orchestra and score in CSOUND (ie loads more real time performance
information and on the fly data transfer of samples and synth data. It will
probably move right up to a 10MB/s data rate to cope with this.


Andy Farnell
Computing and Cognition
Bournemouth University
England

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 8 Jul 1993 13:53:09 +0200
From:         Adam MIROWSKI 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

>
> MIDI will not be replaced by SCSI, firewire, Ethernet or any other physical
> level system which cannot offer guarunteed delivery. Remember MIDI is real
> time, even if it is a slow asynchronous transfer method its maximun transfer
> time is limited. For a next generation MIDI it will be the protocol which
> changes significantly probably offering something like the the interface
> between orchestra and score in CSOUND (ie loads more real time performance
> information and on the fly data transfer of samples and synth data. It will
> probably move right up to a 10MB/s data rate to cope with this.

Couldn't we think about a two layer solution?

The existing MIDI connections would be
kept for transmitting real-time execution
data, and a sort of "local bus" would be
added to transmit big volume data like
for example samples and patches. The length
of a "local bus" cable could be shorter,
perfect for studio usage. This "local bus"
could be even made of a single optic fiber
cable, which would rather not limit its
length. "Local bus" data could be "folded"
so as to be able to be transmitted over
old MIDI connections, at least partly,
so that people on low budget could still
only use old MIDI connections only.
This would also eliminate the need for
converters for old devices.

An extended protocol could be available
on the "local bus" to transmit more
channels, more notes per octave, etc.
maybe using two bytes for status
instead of one.

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 8 Jul 1993 11:49:58 EDT
From:         JFOOTE@BROWNVM.BITNET
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete

>From:         Simon Weatherill 
>
>Is AES/EBU realtime though?  I was under the impression that it was
>batched.

It's about as real-time as it gets. Works just like a patchcord, but it's
digital. My only beef is that they use Cannon connectors which leads to
the distressing possibility that digital and analog signals might get
confused. ("Doh! I just put AES/EBU into a microphone preamp!  Say...
that sounds sort of cool...")

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 8 Jul 1993 08:52:54 -0700
From:         Michael O'Hara 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

Fire wire offers "isocronous" or "predefined" delivery.

At up to *400MB/sec!!*

This is enough for 1,000 synths.

trust me. firewire is many times faster than SCSI.

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 8 Jul 1993 12:37:00 EDT
From:         John Rossi III 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

I'm just getting into this discussion, which has apparently digressed into
discussion of esoteric communication schemes, and am just curious about
the nature of the actual implication of the subject of MIDI as obsolete.
Personally, I really have'nt met a real MIDI barrier, and because of the
complexity of my studio, I would have to think that any apparent obsolescence
in MIDI is psychological rather than real.  Granted, its not zippy for
transfering sample files or other large SysEx dumps, but for its most
intended (musical communication use), it has all the properties which
will make it pretty much obsolescence proof.. i.e. its cheap to implement,
its standardized, it works, and it's here.  Similarly, Toyotas will never
be made obsolete by the introduction of faster and fancier Ferraris.

John

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 8 Jul 1993 22:31:45 GMT
From:         Hendrik Jan Veenstra 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete

Michael O'Hara  writes:

>Pitches:
>        Yes, 256 sounds like a nice round number to me. (Per octave)
>At least 16 octaves as well.

*16* octaves ???  Must have been either very early or very late when you wrote
that :-).  That would give frequencies from e.g. 1 Hz to 65.5 kHz.  Or do you
want to be able to 'play' LFO too? -- .3 Hz to 19.5 kHz could make sense...

>        Certainly however; we could agree on some better and more common
>formats for moving patch data.  And standard "variables" like LFO1 etc
>may be possible; even if the synths use that data in much different ways.

Why not have, say 4096 controllers, instead of those lousy 128.  That way a
manufacturer could link all parameters to a controller.  How would that be for
real-time sound-shaping -- and never having to use tedious sys-ex hacking
anymore...  Wow, I must be dreaming... :)
And of course we should get rid of that silly '128' limit -- both for
controller values and for velocity et al.  Know how a MIDI fade-in (controller
7) of e.g. an organ sounds (in the low values -- above say 40 it starts to
sound allright) ?  ta ta ta Ta Ta Ta TA TA TA.... instead of taaaaaAAAAAA...
Horrible...


--
Hendrik Jan Veenstra (hjv@phil.ruu.nl)
Dept. of Philosophy
University of Utrecht             ... and they built up with their bare hands
The Netherlands                       what we still can't do today ...

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 8 Jul 1993 19:47:20 PDT
From:         Casey Dunn 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

You said (Re: Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks))
> Fire wire offers "isocronous" or "predefined" delivery.

god, Tachyon-net! it gets there before you send it!

jeez, I've been hanging out at this east-coast nuke plant all week,
applying advanced tech to particles...and not a word of this has
slipped out at all...

precognition - "hey, it's playing what I intended to play...cool"

-casey, spinning in awe.

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 8 Jul 1993 19:51:01 PDT
From:         Casey Dunn 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

(j. rossi? naw...can't be...making inflammatory statements about
 toyota's vs ferrarris at that...naw... ;)...)

what's wrong with parrellel wires; scsi for sample dumps and midi
(with the proper fan-out devices) for the simpler note-on and such...

and yes, it's the fan-out devices that are important!

------------------------------
Date:         Fri, 9 Jul 1993 19:09:49 BST
From:         "Steven D. Bramson" 
Subject:      MIDI is obsolete

Some more musings on this subject (IMHO)

(I have only been into this subject so please forgive any blunders)

On the transmission medium -

There seems to be differences of opinion as to whether 31 k bits per sec is fast
enough.  It probably is for performance data but not for sysex sample dumps etc.
 If you want to enhance the protocol, you are going to send more data some you
must up the bandwidth.  I suspect some of those who are happy with it have the
luxury of multiple midi output ports, 2 ports = 2 x bandwidth, assuming your
PC/mac/atari/amiga can feed them.

SCSI is out for me due to distance limitations and total number of devices.
Firewire sounds jolly exotic but I find 400 MB per second hard to believe even
if the B is a bit rather than a byte.  I think Ethernet would be a good bet.
You can use it now, you can run it 180 metres for thin ethernet and you can hang
 say 30 devices off it without too much problem.  An objection is that is a bus
and not a point to point link like a MIDI serial cable.  This means that all
devices compete for the bandwidth.  However all devices can listen
simultaneously, only one can transmit.  As the bandwidth is 10 M bits per sec,
this doesn't seem a serious limitation.  Also it is cheap, under 100 pounds
sterling for a card (probably 100 dollars and much less in bulk).

On the protocol -

I think you must up the number of channels.  With multi-timbral keyboards able
to read several channels, what do you do for multiple keyboards?  Even 256 is
not very future proof, how about 65536 (2 byte channel number).

If you use 2 bytes for a note value you could just have 100 = one semitione thus
giving 1 cent precision.  This should satisfy the microtone fans.  Also note 64
simply becomes note 6400.  I don't see that range is a problem.  People are
asking for 1 Hz and less.  a) you can't hear it, although the I guess you can
feal it like an earth quake.  b) you need a jolly big loud speaker to produce
it.  If you want to plug your LFO in to a note, send it  a control parameter
rather than a note on message.

I'm interested in getting midi song performances to sound more human.  It would
be nice to be able to change note volume gradually in mid note.  This for
individual notes, not just a swell pedal for the whole instrument.

How about some way of phrasing so you can you can change volume and perhaps
speed up and slow down over a few bars (measures).  Also how about an ability to
put slightly more emphasis in beats 1 and 3 and less on 2 and 4.

Perhaps this is more in the realms of what a sequencer should do.


Steven Bramson

sdb@jet.uk

------------------------------
Date:         Sat, 10 Jul 1993 09:27:27 +0000
From:         Nick Rothwell 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

>trust me. firewire is many times faster than SCSI.

Erm, I don't think it is because it doesn't exist yet.

                        Nick Rothwell   |   cassiel@cassiel.demon.co.uk
     CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance   |   cassiel@cix.compulink.co.uk

------------------------------
Date:         Sun, 11 Jul 1993 11:49:14 -0700
From:         Michael O'Hara 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

>>Erm, I don't think it is because it doesn't exist yet.

hah.. A lot you know. :)

I have held it in my hands.
Either it is very good VR or it is real.

Chips for developers and cables sampling NOW>
design it in while it's hot bay beee.

------------------------------
Date:         Mon, 12 Jul 1993 04:44:49 -0400
From:         Chris Gray 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete

> Some more musings on this subject (IMHO)

> (I have only been into this subject so please forgive any blunders)

But of course.

> On the transmission medium -

> There seems to be differences of opinion as to whether 31 k bits per sec is
fast
> enough.  It probably is for performance data but not for sysex sample dumps
etc.
>  If you want to enhance the protocol, you are going to send more data some you
> must up the bandwidth.  I suspect some of those who are happy with it have the
> luxury of multiple midi output ports, 2 ports = 2 x bandwidth, assuming your
> PC/mac/atari/amiga can feed them.

Yup, 31 kbit/sec maybe enough for current MIDI, but if we send 4 times as many
bits then it becomes 4 times as slow.

Upping the bit-rate encounters two obstacles:
1) where devices are daisy-chained they must all operate at the bit-rate of
   the slowest, or trouble will ensue.
2) the existing electrical characteristics (unbalanced current-loop, opto
   isolators) may not be reliable at high bit rates.

Note: these days 2 Mbit/sec on a twisted pair is standard (=cheap?) technology,
and 16 Mbit/sec has been demonstrated.

> SCSI is out for me due to distance limitations and total number of devices.

Yup. And the connectors cost a fortune.

> Firewire sounds jolly exotic but I find 400 MB per second hard to believe even
> if the B is a bit rather than a byte.

I suspect so, in which case I would have written Mb rather than MB. Or to be
safe: Mbit.

It's still bloody fast - we're talking UHF frequencies here.

> I think Ethernet would be a good bet.
> You can use it now, you can run it 180 metres for thin ethernet and you can
hang
>  say 30 devices off it without too much problem.  An objection is that is a
bus
> and not a point to point link like a MIDI serial cable.  This means that all
> devices compete for the bandwidth.  However all devices can listen
> simultaneously, only one can transmit.  As the bandwidth is 10 M bits per sec,
> this doesn't seem a serious limitation.  Also it is cheap, under 100 pounds
> sterling for a card (probably 100 dollars and much less in bulk).

The trouble with Ethernet is the unpredictable delays introduced by collision
detection and recovery. But that shouldn't be a problem provided we only use
10% of the bandwidth, which still means 8 times what we have now.

100 pound sterling represents a substantial proportion of any synth _I_'m
likely to buy. But indeed the technology will get cheaper.

> On the protocol -

> I think you must up the number of channels.  With multi-timbral keyboards able
> to read several channels, what do you do for multiple keyboards?  Even 256 is
> not very future proof, how about 65536 (2 byte channel number).

I just had this nightmare in which I was trying to set a synth to receive on
channel 31416. The manual said:
    If you are desirous to use other channel, this is by holding down button
    `rec', `play', and `clear', while with other hand select channel using
    keyboard. Note C2-D3 are digit 0-9, and E3 being signal number finished.

Either we would have to re-introduce rigidity by introducing concepts like
`channel group' or `subchannel', or the devices would have to sort it out
amongst themselves.

> If you use 2 bytes for a note value you could just have 100 = one semitione
thus
> giving 1 cent precision.  This should satisfy the microtone fans.  Also note
64
> simply becomes note 6400.  I don't see that range is a problem.  People are
> asking for 1 Hz and less.  a) you can't hear it, although the I guess you can
> feal it like an earth quake.  b) you need a jolly big loud speaker to produce
> it.  If you want to plug your LFO in to a note, send it  a control parameter
> rather than a note on message.

Having a kind of `virtual origin' like note zero = 1 Hz could simplify matters
if you were into remote transpositions and stuff like that.

> I'm interested in getting midi song performances to sound more human.  It
would
> be nice to be able to change note volume gradually in mid note.  This for
> individual notes, not just a swell pedal for the whole instrument.

No problem, when every note can have its own channel...

> How about some way of phrasing so you can you can change volume and perhaps
> speed up and slow down over a few bars (measures).  Also how about an ability
to
> put slightly more emphasis in beats 1 and 3 and less on 2 and 4.

> Perhaps this is more in the realms of what a sequencer should do.

It is. Some do.

> Steven Bramson

> sdb@jet.uk
__________________________________________________________________________
Chris Gray        cgra@se.alcbel.be         Compu$erve: 100065.2102
   Ignore my broken mailer - the addresses above are the only truth
__________________________________________________________________________
Yes, I *am* in charge of tilted windmills.                      -anon

------------------------------
Date:         Mon, 12 Jul 1993 13:13:06 -0500
From:         "David C. Bloom" 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

>
> Fire wire offers "isocronous" or "predefined" delivery.
>
> At up to *400MB/sec!!*
>
> This is enough for 1,000 synths.
>
> trust me. firewire is many times faster than SCSI.
>

I've been good.  I haven't flamed in on this disucssion til now.
But I gotta ask you guys: Is there a _Requirement_ for this kind
of speed apart from the fact that it's This Year's Technology,
which automatically makes it cooler than last year's?  Don't
quote me hypotheticals: I want a _real_testimonial_ from someone
who's choked a MIDI network.  If you can't squeeze it all on one
wire, why not try two?  Lyle does this, and you can, too.

Implementing a new protocol is bad enough - getting the market
to accept it is worse!  Why not use what's available?  __David

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
<>         david c. bloom           <>                                      <>
<> open networks engineering, inc.  <>  What is the price of an afternoon   <>
<> 777 e. eisenhower pkwy, ste 650  <>  when a small girl is soothed in     <>
<>    ann arbor, michigan  48108    <>  your arms, when the sun bolts       <>
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>  through a doorway and both you      <>
<>  net  dcb@one.com    <>   \ \    <>  and the the child are very young?   <>
<>  vox  313.996.9900   <>    0-0   <>                   __Dorothy Evslin   <>
<>  fax  313.996.9908   <>     .    <>                                      <>
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

------------------------------
Date:         Mon, 12 Jul 1993 12:23:56 -0700
From:         Michael O'Hara 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete

Sorry; the exact speed of the "fully implemented" firewire is
396.2 mbit/sec.

------------------------------
Date:         Mon, 12 Jul 1993 18:10:00 EDT
From:         John Rossi III 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete

I'm up to 512 channels now and I find that to be plenty.  As a matter of
fact, the number of channels is not really the limiting step, its the
number of indepemdent MIDI cables available.  With 32 going in each
direction, you still can have full control of only 32 devices.  In my
current 4 MTP system, I probably only use about 6-10 channels at any
one time.  It was only after I put Galaxy in did I realize a need for
all the separate cables since most patch dumps require full duplex
MIDI connections.

John

------------------------------
Date:         Mon, 12 Jul 1993 23:33:52 GMT
From:         "Daniel S. Riley" 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete

On Mon, 12 Jul 1993 04:44:49 -0400,
Chris Gray  said:
cgra> Note: these days 2 Mbit/sec on a twisted pair is standard
cgra> (=cheap?) technology, and 16 Mbit/sec has been demonstrated.

2 Mbit/sec token ring and 10 Mbit/sec ethernet over twisted pair are
commonplace, and 100 Mbit/sec CDDI (FDDI protocol over copper twisted
pair, shielded or unshielded) is beginning to be widely available.
Expensive, but it will come down.

cgra> The trouble with Ethernet is the unpredictable delays introduced
cgra> by collision detection and recovery. But that shouldn't be a
cgra> problem provided we only use 10% of the bandwidth, which still
cgra> means 8 times what we have now.

ATM is supposed to solve this by guaranteeing bandwidth to high
priority clients--which it manages by transmitting everything in tiny
little packets (~50 bytes is what I remember).  ATM is still a ways
from being real, but it doesn't seem to be any more vaporous than
Firewire...

--
-Dan Riley                          Internet: dsr@lns598.tn.cornell.edu
-Wilson Lab, Cornell University     HEPNET/SPAN: lns598::dsr (44630::dsr)
              "Distance means nothing/To me." -Kate Bush

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 13 Jul 1993 07:32:23 +0000
From:         Nick Rothwell 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

>I have held it in my hands.
>Either it is very good VR or it is real.

OK, so this firewire thing exists. Sounds interesting, actually. I must
read up about it.

So: do you have a date for when MIDI will get replaced by this new technology?

                        Nick Rothwell   |   cassiel@cassiel.demon.co.uk
     CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance   |   cassiel@cix.compulink.co.uk

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 13 Jul 1993 09:13:48 -0700
From:         Michael O'Hara 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

>>So: do you have a date for when MIDI will get replaced by this new technology?

This is a two parter:

Apples' new internal spec for music data is a MUCH better one than MIDI is.
I have been talking to the designer (and this is one I can talk about)
16 bit frequency resoulution among other things  - this is a MODERN standard.
I will post a summary tommorrow or something..

The other part; firewire; is a new, faster serial protocol.  There is at least
one entity creating a firewire/midi converter.  This could be installed IN any
product as well.  THESE ARE SEPERATE TOPICS! :)

Implementing the first part would require the second IMHO. It is time.

MIDI is 20 years old. and in the words of Mr. VanBrink: Why in the hell
should the musician have to hover over the equipment and mess with channel
numbers, double cables, etc?

Equipment designed under this new standard can "answer questions" like
what are you? how many voices? etc, etc.

It is time. Down with CP/M! :)

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 13 Jul 1993 09:46:40 PDT
From:         Peter Uchytil 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

> The other part; firewire; is a new, faster serial protocol.  There is at least
> one entity creating a firewire/midi converter.  This could be installed IN any
> product as well.  THESE ARE SEPERATE TOPICS! :)
>
Is there some public spec describing firewire?  I have never heard of it,
but it sounds pretty interesting.

> MIDI is 20 years old.
>
Huh?  I assume you mean the technology used to implement MIDI.  Wasn't the
spec developed in the 1983/84 time frame?

> Equipment designed under this new standard can "answer questions" like
> what are you? how many voices? etc, etc.
>
My "real job"(TM) is building SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol)
proxy agents for telecommunications equipment.  Things like you mention are
very cool, but it's always hard to adopt a new standard.  I'm not saying
that it shouldn't be done, it's just hard.  SNMP now has a wide installed
base and now there's a new spec SNMPv2.  The new protocol has lots of
wonderful things the first didn't, but v2 is incompatible with v1.  You can
guess how happy that made people.

I would think any new MIDI protocol would have to be backwards compatible.
I know that doesn't make for the niftiest, cleanest design, but I know I
wouldn't buy something that couldn't talk to my existing setup which I have
put a sizeable chunk of my income into.

Just some thoughts.  Please give me a pointer to the firewire spec!

Pete

--
Peter Uchytil    <>    peter@kentrox.com    <>    ADC Kentrox - Portland,OR
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I wish I could ignore all of history/I'd mix up the colors/Repaint the scenery"

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 13 Jul 1993 09:59:06 PDT
From:         Casey Dunn 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

hmm. this "source", I hope, isn't one of the 2500 Apple folks who will
soon be littering the streets with resume's...

That company is starting to look like the Xerox of the 90's; too many
good ideas on back shelves and lame ones, overpriced, on the shelves.

MIDI's model is retro. It will be replaced. but don't hold your
breath.

c a s e y, prognosticator.

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 13 Jul 1993 13:36:00 EDT
From:         John Rossi III 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

MIDI is not 20 years old.  In fact, it justy recently had its 10th birthday.
The first paragraph made no sense any way I tried to interpret it.  I tried
the firsat sentence first (as would seem like the logical approach to
reading a paragraph) and all I could include is that Apple has some new
music standard.  In the second sentence I find that you know something about
some designer, presumably at Apple.  In the following section we learn about
some 16 bit frequency specification which somehow is better than MIDI which
(except for the serial transmission rate, has no frequency specification..
Certainly noty one that anybody who knew anything about MIDI or serial
specs, in general, would ever talk about in bits representing frequency.).
Why am I more suspicious of firewire than I was before I even heard of it?

John

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 13 Jul 1993 13:38:00 EDT
From:         John Rossi III 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

BTW, what does CP/M have to do with anything?  And, no, its not really time.

John

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 13 Jul 1993 13:44:11 -0400
From:         Patrick Robinson 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

John 3 SEZ, among other things:

> Why am I more suspicious of firewire than I was before I even heard of it?

Welcome back, John.  We've missed you.

;-)

-Patrick
 pgr@ramandu.ext.vt.edu

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 13 Jul 1993 15:47:00 EDT
From:         John Rossi III 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

> Welcome back, John.  We've missed you.
>
> ;-)

Sarcasm will get you everywhere...

John

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 14 Jul 1993 08:58:07 -0500
From:         Mark Clark 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

Somebody still uses CP/M?  They need help.

Mark :)

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 14 Jul 1993 09:14:49 -0500
From:         Kirk Corey 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

On Tue, 13 Jul 1993, John Rossi III wrote:

> BTW, what does CP/M have to do with anything?  And, no, its not really time.
>
> John

I believe the comparison implied was "MIDI is dead like CP/M is dead."
Personally, I prefer "MIDI is dead like FORTRAN is dead."  I think that
people abandoned CP/M more quickly and less reluctantly than they did
FORTRAN.  I think that the death of MIDI will also be of the long,
protracted variety.

*notices $0.02 withdrawn from checking account*

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Dr. Kirk Corey                 [insert       Electronic Systems Administrator
kirk-corey@uiowa.edu          disclaimer                      School of Music
"When in doubt, mumble."        here]                  The University of Iowa

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 14 Jul 1993 11:08:00 -0400
From:         Chris Gray 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

> Somebody still uses CP/M?  They need help.

> Mark :)

I think the implication was that MIDI is as out-of-date as CP/M. However,
as has been pointed out, MIDI os actually only as out-of-date as MSDOS.

-- Chris

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 14 Jul 1993 08:26:29 -0700
From:         Michael O'Hara 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

Sorry for this "repeat" - call waiting interuppted the first attempt!

---------------

I am posting the entire Macintsh Music Standard at

        ftp.netcom.com

anonymous login. The file (in mac and later today, PC word format) will
be located in the directory

        pub/cetacean

The highlights of the standard are

        MIDI compatability
        - this allows the device manufacturer to write a gestalt type of
        driver for his machine in order to extract more transparent
        operation, if so desired.  The "old" way of doing things has some
        support as well.  General MIDI is supported.

        No 16 poly timberality per device
        (er, limit that is - I hate line editors)

        Support for micro tuning

        A new data structure called a "component" that can be an internal
        driver for an external device, an internal card, and smart external
        devices.

        Smart controllers, called "knobs"

        and much other stuff.  this is a copyrighted document, but I have
        the permission of the author to disseminate it here.  Please
        please distribute this in the complete form.

And of course, your comments are MOST WELCOME!


Please note that this standard is "hardware independent", and firewire is not
a requirement.  But there are Firewire to MIDI convertors under development
(I am also doing one "just for fun" myself)

I have now, a publicrelease flyer from apple; I can repeat this information
here for all.

----- CUT HERE -----

The Fine Print

*       Maximum burst speed of 98.3 Mb/sec, scalable up to 393.2 Mb/sec
        a year from now, with full backwards compatibility

*       Mamimum sustained transfer rate of up to 40MB/sec. (after a year)

*       Connection Topology: Devices can conect together in any configuration
        except a closed loop; can branch and daisy chain.

*       Range: Devices an be seprated by up to 16 cable hops.  The longest
        apple supplied cable (15 ft) means devices may be as far apart as
        200 ft or so (note - 10 meter (30 ft) cables seem to work too. -
        cetacean)

*       Expansion: Up to 63 devices in a "local" cluster. Using a bridge,
        up to 1023 clusters can be hooked together.

*       Signal levels: Less than +-200 mV @ 4mA (very low RF emmisions)

*       Power: The cables carry power between 8-40 VDC at up to 1.5A. Small
        devices can be powered directly from this.

*       Cost: In volume, this is less than SCSI, but with a tremendous
        preformance gain
(this has been somewhat paraphrased by yours truly)

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 14 Jul 1993 12:12:00 EDT
From:         John Rossi III 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

On the contrary. To whatever extent FORTRAN is actually dead (vs the actual
death of CP/M), is largely a matter of it being easily replaced by a
competing atlernative with greater power.  Granted, CPUs have changed
quite dramatically in the past 20 years and many machines which were
probably quite adept at handling FORTRAN, COBOL and the like back then
would have some problems with today's mega-languages and object oriented
platforms.  I do think, however, that it was the accessability of better
hardware which has driven the push for new programming environments.  That
is very different than what we have in the MIDI world.  First, one has to
deal with the installed current MIDI user base as a matter of economic
interest.  As somebody has mentioned, any MIDI replacement would have to
be a superset of MIDI or it would stand zero market chance of being
successful.  Second, unlike the improving CPU situation which could fuel
the movement away from FORTRAN, today's MIDI hardware has not really
outgrown MIDI itself.  Yes, sending samples and long SysEx messages is
slow (although corrected somewhat by SMIDI extensions), the real meat of
the concept (i.e., musical event transmission and receipt) is not really
hampered by the current spec.  People continue to rag on MIDI's limitations
but few people who are arguing its demise have been able to define its
limitations in any way other than in comparing it to other, more sophisticated
systems which are either vaporware, or limited niche systems only an
engineer could appreciate.  Believe me, the unfolding of a MIDI controlled
dishwasher would be a lot more important for its continued success than
a quadrillion gigabit full duplex alternative protocol would be for MIDI
demise.  As long as MIDI continues to meet the needs of the majority of
the market it will not go away.  That's the nice thing about unrestricted
free markets...by definition, they can't be wrong.  As long as somebody
doesn't legislate MIDI out of existence, it will be here for a very long
while.

John

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 14 Jul 1993 11:38:17 -0500
From:         Mark Clark 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

I wish FORTRAN *would* die.  Let's not put the nail in MIDI's coffin yet.

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 14 Jul 1993 16:52:00 GMT
From:         "JON BOXALL." 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

Hmmmm...
        But why does the transition from MIDI to something new HAVE to be
painful?  Forgive me if I'm wrong (I don't have much of an electronics back-
ground), but if the first generation of synths employing the new technology
had a MIDI spec as well, then they could talk to both, and possibly form a
link between future instruments and old MIDI equipment.  Also, it wouldn't be
that painful to get a retrofit from MIDI to whatever came next would it?  Most
pre-MIDI synths can be converted for under 100 pounds at the moment, can't they?
        The other thing is that synths seem to go out of date so damn quickly
anyway, and most people are buying new stuff all the time, so the transition
could happen almost naturally.
        I think it'd be a big step, but not neccessarily a big deal...

        Jon.

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 14 Jul 1993 12:54:00 EDT
From:         John Rossi III 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

After seeing that spec list, its an absolute wonder that Apple stock
retains any value whatsoever.  In as much as the Mac population globally
represents a very small population of MIDI users, the probability of this
thing actually succeeding is, in my view, incredibly small.  First of all,
nobody but Mac musicians with EE degrees is going to care.  Since I
believe that even though Mac MIDI technology as represented by the
quality and complexity of the software and hardware available for it is the
most sophisticated of any platform, I don't think that the majority of Mac
users are going to be willing to adopt a new standard.  It always amazes
me when I go to a Mac powered studio, the Mac and its software are revered
as gods and are only handled in standardized ways (i.e., heaven forbid
somebody attempted to pull a serial cable while the computer is on).  This
subset of the Mac MIDI world probably makes up the greatest market force
in Mac MIDI.  It is that subset who will be least likely to move to a 'new'
system.  Clearly, this is another bizarre Apple concept which will have
little impact on either MIDI or the computer world, and will probably
result in the eventual layoff of another large portion of the Apple
workforce.  That is, of course, if anybody, even at Apple, is taking this
seriously.

John

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 14 Jul 1993 19:28:36 -0600
From:         Mike Bishop 
Subject:      Obsolete MIDI

For those of you discussing the obsolescence of MIDI, I would like to
suggest some reading. There is an article by Gareth Loy in the Computer
Music Journal (MIT Press) that was published just after the MIDI spec came
out. He gives an in-depth discussion on what MIDI is and why it was not
sufficient for academic emusic from the beginning. He states that MIDI is
simply a gesture language and does not have any control over the pure
sound. Also, there is no two-way communication. He also discusses the
issue of speed. It's very good.

_Musicians Make a Standard: The MIDI Phenomenon_ Gareth Loy, Computer
Music Journal, Vol. 9, No. 4, Winter 1985 (no page number)


 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Michael Bishop       |     "Any technology sufficiently advanced is      |
| mbishop@linfield.edu | indistinguishable from magic."                    |
| Linfield College     |                                                   |
| McMinnville Oregon   |      - Aurthur C Clarke                           |
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 15 Jul 1993 03:53:57 -0400
From:         Chris Gray 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

Quoth the cetacean:

> I am posting the entire Macintsh Music Standard at

>         ftp.netcom.com

> anonymous login. The file (in mac and later today, PC word format) will
> be located in the directory                        ^^^^^^^
                                          Remind me to get word installed
                                          on my VAXstation and Atari STe
>         pub/cetacean

No sign of this directory at 0700 GMT sorry UCT on 15/7 sorry 7/15.

The highlights you mention seem quite reasonable, or would if I had a clue
what a gestalt type driver was. I have encountered paranoid software and
catatonic devices, not to mention schizophrenic user interfaces --- but I
never realised they were amenable to therapy.

The biggest question is whether Apple's characteristic attitude ``we have
the solution, now fit your problem to it'' is going to work on the synth
manufacturers and that motley ban of maniacs collectively known as
``musicians''. Strict enforcement of company guidelines on software
developers helped to make the Mac what it is, but this time Apple may be
biting off more than they can chew.

Hm, maybe Roland are already in on the plot? I keep seeing Macs on Roland
stands and Rolands on Mac's, colour coordinated in cream, the perfect couple
for the man with money to spare. An up-market ``executive MIDI'' would fit
the picture perfectly...

... Nick could install it on his Powerbook |8->]

>[...]
>         Smart controllers, called "knobs"

Just when you thought they were going to call them ``smart controllers''.

>[...]
> Please note that this standard is "hardware independent"

Ooh good. I can run it from the LAN port of the Falcon.

__________________________________________________________________________
Chris Gray        cgra@se.alcbel.be         Compu$erve: 100065.2102
   Ignore my broken mailer - the addresses above are the only truth
__________________________________________________________________________
A closed mouth catches no feet

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 15 Jul 1993 18:05:00 EDT
From:         John Rossi III 
Subject:      Re: Obsolete MIDI

Yea, but it is just another article for academic purists.  It had little
effect 9 years ago, and similar ideas will have little effect today.

John

------------------------------
Date:         Fri, 16 Jul 1993 14:10:14 GMT
From:         JOEL STERN 
Subject:      Re: [OBSOLETE MIDI]

Another good article about the limitations (or otherwise) of MIDI was in the
June 1993 edition of 'Sound on Sound' (published in the UK, don't know about
its US distribution).

The article was called 'MIDI 2.0', which the article argued was already here:
not because the MIDI had been thrown out and replaced with something new, but
because the way people use MIDI had advanced so much.

There was reference to the fact that MIDI is only responsible for less than a
third of timing delays, the larger portion being down to synth response times
which, although getting better, still make speeding up MIDI pointless. Also
mentioned were the large number of extensions now around (MIDI Sample Dump,
MIDI File Format, MIDI Show Control, etc.), and those about to appear
(e.g. dumping MIDI song files over MIDI connections).

For those requiring higher speed/lots of instruments, the two alternatives are
multi-port interfaces (now almost standard for advanced/professional
applications) or the Lone Wolf MIDI LAN system, where several 'local' MIDI
systems can be joined together using interfaces to a high speed LAN system,
therefore allowing you to spread your MIDI system over a large area with lots
of devices, the only possible bottlenecks occuring being where MIDI hits the
LAN interface. Never seen a system set up like this, but it sounds interesting,
and is available NOW with a proven spec, and works alongside MIDI instead of
replacing it.

Sorry to go on, but there can be few people out there for whom MIDI is too
pedestrian.

Cheers,

Mark Etherington
Queens' College
Cambridge UK

------------------------------------------
THIS IS A REPLY TO THE ABOVE MESSAGE
SUBJECT OF THE REPLY: REPLY
------------------------------------------
          Mark Etherington quoted Sound  on  Sound magazine to  the  effect
          that MIDI 2.0 exists now  in  the form of  the various extensions
          that  have  been  added  to  the original specification. I  found
          myself agreeing with him  and  the people who  say that  for  the
          majority of  day  to  day tasks MIDI is sufficiently capable, but
          when Mark threw sample dump standard into  the equation I applied
          the brakes. As  a current victim  of  MSDS  I  can't believe that
          anyone who has  had  the experienece of waiting 15 minutes for  a
          couple hundred K  of samples to travel from one  unit  to another
          could regard that  as satisfactory. MIDI  is  fine  when external
          sound parameters are  being transferred, but  complex  data  like
          sound itself is more than MIDI can handle.

          Joel
          stern@mail.loc.gov

------------------------------
Date:         Fri, 16 Jul 1993 16:44:38 BST
From:         Mark Etherington 
Subject:      Re: [Obsolete MIDI]

Another good article about the limitations (or otherwise) of MIDI was in the
June 1993 edition of 'Sound on Sound' (published in the UK, don't know about
its US distribution).

The article was called 'MIDI 2.0', which the article argued was already here:
not because the MIDI had been thrown out and replaced with something new, but
because the way people use MIDI had advanced so much.

There was reference to the fact that MIDI is only responsible for less than a
third of timing delays, the larger portion being down to synth response times
which, although getting better, still make speeding up MIDI pointless. Also
mentioned were the large number of extensions now around (MIDI Sample Dump,
MIDI File Format, MIDI Show Control, etc.), and those about to appear
(e.g. dumping MIDI song files over MIDI connections).

For those requiring higher speed/lots of instruments, the two alternatives are
multi-port interfaces (now almost standard for advanced/professional
applications) or the Lone Wolf MIDI LAN system, where several 'local' MIDI
systems can be joined together using interfaces to a high speed LAN system,
therefore allowing you to spread your MIDI system over a large area with lots
of devices, the only possible bottlenecks occuring being where MIDI hits the
LAN interface. Never seen a system set up like this, but it sounds interesting,
and is available NOW with a proven spec, and works alongside MIDI instead of
replacing it.

Sorry to go on, but there can be few people out there for whom MIDI is too
pedestrian.

Cheers,

Mark Etherington
Queens' College
Cambridge UK

------------------------------
Date:         Fri, 16 Jul 1993 19:02:05 +0000
From:         Nick Rothwell 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

>And of course, your comments are MOST WELCOME!

Well, from a pro MIDI point of view, it seems to be a bit of a toy IMHO.
Obviously preliminary, pretty thoroughly steeped in General MIDI for
multimedia people, with a brief nod of the head to our dear departed friend
MIDI Manager, and lacking any of the facilities required by serious MIDI
users/studios/performers (most of the facilities offered by sequencers,
librarians, OMS, etc.). Some mention of software synthesis packages and
alternative tunings. Hmm. Perhaps users are getting into world music for
product demos? Since there's no mention of OMS, and only passing mention of
MIDI Manager, it's not going to fly as a professional music system. It
might get off the ground in the multimedia world, but that's all.

What this has to do with this Firewire thing is beyond me. All that have in
common is that neither will succeed as a professional music tool (except on
the offchance that Doug Wyatt decides it's worth supporting Firewire in
OMS; but that would be Opcode's doing, not Apple's). Apple have no
conception of the pro music market (look at the MIDI Manager fiasco, or the
PowerBook fiasco), and notice that we don't all have MediaLAN in our
studios, even though I suspect that Lone Wolf know a lot more about the pro
music industry and its needs than Apple will ever do.

I don't know why you're so fired up (forgive the pun) about this stuff,
Michael. I really don't see it changing the world.

                        Nick Rothwell   |   cassiel@cassiel.demon.co.uk
     CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance   |   cassiel@cix.compulink.co.uk

------------------------------
Date:         Fri, 16 Jul 1993 15:26:24 -0700
From:         Michael O'Hara 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

>>> I don't know why ...

We,, I am asking for suggestions for improving this standard!
seriously!  Please telle me what has been left out.

Be specific.

Firewire is going to be "the" interface standard for most apple things.
If you want to implement a "OMS" that you DONT HAVE TO CONFIGURE YOURSELF
each time you change something, If you want to improve on currebt librarians,
then THIS IS THE BEST THING I HAVE SEEN.
It is still embryonic, and WE ARE LOOKING FOR IMPROVMENTS!!!!!\


To repeat, firewire and MIDI are seperate.

But MIDI is TOO SLOW.

So why not do em both at once?

I am doing a FW/MIDI convertor now, so there is no problem.

------------------------------
Date:         Sat, 17 Jul 1993 23:47:50 +0000
From:         Nick Rothwell 
Subject:      Re: MIDI is obsolete (was: Virtual tracks vs. Real tracks)

>... Nick could install it on his Powerbook |8->]

I need General MIDI like I need a hole in the head...

                        Nick Rothwell   |   cassiel@cassiel.demon.co.uk
     CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance   |   cassiel@cix.compulink.co.uk

------------------------------
Date:         Sun, 18 Jul 1993 17:41:53 BST
From:         Mark Etherington 
Subject:      Re: [OBSOLETE MIDI]

Oops, perhaps my summary of the article wasn't particularly clear, or maybe
the original article was murky in this area. The two points were seperate:
firstly, by careful use of MIDI the speed of transmission becomes irrelevant -
in smaller systems put timing-critical information on lower-numbered channels
and use multi-port interfaces, in larger systems consider the Lone Wolf LAN
system or other high-end solutions.

The second point was that MIDI had evolved through reponse from the people who
actually used it instead of egg-heads in synth (or worse, computer)
manufacturers' R&D departments. Okay, MSDS is horribly slow, but at least it's
there as a built-in facility to most MIDI setups, and if you wan't to avoid
complete hair-loss SCSI is available on many samplers and micros as a
high-speed solution. SCSI and MIDI can co-exist, thus making a new standard
irrelavant for all but the highest-end power users, the very naive, and the
ignorent.

Hope this clears things up.

Mark Etherington
Queens' College
Cambridge UK

------------------------------
Date:         Mon, 19 Jul 1993 12:23:02 -0400
From:         Andy Farnell 
Subject:      Re: Obsolete MIDI

> For those of you discussing the obsolescence of MIDI, I would like to
> suggest some reading. There is an article by Gareth Loy in the Computer
> Music Journal (MIT Press) .........
> ........  why it was not  sufficient for academic emusic from the beginning...
> ... It is simply a gesture language and does not have any control over the
> ... pure sound.


Okay this is the real problem.  As I said recently a significant improvement to
MIDI would be a closer coupling between data source and generation system. Take
a look at the interface between the score vand the orchestra in csound.
In general a musical performance consists of the following:

        1) A human being who is imparting information to a performance
           instrument. This information is extremely rich and is made up
           of many vectors of control. These corespond to and require
           a priori knowledge of..

        2) ..the instruments 'performance profile'. This is the mapping
           between the physical variables of the performance instrument
           (viewed systematically as transducer/data acquisition/capture
           device) and the parametric control of the synthesis system.

        3) The above synthesis system, the parameters of which may be
           partitioned into categories corresponding to different temporal
           control granularity (often just two or three, ie. fixed/dynamic
           or fixed, 'control-time', 'generation-time')

A good way to look at MIDI is as (2) above. It is simply a communications
protocol between the source of the performance data and the system using it.
It is this protocol which needs looking at. I see it as lacking in a few ways..

        1) Information set.  MIDI was really designed for keyboard instruments
           and as such inherits many limitations to its information set such
           as fixed note numbers, only one vector bound to note events - ie.
           key velocity, and so on. The underlying paradigm is event based
           but music is not really event based it is stream based, more
           continuous.

        2) Efficiency. MIDI (as a protocol) is dumb. It has no 'understanding'
           of significant or non significant events, it cannot prioritise its
           events.

        3) Works on a single level. This is connected closely with 2 above.
           MIDI has no abstraction and cannot communicate macro events such
           as sympathetic guitar string resonances, hammer-ons, damping.
           All these must be transmitted as either new note events or as
           large and inefficient bursts of various controller information.

There is no point in wishing for a faster MIDI implimentation until we know
what we want to communicate. If you can't paint a picture a bigger brush isn't
going to help. The solution is improvement of the end-to-end protocol which
requires cooperation between the manufacturers of all midi products and most
importantly the musicians who use it.

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 20 Jul 1993 05:47:06 -0700
From:         Michael O'Hara 
Subject:      Re: Obsolete MIDI

A thoughtful post about MIDI implementations from Mike Bishop;

I have a couple of comments of my own.. Regarding the inability
of MIDI per se to control instruments with "real" finesse, It is my
opinion that the problem is that computers are digital. The low data
rates of MIDI, and the poor resoulution and dumb data structures
(not vectorised) of "controllers" are at fault there.

Flame suit on.

The Mac MIDI implementation I was talking about addressed this.
it provides at least, the required resoulution.

As for the problem of "various" instruments not being well
served by one standard; this implementation allows for modular
"gestalted" drivers to be added; one for each  new device.
By "gestalt" I refer to the macs' gestalt manager; that allows
programs to find out what they are connected to. Dumb controller
numbers/channels are still supported - that is to say MIDI as it
exists today is fully supported - and it WILL work with OMS, Mr C.

But if you need more; then you can add it - Named, smart devices
- devices with special needs, say, an electronic violin, or
whatever are supported.  Drivers are installed, and any "dumb"
sequencer (scratch the "dumb" there.. :) ) written to the specs
could at least save the data - as can be done now - but also, a
modular program could configure (as a librarian) to what is plugged
in... and this wouldn't require a MIDI wizard to do it.

Plug and Play is what the MAC is supposed to be all about, and
the tedious "setup" stuff is still available for those that prefer it.

Some will.

But in the (near) future - MIDI events - and their predeccesors -
will be in use by the masses.. mainly cause digitized sound is too
memory intensive - Why not put in all the good stuff we all want too.

Who would want General MIDI to become the standard?  Not me.

Some would say that this adds to the confusion out there.  But the apple
way has always been to make the application programmer do all the work.

This will probably not change, even in the near future.

And in the best of all possible worlds (yeah, right) we would end up
with a system where a single application could talk to older MID
devices, and newer devices with firewire/scsi/whatever will function
in a seamless manner - Although With old "dumb" midi devices, there
will always have to be "numbered" devices and such - it is something we
must live with.

I also wanted to add that in the future, I tend to think most synths
will be PC cards - with seperate external keyboards... Pro musicians
will dissagree - but with faster and faster DSP/uP/etc.. You wont need
more than a card or two - and why pay for all that rack mount stuff?

Multimedia computers demand this stuff... and it is coming.

Enough rambling for now - and this is definiatly rambling!

YOur friendly neighborhood Dolphin.

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 20 Jul 1993 10:16:00 EDT
From:         John Rossi III 
Subject:      Re: Obsolete MIDI

Oddly, we have such a device already.  It is called a VESA-LB PC multimedia
workstation.  If you note, it will do everything you seem to need.

John

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 22 Jul 1993 07:34:29 +0000
From:         Nick Rothwell 
Subject:      Re: Obsolete MIDI

>Pro musicians
>will dissagree - but with faster and faster DSP/uP/etc.. You wont need
>more than a card or two - and why pay for all that rack mount stuff?

Because it's rack-mounted. Have you seen what happens to gear on yer
average tour? And for that matter: how many cards did you have in mind? I
have three feet of rackmounted gear; that would be a lot of cards, and I
wouldn't like to think about the physical reliability of something like
that.

(I suppose as a counter-example one could cite the AudioFrame...)

                        Nick Rothwell   |   cassiel@cassiel.demon.co.uk
     CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance   |   cassiel@cix.compulink.co.uk

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 22 Jul 1993 08:05:01 -0700
From:         Michael O'Hara 
Subject:      Re: Obsolete MIDI

Many "hardened" or industrial computers are available.

Companies will retrofit your garden variety mac

Some musicians WILL just plain have too many jacks etc..

And who REALLY knows what the future will bring, but there
are going to be many new things.  la de da. :)

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 14 Jul 1993 19:32:46 +0300
From:         Yiannis Ventikos 
Subject:      FORTRAN dead ?

FORTRAN may be dead according to the textbooks of some CS depts, but
out there, engineers and scientists use it all the time.

-------

******************************************************************************
* Yiannis Ventikos                              *        DISCLAIMER          *
* Viscous Flows Group,                          * Any and all opinions that  *
* Dept. of Naval Arch. & Marine Eng.,           * I have  expressed  so far  *
* National Technical University of Athens,      * reflect  thoughts of mine  *
* P.O. Box 64070, GR-15710, Zografos, GREECE    * and  mine alone and  have  *
* Voice: +30 1 7700405                          * nothing  to do  with  the  *
* Fax:   +30 1 7774478     IRCNICK=yvent        * policy of the  Department  *
* e-mail: yvent@areti.naval.ntua.gr             * I currently belong to.     *
******************************************************************************
God does not play dice with the Universe.  HE just sets its Lyapunov Spectrum.

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 15 Jul 1993 08:44:57 -0400
From:         Joe McMahon 
Subject:      


"FORTRAN: then as now, the language for scientists with real problems."

 --- someone at the Cambridge University Math Department

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 15 Jul 1993 12:53:41 BST
From:         "Steven D. Bramson" 
Subject:      Fortran Lives

The institution I work for

The JET fusion research project near Oxford

Uses FORTRAN as its primary language for scientific computing.  Newer CPUs do
not make FORTRAN obsolete, they make existing FORTRAN programs run faster.

Steven Bramson

sdb@jet.uk

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 15 Jul 1993 09:17:03 -0400
From:         Chris Gray 
Subject:      Re: Fortran Lives

> The institution I work for

> The JET fusion research project near Oxford

> Uses FORTRAN as its primary language for scientific computing.  Newer CPUs do
> not make FORTRAN obsolete, they make existing FORTRAN programs run faster.

Still using the old code from ZETA, eh? BTW are you any further forward than
30 years ago?

> Steven Bramson

> sdb@jet.uk

Chris

__________________________________________________________________________

If this is the 1990's, where's my damned robot and aircar?

                        Nick Rothwell

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 15 Jul 1993 16:58:07 +0300
From:         Yiannis Ventikos 
Subject:      


Joe McMahon  wrote:

==>"FORTRAN: then as now, the language for scientists with real problems."
==>
==> --- someone at the Cambridge University Math Department

and I cant think of a better way to say it myself !!!

-------

******************************************************************************
* Yiannis Ventikos                              *        DISCLAIMER          *
* Viscous Flows Group,                          * Any and all opinions that  *
* Dept. of Naval Arch. & Marine Eng.,           * I have  expressed  so far  *
* National Technical University of Athens,      * reflect  thoughts of mine  *
* P.O. Box 64070, GR-15710, Zografos, GREECE    * and  mine alone and  have  *
* Voice: +30 1 7700405                          * nothing  to do  with  the  *
* Fax:   +30 1 7774478     IRCNICK=yvent        * policy of the  Department  *
* e-mail: yvent@areti.naval.ntua.gr             * I currently belong to.     *
******************************************************************************
God does not play dice with the Universe.  HE just sets its Lyapunov Spectrum.

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 15 Jul 1993 18:14:00 EDT
From:         John Rossi III 
Subject:      Re: Fortran Lives

I hope that I didn't suggest that newer CPUs killed FORTRAN.  What I was
trying to say was that regardless of whether FORTRAN is alive or not, the
reason we have newer languages is because the CPUs of today will support
them.  I'm pretty sure that FORTRAN still accounts for the major share
of todays scientific computing.

John

------------------------------
Date:         Fri, 16 Jul 1993 08:13:10 -0500
From:         Mark Clark 
Subject:      Re: Fortran Lives

We do not know what the lanugage of the future will look like but it
it sure to be called FORTRAN.

Mark.

------------------------------
Date:         Sun, 18 Jul 1993 05:45:53 GMT
From:         Matthew A Siegler 
Subject:      Re: Fortran Lives

I believe it will be called FORTRAN 77 to be precise, and will be run off
optical media, with 80 column lines.

------------------------------
Date:         Sun, 18 Jul 1993 11:39:00 LCL
From:         DOWRJ@VMS1.ACADEMIC-COMPUTING-SERVICE.BIRMINGHAM.AC.UK
Subject:      Fortran

Mmm - I must admit I have always found FORTRAN rather clumsy and annoying to
use, although I always end up having to write routines in it to interface to
mainframes like our 3090. I prefer 'C', but the problem here is that people
insist of using non-ANSI add-ons making it impossible to port programs
easily.

Robert Dow
University of Birmingham
Dept. of Music

------------------------------
Date:         Sun, 18 Jul 1993 17:15:02 BST
From:         Mark Etherington 
Subject:      Re: Rejected by Custodian

That 'strange file', once FTPed down to a Mac and decoded using BinHex, proved
to be a digest of EMUSIC-L dated 13-14 July 1993. Why it got sent to us
non-digest people I do not know...

Cheers,

Mark Etherington
Queens' College
Cambridge UK

------------------------------
Date:         Sun, 18 Jul 1993 17:16:07 EDT
From:         mbartkow@GWENDU.ENST-BRETAGNE.FR
Subject:      Re: Rejected by Custodian

Could someone help me and tell, what to do with a strange file containg
a lot of quite unreadable characters with "This file must be converted
with BinHex 4.0" at the beginning ?

Maciej

------------------------------
Date:         Mon, 19 Jul 1993 16:03:16 -0700
From:         "Meet ya half way 'cross the sky . . ." 
Subject:      Re: Rejected by Custodian

Oh Gee, I thought it was the password-encoded Firewire protocol, almost
passed it on to the International Super Secret Softly Firmware Powerful
Patent Protection Agency of God.
Show's how much *I* know.
                                                      _
-john       ___                                    __/ |
___        |   |     JKrikawa@CCIT.Arizona.Edu    |    |___      ________
   \______/     \__________ Tucson, AZ ___../\./\/         \____/        \____
...get it while supplies last!

------------------------------
End of the EMUSIC-L Digest
******************************