MIDI - often moaned about, but 20 years ago it was pretty good!

[rob aylestone]

People often complain about MIDI - you get comments about bad music and people say "It's because it's MIDI" as if there's something bad about it. I found this track I did I think in 1999 for some project or other - for a 20+ year old track, produced in Cubase, I think it's a pretty decent example that MIDI is not all bad. No VSTi sources back then, no audio from the computer. Just synths and modules - Roland 1080, JX-1, Yamaha FB-01, DX-21, Proteus 1 and Proteus FX, and a dinky little Yamaha XG unit I can't remember the model of. Drums I think from an Boss SR something. It's an Alan Parson's track - used in the Austin Powers movie - I used it at an exhibition, and re-recording it was the cheapest way to solve the copyright issue. I expect Youtube will spot it!

 

[grimtraveller]

I never understood MIDI.
There again, I never understood terminal moraine ! It made my flesh creep.
But MIDI didn't. I thought it was a great idea for the time.
But I never understood it !

 

[spantini]

I was really into this back around 1989-92 with rack modules, a Kawai K3 synth and an Amiga 2000 computer. I was part of an online community of like musicians all swapping files back and forth so we could combine, revoice and recombine many times to create who knows what - but a lot of that sounded darn good. Then we'd mix to cassette and circulate our tapes to each other.

I dropped out when I got into analog tape recording with my bedroom studio.