MIDI: Why all the confustion?????

  • Thread starter Thread starter Krakit
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Krakit

Krakit

Rzzzzz!
I can't understand why the myth that MIDI is somehow audio is so pervasive.

Where does the impression come from?

Just look at the port. How would you think that speaker freindly signal comes out of that????

Why is MIDI (which has been around for 20 years) so misunderstood?

:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

Carl
 
I think it's the extra layer of abstraction. Each time you have a layer of abstraction you lose about 1/2 the population. The 50% that get the fact that you can capture sound waves as voltage variations and turn them back into audible sound get halved again when you get to voltage variations being approximated by digital sampling. Storing other information about the music... now they're dropping off like flies...

Hey, krakit, I'm from Long Island, did I tell you before? (But I've lived in California for over 20 years now.) Excuse me if I'm getting redundant...
 
I think for most people who have no clue are very intimidated by the first look at this interface with all the numbers and configurations, and are reluctant to just dive in and swim.
 
I guess it's mainly because you can RECORD midi, PLAY a midifile etc. There's 16 channels of midi AUDIO (which is complete nonsense, but some people do say that kinda thing)...

And most people don't have a clue what an interface really is. You have to explain them hands down that midi is just sending commands, note-on, note-off...

I have had a discussion with a guy owning a computerstore, that you can't record audio using midi. But I was completely wrong. You know, his sister had a complete professional studio, he made the pc. But yeah, you're not talking about an expensive soundblaster them. At least 2 or 3 soundblaster platinums... :rolleyes:

Boy I was pissed when I got out of that shop. I f**king implemented the midi interface just half a year ago then, and he was explaining it to me. Darn...
 
Krakit,

I grew up and spent the first twenty-four years of my life in Hicksville, Nassau County, with three and a half years of college at SUNY New Paltz between age 18-22...
 
Yeah it is strange how MIDI carries this inconquerable mythology with it. I've been making my own tunes for almost three years now and only in the last six months have I really started to get hooked up with MIDI. For the longest time I thought I'd never be able to figure it all out but the more I get into it, the more it seems like it's really not that hard but as Tex pointed out to me, the mistakes/misunderstandings or shortcomings I have when setting it all up are very minute and easily fixable, it's just a matter of detemining what the issue may be.




Laj


PS Check out my most recent question for such an issue/question, thanks.
 
AlChuck said:
Krakit,

I grew up and spent the first twenty-four years of my life in Hicksville, Nassau County, with three and a half years of college at SUNY New Paltz between age 18-22...
Click to expand...

I'm in Long Beach (also Nassau County so I'm sure you've heard of or been there).

;)
 
I was lucky enough to go to one of the first schools to actually have a real MIDI educational program. It was Cogswell Polytechnical Institute in Santa Clara, CA. That was back in '90.

It seemed like musicians then had a better understanding of midi than most people do now. I think people take it for granted that it must be digital audio. Back then we knew it wasnt audio and nobody used digital at home so we actually studied a little to learn what it was. I didnt realize this was such an issue until I started reading the posts here.

Maybe we should change the forum description to:

MIDI- And hook up your fucking audio cables before you ask why there is no sound. MIDI IS NOT AUDIO.

That would eliminate half of the MIDI forum posts. But only the half that would actually read that far.
 
Well just to jump on the bandwagon.... about 12 years ago when I decided to pursue my dream of making music, I started noodling on synths in a music store. The salesman recommended I read something like "midi basics".... so I did. Midi has always seemed pretty natural and easy.... I used to get everything tweaked just right in midi, and then record to a stereo cassette. It was learning digital audio multi-tracking that took me some time.... but it all takes patience.
 
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