A Discussion on MIDI

Cork guitarist

Mod Note: I have split this thread off from another one as the discussion on MIDI didn't belong in that thread and is worth bringing to a potentially wider audience.

I was in the same boat. MIDI files are generated by computer, they are not real music, strictly speaking. can I suggest you look for karaoke tracks? They are made by musicians, using real instruments. You may not get all the songs you want, but there is a huge choice out there, and you'll surely find enough to make up a good playlist. A disadvantage is that they may not come in the key you want, but the key can be changed by a tone or two, and as I said, there's plenty of good songs out there.
Good luck.

MilanPan!c

Cork guitarist wrote: »

I was in the same boat. MIDI files are generated by computer, they are not real music, strictly speaking. can I suggest you look for karaoke tracks? They are made by musicians, using real instruments. You may not get all the songs you want, but there is a huge choice out there, and you'll surely find enough to make up a good playlist. A disadvantage is that they may not come in the key you want, but the key can be changed by a tone or two, and as I said, there's plenty of good songs out there.
Good luck.

sigh...

MIDI isn't generated by a computer any more than sheet music is... and if sheet music is real music so if MIDI...

listen... this is purely MIDI:

http://soundcloud.com/the-riot-tapes/midi-is-music-too/s-0wqS0

Does that sound like it was generated by a computer or isn't real music?

That's 5 minutes work..

Cork guitarist

MIDI isn't generated by computer?
What instruments are used when making MIDI files?
I might also ask, what musicians are used?

rcaz

You're both wrong...

MIDI doesn't make sound, MIDI tells other things to make sound. MIDI is a list of note values and velocity (~volume) values, and values for other parameters that you might want to control. You send MIDI into something (synthesiser, sampler, hardware that plays an acoustic instrument, whatever you have), and that thing makes sound according to what the MIDI data tells it to do.

MilanPan!c, that isn't 'purely MIDI', that's a sampler being controlled by a MIDI track.

"Strictly speaking", anything that has a beginning and an end and you can hear, is "real music".

MilanPan!c

El Pr0n wrote: »

You're both wrong...

MIDI doesn't make sound, MIDI tells other things to make sound. MIDI is a list of note values and velocity (~volume) values, and values for other parameters that you might want to control. You send MIDI into something (synthesiser, sampler, hardware that plays an acoustic instrument, whatever you have), and that thing makes sound according to what the MIDI data tells it to do.

MilanPan!c, that isn't 'purely MIDI', that's a sampler being controlled by a MIDI track.

"Strictly speaking", anything that has a beginning and an end and you can hear, is "real music".

Yeah I know it isn't pure MIDI, but it's not a live performance, it's, like I said, sheet music, being played by an instrument...

So the performance is pure MIDI...

MilanPan!c

Cork guitarist wrote: »

MIDI isn't generated by computer?
What instruments are used when making MIDI files?
I might also ask, what musicians are used?

almost any instrument (nowadays) can be used to generate midi, with a little helping hand from technology...

A computer doesn't generate MIDI, not in the sense it writes the music or creates the performance (unless you're using software to generate random musical sequences of automatically create harmonies, or arpeggiated lines, etc.).

MIDI is just electronic sheet music.

rcaz

MilanPan!c wrote: »

MIDI is just electronic sheet music.

No it isn't... MIDI can control any parameter on a piece of equipment. I play a Roland SH-32 synthesiser by controlling it via MIDI with a MIDI keyboard. I can send MIDI to it to play notes, and I can control any of the oscillator/filter/amp/LFO settings, effect parameters, change between patches. Way more than 'just electronic sheet music'.

MilanPan!c

El Pr0n wrote: »

No it isn't... MIDI can control any parameter on a piece of equipment. I play a Roland SH-32 synthesiser by controlling it via MIDI with a MIDI keyboard. I can send MIDI to it to play notes, and I can control any of the oscillator/filter/amp/LFO settings, effect parameters, change between patches. Way more than 'just electronic sheet music'.

You don't know a lot about sheet music if you think this stuff isn't notated... I've seen sheet music with tons of this stuff...

And btw... it can't control ANY parameter... it can control 127 at any one point, which is a lot, but there's LOTS of stuff that can't be controlled by MIDI on almost every piece of MIDI controllable gear..

but listen this is a stupid conversation...

so.

rcaz

MilanPan!c wrote: »

You don't know a lot about sheet music if you think this stuff isn't notated... I've seen sheet music with tons of this stuff...

You've seen sheet music with MIDI data printed on it?

MilanPan!c wrote:

And btw... it can't control ANY parameter... it can control 127 at any one point, which is a lot, but there's LOTS of stuff that can't be controlled by MIDI on almost every piece of MIDI controllable gear..

That isn't because MIDI isn't capable of controlling them, that's because of manufacturer's choices to make some things controllable and others not.

MilanPan!c wrote:

but listen this is a stupid conversation...

so.

Is it? MIDI is one of the most misunderstood things about electronic instruments, I don't want to contribute to the dodgy information and half-truths going around the internet about it.

Malice

Cork guitarist wrote: »

MIDI files are generated by computer, they are not real music, strictly speaking.

Just to make sure I have understood you correctly, are you saying computer-generated music is not real music?

Hayte

MIDI is basically control data. So if you have 2 devices that can talk MIDI, they can control each other and you can program one or both to perform a list of instructions that you define.

It was designed to be as universal as possible, so there are alot of unspecified variables and many common MIDI messages are standardized - i.e. its almost dead cert that cc (control change) #7 is channel volume and cc#10 is panning.

How it all works together depends on how its programmed. On some synths cc#10 controls panning left and right and is bipolar (-64 to +63). On some synths that don't have pan controls, I've seen cc#10 control an LFO that ping pongs left and right. cc#10 just changes the rate of the panning LFO and is unipolar (0 to 127).

The above example actually caused some problems for me because I send a MIDI reset trigger from the transport in my DAW and it will reset some synths to centre panning (bipolar 0) but on others it will reset the panning LFO rate half way (unipolar 64). Thus pressing stop on the transport will activate the panning LFO when it was disabled.

You can avoid these problems by using tools like MIDI OX which allow you to transform MIDI messages so you can get consistent behaviour. In MIDI OX it is also possible to script your own MIDI message sequences to get functionality that a synth doesn't have by default.

For instance, you can filter note on messages below middle C to channel 1 only and above middle C to channel 2 only. This way you can have a keysplit on a synthesizer that doesn't let you keysplit.

You can also transform cc#10 messages on a specific port and channel so that all cc#10 messages sent to that synth have their value ranges "transformed" so that 0 to 64 = 0 (which negates panning LFO issues on a reset trigger).

You can also script sysex messages so that some of the buttons on your synth can cycle through different variables after each button press. i.e. you can make one button on your hardware synth cycle through filter modes on a VST.

In general, really old MIDI synths from the 80s have either incomplete MIDI spec or its quite buggy. Some "workshop" synths (the 1 man operation kind) also tend to have rubbish MIDI implementation like JoMoX.

Most softsynths have really really good MIDI. Its so good that most people never run into issues that would require them to ever use MIDI OX to fix anything.

Finally, if you are a total MIDI wizard, you can use it to do some really wild things like make your own Jarre laser harp or use a Wiimote controller to control the sound.

Describing MIDI is not all that helpful. You really need to see it working for yourself and then it becomes clear. So go get MIDI OX and set the port routing so you can see a rolling log of MIDI messages being sent to and from your DAW. It will list all of the MIDI messages being transmitted and its colour coded (note on/off messages are green, sysex messages are yellow, control change data is turquoise I think, expression controllers are dark green etc)

Paolo_M

MIDI = musical instrument digital interface.
It's a language or protocol used for musical instruments.

It can provide very simple data, such as the channel selection on a guitar amplifier, or more complex stuff like specific CC and velocity data for triggering drum samples.

It's a computer based language for a set of instructions and nothing more than that.
It's the extact same as me using English to tell a drummer "now hit your snare, as a rim shot, very hard". MIDI would send the same information to a sampler like EZDRummer to do the exact same thing with appropriate sample from it's library.
A MIDI drumkit would take your hit and write MIDI data for what part of the kit your hit and how hard and then tranmit that MIDI data to some form of sample player usually.

The argument above is kind of daft. MIDI itself isn't music, but a MIDI enabled instrument can be played and requires the exact same skills as any other musical instrument.
Saying MIDI isn't music is like saying English isn't a book.

rcaz

Edit; Completely misread your post Paolo_M, thank Christ I realised what I'd done 'cause I wasn't very polite :pac:

Grolschevik

El Pr0n wrote: »

Edit; Completely misread your post Paolo_M, thank Christ I realised what I'd done 'cause I wasn't very polite :pac:

How could you misread it to the extent that you would be impolite? It's perfectly clear and logically articulated, with a very good analogy.


Or did you just read "MIDI itself isn't music", see red, and go off on one?

Paolo_M

El Pr0n wrote: »

Edit; Completely misread your post Paolo_M, thank Christ I realised what I'd done 'cause I wasn't very polite :pac:

Ah, you'll have to post it now for the crack!!

rcaz

Grolschevik wrote: »

Or did you just read "MIDI itself isn't music", see red, and go off on one?

Yo :cool:

Everyone has days when they're just in awful moods, right?

bnt

In my experience, MIDI files you get off the Internet tend to be too rigidly programmed to compensate for the lack of skill of whoever programmed them. If an expert pianist plays a piece on a good digital piano or MIDI master keyboard, all the technique and subtlety can go straight in to the MIDI file for playback later. He can vary the tempo slightly, use the full dynamic range of the keys, and so on - and it's all captured. (You don't have to lock the performance to the sequencer tempo if you don't need to!)

If the MIDI file is constructed within the rigid confines of a sequencer program, however, you won't have all that. The tempo(s) will be fixed, notes are quantised to the exact timings of the score, dynamics will be clumsy or non-existent, and so on. It's the same story as with any computer program: garbage in -> garbage out. But that's not the fault of MIDI, or of the MIDI file format.

Here are two different MIDI files of the same piano piece, Debussy's Claire de Lune: A / B
You can hear the difference clearly if you play them back with a decent piano sound. (I'm using a Steinway Grand soundfont in VLC Media Player for this.) Both are a little rigid in tempo, but one has superior dynamic range over the other, a better match to the range of the piano. I prefer

B

.

partyatmygaff

bnt wrote: »

In my experience, MIDI files you get off the Internet tend to be too rigidly programmed to compensate for the lack of skill of whoever programmed them. If an expert pianist plays a piece on a good digital piano or MIDI master keyboard, all the technique and subtlety can go straight in to the MIDI file for playback later. He can vary the tempo slightly, use the full dynamic range of the keys, and so on - and it's all captured. (You don't have to lock the performance to the sequencer tempo if you don't need to!)

If the MIDI file is constructed within the rigid confines of a sequencer program, however, you won't have all that. The tempo(s) will be fixed, notes are quantised to the exact timings of the score, dynamics will be clumsy or non-existent, and so on. It's the same story as with any computer program: garbage in -> garbage out. But that's not the fault of MIDI, or of the MIDI file format.

Here are two different MIDI files of the same piano piece, Debussy's Claire de Lune: A / B
You can hear the difference clearly if you play them back with a decent piano sound. (I'm using a Steinway Grand soundfont in VLC Media Player for this.) Both are a little rigid in tempo, but one has superior dynamic range over the other, a better match to the range of the piano. I prefer

B

.

Have a look at both MIDI files in a sequencer. They've both been transcribed. It's just that one of them has been done properly with the correct tempo changes and with far better dynamics.

Here's a different example. Debussy's Deuxieme Arabesque.

http://soundcloud.com/workin_pc/sets/deuxieme-arabese-debussy

The first one is transcribed in to a sequencer and played using a VST software sampler. The second one is performed in to the same sequencer using the same software sampler with the same post-processing.

The transcribed version doesn't sound that much worse than the performed version. It does sound a bit robotic but it still captures the musicality of the piece perfectly.