3 ms·
Sorry for not being clear, I used the number of piano keys as an example of how limited the domain is. MIDI wasn’t designed to express ranges with 100’s or 1000
by brudgers 4y ago
Sorry for not being clear, I used the number of piano keys as an example of how limited the domain is. MIDI wasn’t designed to express ranges with 100’s or 1000’s of values. Twelve tone equal temperament is good enough and technology is not going to extend human hearing another four octaves.
What MIDI really got right is flexibility with regard to timbre. The standard was so open that General MIDI only came along later to establish some consistency for timbres.
- klodolph 4y agoMIDI doesn’t force you to use 12TET anyway. You can use MTS. Support seems widespread, at least among the equipment and software I use, some of it dating back to the 1980s.
- brudgers 4y agoThe midi spec does not have provisions for microtonal music, nor does it have a provision for tuning. The context in which I was writing was the previous comments, not your experience.
- klodolph 4y ago> The midi spec does not have provisions for microtonal music, nor does it have a provision for tuning. Maybe I wasn't clear when I said "you can use MTS" and "support seems widespread". It's not part of the base MIDI standard, but it is standardized. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIDI_tuning_standard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIDI_tuning_standard MTS is how you specify how MIDI notes are translated to frequencies, if you desire. You can use it to specify alternative scales, if you desire. The Wikipedia list of hardware and software which supports MTS seems very conservative IMO... my personal experience is that MTS support is reasonably common.
- brudgers 4y agoIt's not part of the base MIDI standard That’s what I said and what I meant. The Venn diagram of disagreement with me congrues with the Venn diagram of self disagreement.