Re: [LAU] Whysynth and MIDI channels

Hi All,

So, lets see, we are going to have 16 midi channels but people have to
select them from 0 to 15? How about sampling rates - if I want 44100 samples
per second am I going to have to give the value of 44099 to cater for the
zeroth sample? How about when I select "-interleave 4" channels of sound; is
that quadraphonic or 5 channel surroundsound?

How about the "10 items or less queue" at the supermarket? People understand
this, however if you really want to count from zero then you could try and
justify being in the queue with 11 items and get into one massive argument
with the person behind you.

The honest truth is who really gives a fig about the MIDI specification? It
has 16 channels, and in that supermarket queue they are numbers channels 1
to channels 16. Their is absolutely no consistency in an application that
demands some parameters as cardinal and demands other parameters as ordinal
values.

Just out of interest, on a related topic, the issue here is one of
understanding the specifics of each application/softsynth and the fact that
some use different numbering, and also regarding the overall usability of
the different Unix versionn. I would say that for people who get into using
the apps then the channel numbering is not important - they will find the
differences. For people, on the other hand, who just want to try the synths
as easily as possible then selecting channels is a great pain in the butt,
so, MIDI addressed this with the OMNI mode where your synth, unless
otherwise specified, should ignore the MIDI channel and respond to
everything, and even specified that this be the default mode of operation
unless otherwise selected. Perhaps it would be wise to ask the developers of
these synths to be in OMNI mode unless a midi channel is specified, and in
the latter case the user should have a better idea of what is going on.

The reason I ask regards Bristol, it does not operate in OMNI mode but I
have debated whether to implement it (it has always numbers MIDI channels
from '1' since nothing else really makes much sense). That kind of depends
on requirements, however it also occured to me that unless otherwise
specified then the ALSA seq library should also default to 'OMNI' mode. This
follows a recent question posted here as to why somebodies USB keyboard
would not connect per default to their soft synths, leaving this new user to
dig around to find something called aconnect that accepted some wierd and
rather unintelligible numbers just to test a couple of applications with
their master keyboard.

If all the synths acted in OMNI mode and the ALSA sequencer library (and
other other MIDI libraries) acted in OMNI (everything source connected to
every sink, unless otherwise specified) then it would be an easier system
for a new user, and would not be any more difficult for an experienced user.
Unix historically does nothing unless you

b) tell it to
a) know how to tell

That is kind of broken unless you

2) know how to fix it
1) like things being difficult to start with

It shouldn't be so difficult.

Also, the remark about hardware using channel number 1 is actually correct:
their reference here was to hard synths rather than soft synths. The
hardware in this case is not the chip set or the protocol specification but
rather the synths that implement MIDI allowed the player to select channels
numbered from 1. Once again, who cares a fig about what the protocol
specifies, or even what the hardware does - if I have 16 channels then as a
user I expect them to be numbered up to 16. If people want anything else
then there should be another option called

-midichannelforpedants

Regards,
N.

>From: Dave Phillips <dlphillips@email-addr-hidden>
>Reply-To: A list for linux audio users
><linux-audio-user@email-addr-hidden>
>To: A list for linux audio users <linux-audio-user@email-addr-hidden>
>Subject: Re: [LAU] Whysynth and MIDI channels
>Date: Wed, 30 May 2007 10:01:31 -0400
>
>Paul Coccoli wrote:
>
>>On 5/29/07, Sean Bolton <musound@email-addr-hidden> wrote:
>>
>>>With ghostess, use the '-chan' command line option, e.g.
>>>'ghostess -chan 3 whysynth.so'. Note that ghostess numbers
>>>its channels starting from 0, so that example would cause it
>>>to listen on what most people call channel 4.... ;-)
>>
>>
>>Now doesn't that sound silly when you read it out loud? I don't
>>understand why so many programmers insist on using 0-15 for MIDI
>>channels when most hardware uses 1-16 (correct me if I'm wrong).
>
>Patch number representation ought to be selectable. Older MIDI gear might
>use one of various numbering schemes, it's useful to have the software
>numbering match the hardware.
>
>Best,
>
>dp
>
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Received on Wed May 30 20:15:03 2007