From: "Gene Heskett" <gene.heskett@xxxxxxxxxxx>
On Saturday 11 November 2006 21:00, Tony Nelson wrote:
At 4:21 PM -0500 11/11/06, Gene Heskett wrote:
...
This thread might be of interest to the linux-audio-dev group, so I've
added them to the Cc:
Yup, and its been a constant src of amazement to this old fart that
when the midi spec was setup, they used a serial port, thats fine, but
when they set the data rate at only 31,250 baud, ...
Consistently attrocious timeing, with the horns always 1/16 beat late
unless the actual output order of each instrument is scrambled in the
order output. That would make it sound a heck of a lot less
mechanical. And there isn't a heck of a lot that can be done until we
put midi on an optical circuit running at several megabytes/sec.
Something like TOS maybe?
Firewire. Many products already, plenty of speed, almost robust enough.
1/8 millisecond isoch cycle times; each cycle can contain packets from
many senders; each packet can contain lots of notes.
More robust IMO than the din connectors now used for midi interconnects,
however the cabling itself can't help but be more fragile when subjected
to the rigors of a jam session with bodies walking on them all night.
And that has to be a consideration else the first users will get
discouraged at the high cable failure rates and revert, particularly if
they have a tin ear and can't hear what to many of us would be an
extremely obvious improvement.
But I like that idea, a lot. Maybe some enterprising LAD people could get
together and spec something like a midi interface running over firewire,
complete with the repeaters so it can be daisy-chained just like midi can
be, and hopefully release it into the PD as a new midi-2 interface
standard. And design it such that it never, ever gets into the snails
trail of the 31,250 baud interface it uses today.
Runs like snails. But I have seen installations with FAR more cable on
MIDI runs than the specification suggests is the maximum. (It is off
by orders of magnitude. I suspect a conforming driver and receiver
coupled with zip cord could go a half mile and still work - with
normal timing. I can't do that with Ethernet. Can't do it with
1394 or USB, either. MIDI physical transport layer is indeed slow.
It is staggeringly robust.)
{^_^}
