Analogue-sequencer

> first because the one thing everyone complains about when using midi
> is it's timing; whether or not there is any scientific basis for it,
> midi always feels like it's just about keeping up with the music you
> are trying to make.

In my experience, a lot of this comes down to manufacturers' use of  
slow (hence, cheap) microprocessors in their instruments. It used to  
be fashionable to talk about "MIDI latency", claiming that it could  
be several milliseconds, which clearly doesn't make sense since  
there's nowhere for the MIDI bytes to sit for that long. But it's  
entirely possible for processors to introduce delays in dealing with  
MIDI messages.

(Sometimes with good reason: large chords will be staggered since the  
best you can achieve is 2msec per note per cable, which is clearly a  
design drawback in MIDI itself, and there's nothing that the  
originating device can apart from marshall the bytes out one at a time.)

> thirdly, 5mS is an age- easily enough that if you delay the left
> channel by 5mS relative to the right, it will affect the perception
> of direction.

Agreed. Once you get to the 7-8msec range you can "feel" a delay  
between hitting a key on a keyboard and hearing the attack of a note.




   nick rothwell -- composition, systems, performance -- http:// 
www.cassiel.com