The Logic Off Topic list

Emanations from the phlying phalanges of Hendrik Jan Veenstra:

>Thoughts from the mind of Kool Musick, 25-02-2002:
> >You can use Expression to give swells up and down in volume around your
> >Main Volume as set by CC7. That's why it's called Expression. The system is
> >designed to reduce MIDI traffic.

>How does the use of controller 11 (expression) as opposed to using
>controller 7 (volume) reduce midi traffic?

Hmmm. Good question. On thinking about it -- I think I might be wrong here 
and you correct!!
My mistake?
I just swallowed, and without further thought, something said to me by the 
person who first encouraged me to use CC 11.
Only Bad Students ever do this, so I'm obviously a Bad Student!!!!

So ... I am dimmer, you are smarter!!!

Let's see ....

As I understand it, CC11 allows you to simulate dynamics without having to 
change the overall volume of any given channel and also without having to 
modify the volume of each and every note.

Rough procedure: best to give yourself some 'headroom' if you want the best 
out of CC11. Set CC11 on all instruments / notes you want to manipulate 
somewhere between 95 and 110. Then use CC7 to set desired channel mix -- 
i.e. both their relative and absolute volumes. E.g. your saxophone at 
loudest is 120, your piano at its loudest 100, drums 90 etc.

Now, if you want to drop the overall volume of everything in your entire 
mix to half their loudest values but you want to keep the balances of the 
mix the same, now simply take CC11 down to 64, which is 50% of whatever you 
have set for each instrument or part using CC7. Your sax will now be 60, 
your piano at 50, your drums 45 etc. You have not had to change the overall 
volume of anything on the channel ... you haven't upset your nice mix ... 
and you've only used one controller -- CC11.

Now ... when we use CC11, we still have to send the usual Status Byte with 
low nibble indicating, as per usual, the MIDI channel we are dealing with. 
We still have to send two data bytes, the one being the controller number 
for CC11, the second one telling us the value between 0 and 127.

We only need to send one such message, as far as I can see, in order to 
affect everything on that channel.

Now as far as I recall the MIDI spec suggests that CC 7 work 
logarithmically, so we usually have [log VV/127] x 40h where VV is the 
particular MIDI value we are dealing with.

When we use CC11 Expression, however, we subtract a given amount from 
whatever our setting of VV is as immediately above.

So no, in essence. You are correct and I was mistaken. CC11 does NOT reduce 
MIDI traffic, because when I manipulate CC11 a proportionate subtraction 
has to be done and those messages must still be sent over every channel and 
to every note concerned. For every value sent by CC11 there exists an exact 
same value that could have been sent more directly using CC7.

All CC11 does is reduce both Mental Indigestion and Digital Incompetence 
(MIDI) on the part of the operator because they don't have to work anything 
out on a per voice or per note basis ... just move this one controller and 
everything is done!!

Present score:
The Magnificent Mind of HJV:
16,384 and counting ...

the Extremely Foolish Mind of Kool Musick (EFMKM for short) has yet to 
register a score of any significance on any matter of substance but he is 
still smiling:
zero ...
... but ... can't fall any further because negative numbers don't exist, 
really (!!!!!!)

Kool Musick
Keep Musick Kool


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