But you can still to all that very easily using [mtof]. I am not
trying to make life difficult for tonal/MIDI musicians, but its just
so easy to convert from MIDI to frequency.
Having synths take frequency on the input would remove an extra layer
of conversion, since almost all synths are going to be dealing
directly in frequency. Since Pd uses floats, conversions introduce
rounding errors, and also cost CPU time. It would be nice to have
the synths be lean and mean, only having what they really need in
them, without making them hard to use.
.hc
On Mar 30, 2006, at 1:57 PM, cyborgk@nocturnalnoize.com wrote:
Hans, I have to respectfully disagree with you there. Midi notes are pretty logical to work with for most situations. Note, that this is
the case only when you can have fractional note numbers, ie. 60.5 is a
quarter tone up from middle C.So, even if I wanted a non-standard scale, if it has octave
symmetry, it would be easy to use MIDI note numbers. Since a wrapper exists for frequency to midi note, this shouldn't be particularly limiting.
Granted, mtof allows conversion the other way, so you could make the opposite argument. But for most math manipulations, it's much easier to deal
with the math of pitches divided in semitones, than to do the math
needed for frequencies. If you do want to use some kind of other scale, it
should be something linear, aka, 0 to 1 equals one octave wouldn't be too bad to work with.The main limitation of MIDI, besides speed, is that CC#'s have a resolution of 128. I think that all parameters should have higher resolution, but a synth designed to play "notes" of some sort would be better off sticking to the MIDI standard.
~David
Yeah, that would defeat the purpose. With frequency, 0-1 does not make sense. But a standard does. Like all synth objects using frequency in hertz, rather than MIDI note #s, or whatever else someone might think of.
.hc
"Looking at things from a more basic level, you can come up with a
more direct solution... It may sound small in theory, but it in
practice, it can change entire economies."
- Amy Smith