I guess we'll never solve this mystery...🌩️

It's a good question.  Before William started this thread I had always thought VSL invented legato samples.

Not to change the subject but the mystery of who invented sampled legato is much like the mystery of who came up with the concept of MIDI.

Now, before you say, "Oh that's a no-brainer. Dave Smith did back in 1983."  You should know that this common knowledge "fact" is, in fact, a myth.   Yes. Dave Smith of Sequential Circuts wrote the protocol or language that we know today as MIDI but the concept of MIDI, or linking electronic musical instruments together, had been available years before 1983.  The problem was, instruments were proprietary to the manufacturer who designed them.  So you could hook up a Roland keyboard with other Roland equipment and/or software but you couldn't hook up a Korg to a Roland keyboard and so on.

What Dave Smith did in 1981 was write the language which became MIDI.  It was painstaking work that took hours of tedious coding that consumed the entire year.  Then came the hard part; getting all the major players in the industry to sign on.  That consumed all of 1982 and a good part of 83 right up until NAMM convention when it was announced.  So who came up with the idea of linking electronic instruments together with computers?🤔

The ironic thing about MIDI is that most serious musicians scoffed when it first came out dismissing it as only good for computer geeks making cheesy blipidy bloop video game music a la Asteroids, and Pac Man.  Now, I'm wondering if any of those "serious" musicians are reading this right now while taking a break from their VSL MIDIstrations.😳  

@jasensmith said:

Not to change the subject but the mystery of who invented sampled legato is much like the mystery of who came up with the concept of MIDI.

It really is time for an update to the MIDI spec, but I think that we're just so far down the rabbit hole with current offerings that change would be really difficult. Yamaha invented a sort of update with their XP format, but it still used the old limited version. There are various new sorts, but nothing seems to be moving on that front.

DG

It is an interesting topic about MIDI.  It is old, but still infinite in its capacity, unlike other protocols. I think most problems with MIDI come from sequencers, not MIDI itself.  To me, sequencers have done the same thing that all technology today - except of course VSL 😇 - is doing, which is to add absolutely everything that could possibly be done, though 99% of that is almost never done and the controls to do it are IN THE WAY. So technology becomes more and more clumsy.  Look at a Xerox machine - used to make simple copies 99% of the time  but now made so infernally overcomplicated they constantly crash or refuse to do a single-sided, black and white copy of one page.  I personally have a workaround for this phenomenon by using an antique sequencer that has none of the five million bells and whistles of the current sequencers but like MIDI is old and infinite. 

Bill, my main issue is the lack of velocity layers. I'm doing some work on a Disklavier a the moment, and I do notice the difference between MIDI and XP format. It may or may not make a real difference to sample work, but as time goes on and sample player software before every more complex, I think that there will be a few MIDI changes that will become necessary.

DG

What exactly are you referring to with lack of velocity layers?  You mean differential control of layers within a channel? 

Anyway I'm sure you're right that changes could be useful.  I simply have noticed how wide ranging and useful MIDI has been compared to other 1980s digital technology because of its design which - at the time - must have seemed absurdly expandable to extremes, which nowadays are not so extreme at all.    An example being the velocity layers of the Vienna Imperial - previously inconceivable detail.   

The next midi protocol (HD MIDI) is coming. When? I can't tell. It's being discussed at the midi manufacturers assossiation.

features proposed for High Definition MIDI:

• Support for more MIDI Channels and Controllers
• Greater resolution in data values
• New messages that were not practical with the MIDI 1.0 protocol
• The draft proposal allows HD senders to specify a direct pitch, rather than a Note Number. The Direct Pitch field sets the base pitch of the note, overriding the base pitch that would otherwise be selected by the note number, allowing easy implementation of alternate tuning systems.
• In addition to Note On and Note Off, the draft includes a Note Update message that allows modification of parameters or controllers during the lifetime of a note.

Note Update feature looks particularly interessting for samples/orchestral music. Maybe like a standardized VST note expression feature.

Hope Sample library and sample player manufacturer will jump in when the protocol will be completed.

@William said:

What exactly are you referring to with lack of velocity layers?  You mean differential control of layers within a channel? 

Sorry, I was typing quickly. What I meant was that with only 128 possible values, it is not enough. The XP format gives 1023, I think. The reason it's not enough, is that the very lowest values are almost never used, and the highest ones aren't either, so in fact the actual normal usable range is really 50-80 steps. Having tested it, even though it sounds fine without, there is something more accurate with the higher resolution.

DG

@William said:

What exactly are you referring to with lack of velocity layers?  You mean differential control of layers within a channel? 

Sorry, I was typing quickly. What I meant was that with only 128 possible values, it is not enough. The XP format gives 1023, I think. The reason it's not enough, is that the very lowest values are almost never used, and the highest ones aren't either, so in fact the actual normal usable range is really 50-80 steps. Having tested it, even though it sounds fine without, there is something more accurate with the higher resolution.

DG

I agree. 

128 values seems grosely inadequate in this day and age.  With more values you can achieve more happy middle grounds for parameters such as expression and attack and action on those parameters would be more forgiving.  With 128, you are constantly battling, what I call, the Goldilocks effect; it's either too much or too little and you're constantly having to go back and re-edit or re-record.

"The reason it's not enough, is that the very lowest values are almost never used, and the highest ones aren't either, so in fact the actual normal usable range is really 50-80 steps." - DG

That makes sense and more smoothness would probably be noticeable depending on the music. 

Of course, with multiple controllers interacting, no one can tell the difference.  Also, I think I could fool anyone into thinking a crescendo was totally smooth, and not a mere 128 steps. 

But that stuff has never really been a problem with MIDI. What the real problem has been, is instruments that MIDI plays.  Such as legato - to seque back into the topic.  Which will I am certain will now be abandoned. 

However, I think the guy who invented legato was rubbed out at some point.  Perhaps in Vienna.  Or maybe it was Peyoche, Nevada.  In the middle of the night he sat up thinking "The transition shall be dissected and attached to the target note!"   And then, next day, he was never heard from again.  After he sent a certain email...