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Posted by Dale on 03/25/07 21:24
Well, this is all pretty much off topic, but I'll bite. Comments inline.
<aniramca@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1174852233.140987.105350@p15g2000hsd.googlegroups.com...
>I consider that one of the amazing invention in the creation of
> digital music file is a midi file. Unfortunately, the inventors of
> midi music did not appear to receive acknowledgements or adequate
> praises from the general public. Younger generation people do not even
> know what a midi is, as they are listening to their musical tunes
> using an mp3 players.
There are a lot of younger people using MIDI. I work with a couple of young
guys who are musicians and they have full PC based recording studios in
their homes including MIDI.
> Who are these inventors? I heard it was a group of people
> (Smith,Kakehashi and Oberheim) who invented in the early 1980s. They
> deserve much better appreciation from all of us. Perhaps not from
> those who manufacture Giga and Terra bytes memories. Unfortunately,
> we are now living in an era, in which big companies decide what is
> good for the public. Big means better. Bigger files are better than
> tiny files, as it will require more memories, running newer and faster
> operating system, etc.
Well, I wish the Windows Media Player product team would join the
Bigger-is-better conspirators. Perhaps they'd drop their ridiculous 200x200
pixel limitation on album art sizes.
> I am still quite amazed on how a music file
> (example: the full 15 minutes of Beethoven's piano classic - Moonlight
> Sonata (all 3 movements) can be filed in just a mere 70 kB as a midi
> file. How many MB will that be in mp3, or in WMA?
That is not a fair comparison. MIDI generates musical tones through
manipulation of synthesizers while MP3 or WMA play digitizations of the real
performance. I studied guitar for years and years. The reason I am not a
musician is that I tend to play like a synthesizer. I play notes, not
music. Sort of like what comes out of a synthesizer controlled by a MIDI
file. There is no orchestra in the output of a MIDI file playing
Beethoven's 5th.
> I know that there are shortcomings of using a midi file... one that I
> heard of is that it cannot be used to record human voice (songs).
> Therefore, it was used for instruments only. I have a Yamaha
> electronic piano, and it was equipped with a driver for accepting midi
> files. I only need one Smart Card of 64 MB, and it is more than
> adequate to store digital library of thousands of piano tunes. Forget
> about that USB keys of 1 or 2 GB!
See above. Describing a set of notes in a file takes much less space than
describing the sound of an orchestra.
> My question is how come there was no further extension or development
> from very efficient midi files? I am not an inventor and know the
> details, but can human actually invent musical files similar to midi
> that can capture other voices, better voice, etc. etc. ?
MIDI really does its job pretty well. It describes written music. We
ventured into MP3 and other things because they describe music as it is
played. How do you describe the sound of a soprano singing? The scary
thing is that there are probably people trying to do just what you say and,
one day, we won't know that the singers we are listening to are computer
software instead of real voices.
> Why did we
> suddenly venture into mp3, WMA, etc? Did midi developers meet a dead
> end and could not improve their midi files? Will big companies who
> make and run computers, music business, etc. one day abandon midi file
> all together?
There is excellent support for MIDI in the recording software and hardware
marketplace.
> Is this a familiar story that this kind of invention is nowadays
> driven by a capitalist market? I sometimes wonder whether people also
> can invent a walkie talkie with multi channels, and can go across
> 20-50 km ranges (say, inside a metropolitan city). I have seen the one
> that can be used up to 10, perhaps 20 km. Was the technology not
> possible, or was it blocked for the benefit of developing cell phones,
> in which people has to pay for the service?
Those radios exist today. They use radio repeaters to extend the range
throughout metropolitan areas. They have existed for about 60 years.
Contact any radio dealer in your local community and they can get you hooked
up. No, those are not the 20 dollar radios that you can get at your local
Wal-Mart. Those are industrial class systems designed for people who need
the functionality and are able to pay what it costs. If you'd like a less
expensive two-way radio for non-commercial use, look into Amateur Radio (ham
radio). If you're in the US, you might start with http://www.arrl.org.
Even if you're not in the US, it might be a good place to start. They
probably have information on amateur radio in other countries.
Cellular phones are nothing more than the logical evolution of those other
radio systems - even though the others still exist and are in large-scale
use today - and are nothing more than hand-held radios that work through a
tower with a phone line very much in the same way that a police or business
walkie-talkie communicates through a tower and a repeater.
I spent many years in the two-way radio and cellular telephone industries.
I have been a licensed amateur radio operator since 1969 and a liensed
commercial radiotelephone operator since 1977. I know this stuff like the
back of my hand.
> Why do we need to
> subscribe cable TV, or now satellite radio? Could human invent a more
> powerful TV and radio transmitters and/or receivers which can bypass
> the use of subcribed cable and satelitte transmission? Did they create
> large files on purpose, so that they can be cut down into tiny pieces
> and scrambled?
Large and powerful TV and radio transmitters are terribly inefficient and
have very spotty coverage patterns especially once you get a little ways out
from the tower. Reliable FM radio or UHF/VHF television beyond 50 miles is
very difficult and expensive while a satellite system can cover huge masses
of territory. To accomplish the same thing in earth-bound radio
transmission systems would require multiple high-powered and expensive
transmitters every 50 to 70 miles in every direction on every landmass on
the planet. And if you have ever listened to a radio system suffering from
the effects of multi-path or from supposedly, but poorly, synchronized
transmitters generating the same content, you would realize just how poor of
a choice that is. There are many systems available that have been around
since at least the late 70's that I have worked with. To make them work
properly, they have to be synchronized for frequency and time differences
using very expensive rubidium or ruby crystal systems and require very close
tolerance components. Very expensive, close tolerance components.
> In the mid 1900s, people listen short wave radios
> across the globe... for free. Why we abandon this idea now?
I have used shortwave radios for many years. Some days, I can communicate
as clearly as if I were standing there to folks in New Zealand or Australia
using less than 5 watts of RF power. Other days, 1000 watts won't get me
200 miles. Shortwave radio systems are much more susceptible to atmospheric
conditions and sunspot cycles than the higher frequency yet line-of-sight
radios used for modern radio communications systems and especially those for
satellite communications.
Even so, shortwave radio was not abandoned. There are plenty of us amateur
radio operators who use it just because we like the spontaniety and never
knowing quite what to expect. Shortwave radio is still very commonly used
in military, shipping, and aviation systems where there are often no
line-of-sight communications systems available or as backups for satellite
communications when at sea or in remote locations. It would be foolish to
depend on satellite in all cases because it can be spotty with small or
portable antenna systems during foul weather. A large 30-foot satellite
dish communicating to a relatively high-powered satellite is pretty reliable
in virtually all weather but a briefcase or hand-held satellite phone or
even a back-pack satellite antenna used in the military can be unreliable.
That's why shortwave is still very much in use in the right circles.
> May be the world nowadays do not appreciate inventors who genuinely
> have brains to create something better for the human kind.... for free.
The thing to appreciate is what a wonderful job inventors have done in
providing us the technology to communicate to and from virtually anywhere in
the world reliably.
30 years ago, the best I could do for my wife and family if I sent them on
the road was to give them a CB radio or a 2-meter radio with phone-patch.
Neither were much good in rural or remote stretches of interstate highway.
Today, for just a few dollars a month, every member of my family has a
cellular phone that has coverage for more than 99.99% of the places we ever
go. What great peace of mind that brings to me, knowing that my family can
call for me or other help any time something happens. My thanks to all of
those wonderful and brilliant minds who were behind the communications
inventions that make our world what it is today.
So, if all of this is really just an expression that you are frustrated that
you cannot find enough MIDI stuff for your PC, simply click this link to
find 1.48 million entries for midi controllers and PCs:
http://www.google.com/search?q=midi+controller+pc
Dale
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