RE: Midi and Life: What Does It Mean to Be Locked-In? and Do We All Act the Same?
I don't agree on everything you said here. You described the workings of the MIDI specs clearly, but I don't think MIDI is to blame for the often unnatural way music is produced. It is just a protocol which to interface electronic instruments. Nothing more and nothing less.
For example, if you don't quantize your recorded MIDI notes it won't be tempo locked. Or if you use a midi controller which isn't pitch locked to notes (e.g. a guitar to midi adapter) you can record your instrument track with a more natural feel to it.
The issue is more that music production became so easy with computers and DAWs that producers usually don't bother going the extra mile just for the sake of a more natural sound.
On the other hand, music is about creativity and especially the love for expressing one's emotions. I mean, if you love creating mechanical sounding music go for it! If you love making free jazz, MIDI will not hinder you doing/recording that!
@slaktmusic I am happy you don't agree actually. It's something that does need to be discussed with other musicians. I understand that it's a protocol for interface electronic instruments and effects. However the digital and counter-intuitive musical nature of it I think lends to a lot of the Locked-in sounds we hear today. It seems that autotuning is in direct correlation at least to me (first published song with autotuning was 1998 "Believe" by Cher). Or the natural dovetail from MIDI lead to more quantization and over-tuning. Actually, with quantization many programs (prosumer) don't even let the user not quantize.
Music production has become so heavy into computers and DAW's, and we kind of have to make the best of that while yes... the lower pay on certain projects makes it difficult to hire real players.
I think that the MIDI guitar thing is cool, yet to get one. Maybe I'll crypto-fund it some day. I really have wanted a good one for a while. What I think is a flaw of that is that most libraries I have aren't even affected by pitch, and the natural feel would thus be lost. It's a programming issue that not all libraries and plugins are created equally well or equally flexible. I do a LOT of programming manipulation and have several MIDI controllers to help with that.
MIDI won't hinder free jazz nor mechanical or electronic music. BUT the programming of it does make us confined to a set of limitations. All good things come from limitations, but I think there needs to be a more limitless option. IT IS THE BEST OPTION AVAILABLE RIGHT NOW. I also love MIDI and do lots of spacial uses for it in my own studio such as conducting in the air or controlling dynamics of strings with distance conrollers. Breath controllers, ipads, Touché, etc.
Thanks for commenting and let's keep this discussion going!
Oh boy don't get me started on auto-tuned vocals. Personally I think this broke the last taboo if it comes to "ironing out" imperfections. Antares made it possible with their Autotune technology to rob the last bit of "soul" from the most human thing there is: their voice.
I also understand that the use of Autotune back then with "Believe" was purely to create something that is so drastically new sounding that it shocked the average people into liking it :D
So again, the use of quantization can be a creative element as well...
But back to MIDI. Personally I think its biggest flaw is that it is so old and no manufacturer dared to come up with something so good that it would replace this antiqued standard. It's too slow (31250 baud!) and prone to overflows. They could just build a new standard based on USB and you'll get less latency could better configure data streams and make it super flexible!