RE: live midi looping

["Dennis W. Leas" <dennis@mail.worldserver.com>]

> I thought I saw (back in the late 80's probably) a
> product that was a really inexpensive midi/audio
> codec. I'd love to explore the limits of what could
> be done with something crude like that- I'm sure it
> would suggest some new tangents. If I could afford
> a Kyma, I'd be too distracted to imagine midi loopers,
> I think  8-)  at least for a year or so. (send
> donations to my paypal account)

Yes!  I think it would be great fun to play around with a MIDI/audio codec.
Hope you can find one (through the web, all is possible...).


> Even if one got something like this going, without
> some kind of intelligent algorythm to reduce velocity
> values and then delete notes when they fall below a
> certain velocity or volume value the system would
> overload and do "something" eventually (that would
> be interesting).

Yes, that would be very tricky with such a scheme as we talking about.
Maybe you could have the output side of the codec "attenuate" the note
velocities, then use a recirculating delay set-up (instead of a looper per
se).  You could use a MIDI merger ahead of the input codec to combine the
output and new MIDI.  Hmm....


> If one were to record and delay dc control voltages
> (I know of at least two examples of functioning units
> based on this principle for driving analog synths
> back in pre-midi days) wouldn't that necessarily
> exclude polyphonic midi, or am I missing something.
> If one had to multiplex voltages to get polyphony,
> I don't know how that would compare to converting
> midi to audio in complexity.

Since MIDI is already serialized, probably a MIDI note to CV conversion
would work fine (or at least as well poly as MIDI is).

Intriguingly,
Dennis Leas
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dennis@mail.worldserver.com