I think the debate on General MIDI really is at least two debates. I won't
recap them, but here are my opinions:

General MIDI is useful as a generic orchestra that can be counted on to
render scores more or less the same on different platforms. This is true
for some people and does not injure those for whom it is not true.
Therefore, creating either a General MIDI opcode, or a General MIDI
sample-player orchestra, would benefit Csound. I favor a sample-player
orchestra.

The General MIDI concept could be extended to provide a standard layout for
many, though of course not all, Csound instrument definitions. This would
enable scores and orchestras to be exchanged between musicians and studios.
This also helps some and does not injure those it does not help, so it too
would benefit Csound. I believe the best format would be straightforward
translation of MIDI semantics onto Csound note statements, along the lines
of Perry Cook's SKINI langauge. p1 is channel, p2 is start, p3 is duration,
p4 is pitch, p5 is loudness.  p6 and successive fields could be mapped to
MIDI control messages, perhaps.

As computers grow in real-time signal processing power,then Csound, with or
without Extended Csound or hardware DSP, is able to do in software what
dedicated synthesizers do in hardware and firmware. At that point, which is
now, it starts to make sense to provide studio-oriented, user-friendly
front ends for Csound, at a cost of software engineering time, rather than
new synths and rack units at a cost of both software and hardware
engineering time, not to mention hardware cost. The musician need not even
know that good old command line Csound is producing the snazzy sound.

It is true that the Csound languages are fairly lame, but, if you take the
time, and understand the principles of software synthesis, there is nothing
at all wrong with the sound you can get. I have used Cmix, Csound, modular
synthesizers, and current digital synthesizers and sample players. Csound
sounds as good or better than all of its competition, is cheaper than any,
and runs on everything. I could afford much more expensive things, but I
use it because it is the most powerful musical instrument, all things
considered, that I can get my hands on.

On Tue, 18 Mar 1997, Michael Gogins wrote:

> I think the debate on General MIDI really is at least two debates. I won't
> recap them, but here are my opinions:
> 
> General MIDI is useful as a generic orchestra that can be counted on to
> render scores more or less the same on different platforms. This is true
> for some people and does not injure those for whom it is not true.
> Therefore, creating either a General MIDI opcode, or a General MIDI
> sample-player orchestra, would benefit Csound. I favor a sample-player
> orchestra.
GO FOR IT!!!!

As for me I try an avoid MIDI like the plague.

Thanx,  John Beahan