MIDI

[jdow]

From: "Les Mikesell" <lesmikesell at gmail.com>
> On Sat, 2006-11-11 at 14:04, jdow wrote:
> 
>> For what it is worth the state of MIDI on 'ix is one of the chief
>> reasons I do not do more of my professional development on an 'ix
>> operating system. Microsoft MIDI is bad enough. But 'ixish MIDI
>> is sickening to work with the last times I tried. Good luck.
>> 
>> {o.o}   <- needs MIDI with sub-millisecond accuracy for some things.
>>         SMF files can't do that. But the software we have can. Even
>>         millisecond accuracy on ix machines has been "amusing" to
>>         try to get. Making arpeggios work right is bad enough. But
>>         MIDI Show Control and MIDI Machine Control sometimes needs
>>         that 1 ms or finer timing accuracy to make effects work right.
> 
> Does OS X qualify as 'ix in this respect or have they they
> made it usable for professional work?

OS X seems to work, which suggests 'ix still has a chance if it gets
a kernel tuned more towards interactive rather than server. Remember
that most of the 'ix folks are more interested in server type uses
than "<disparaging tone>Desktops and Games."

MIDI actually benefits when it is on a good game machine. And MS has
seen a nice market in games so they have their OS compromised to
support games and desktops nicely. (Currently I'd not think of using
Linux as a desktop machine. I'd not think of using anything but 'ix
of some sort for a server machine. 'Ix machines of all flavors I
have tried make Windows look fast with regards to the user experience.)

But that's just my sad opinion - ymmv GREATLY and I would expect that
to be the case. (If I have a STRONG bias it is towards the old Amiga
machines - a SPLENDID game, video, and desktop machine in its day. It
"enjoyed" doing things for you. Apples and Windows of the era seemed
to begrudge you their rest and scream in anguish when you asked them
to do something. And 'ix machines would look at you and say "What is
this silly obnoxious request you have for me to do?")

In the final analysis pick your application to do what you need the
most in the most efficient manner for you that you can find. Then
get a machine that runs the OS and hardware that application needs.
Placing priority on OS first then applications is bassakwards and
always has been.

{^_-}