[OSC_dev] SYNoscopy (or something like it)

[Jeff Glatt]

> Using the term "musician" for synth timbres is confusing

Absolutely.

But of course I'm not doing that, and never would.. My
"musicians" have nothing whatsoever to do with timbres (ie,
actual sound). My musicians are the "control routes" -- what
in MIDI is called "channels". (Well, Roland calls them "parts".
Still too abstract, but a little better. It's meant to suggest a
"musical part").

I think you're getting confused by the word "multi-timbral"
(which I do use in my doc, but now that you mention it, I need
to get rid of it. Bad, bad technical abstraction. Evil.). "Multi-timbral"
is the marketing term that pro music companies use for a synth
that supports playing multiple MIDI channels simultaneously (with
each channel "playing" a completely different MIDI stream than
the other channels). If a synth can't do that, it's not multi-timbral.
If it can play upon two or more MIDI channels simultaneously, it's
called "multi-timbral". Why did they use "timbral", which obviously
refers to sound? Because multiple MIDI channels in practical terms
means you can have multiple patches playing simultaneously. So
some marketing genious said "Let's call it multi-timbral so the
musician realizes this feature means his synth can play multiple
patches simultaneously". Bad, bad choice. I wish it weren't so, but
that's what companies like Roland, Yamaha, Korg, Kurzweil, EMU,
etc, etc, all started calling their new "multiple channel" synths when
they started appearing around the late 1980's. They didn't call
them simply "multi-channel synths" because, by then, they realized
what a horrid mistake it was to call the "control paths" channels,
instead of something intuitive to a musician such as... well...
"musicians". Real musicians _still_ didn't understand what a MIDI
channel was years after they were buying Prophet 5's, DX7's,
Roland D-110's and everything else that had a MIDI jack on
it. If the companies called the synths "multiple channels", then
musicians would have said "I _still_ don't know what these channel
things are. I'm not paying even more money for more of these
things.". And the "multi-channel synths" would have been a
marketing bomb. It actually _was_ a marketing bomb. Sequential
Circuits released the first such "multi-timbral" synth, but they didn't
call it multi-timbral. They called it multi-track (actually "trak" cuz
that's such a cute spelling don't you know), which ain't any better
than multi-channel. Musicians didn't know what that meant in
practical terms and it was Sequential Circuits' first total marketing
bomb. I mean, they couldn't give these things away, and this was
during the time when EVERY synth-pop band on MTV had a
Prophet 5 they were pretending to play. (SQ made the Prophet
5).

So all the other companies coming out with their "multiple channel
synths" said "well we know musicians don't understand what MIDI
channels are. And we sure as hell ain't gonna call 'em multi-trak
because this has just about put Seq Circuits out of business". (It
did. SQ went under soon after). The companies _had_ to come up
with a new name anyway, and someone said "Let's sell musicians
on the idea you can play multiple patches simultaneously. Patches
are sounds, right? And timbre is a word that refers to sound. How
about multi-timbral?". And all the music execs said "Oooooo! We
have a winner! Now let's go get some prostitutes.".

And multi-timbral synths were a huge success. I haven't seen a
non-multi-timbral synth in years and years and years. Well, since
the 80's really.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Whenever you see
the word "multi-timbral" in MIDI specs, always substitute the words
"multiple channels".

But my proposal doesn't call them multiple channels either. I'm
calling them "musicians".

> why not "voice" or "instrument"?

In my proposal, "patches" are called "instruments". Since I believe
you're thinking that I'm talking about patches, as opposed to
"control routes", I'm doing exactly what you've suggested. Good idea.

"Voice" would be closer to "musician", but it still implies "sound"
rather than "control". But "Voice" is already used to refer to
the number of simultaneously sounding oscillators or digital audio
routes in gear (ie, the polyphony). So it would be a really bad choice
to now make it refer to something else. Plus it's still not nearly as
intuitive as "musician". I know, because people visiting my site keep
sending me emails telling me "I never understood what a MIDI channel
was until you described it as a musician in your tutorial. That makes
perfect sense to me".

> Usually instruments make sounds, and
> musicians play the instruments.

Exactly! You got it. That's how a musician sees it. That's
why in my proposal the patches (or "timbres") as you call
them are referred to as "instruments". And the channels (ie,
the things that control, or "play" the instruments) are called
"musicians".

> And what if [there are] multiple synths
> (which may have the same name) on the same network?

You mean like, what if there are two "Roland Fantom XR"
units being used? How does he know which one his sequencer's
"Output" setting is using?

Well, the synth software detects that there are two XRs on
the system, so the choice it gives him are "Fantom XR 1, musician
1", "Fantom XR 1, musician 2", etc. "Fantom XR 2, musician 1",
"Fantom XR 2, musician 2", etc.

Actually, what would be very intuitive would be for the
sequencer software to have an icon of a musician for each synth
on the system. You drag the icon for the synth onto a track, and
the sequencer automatically uses another "musician" on that
particular synth. There's absolutely no reason for the real musician
to know which "musician number" the seq assigned to the track.
When you've run out of musicians for a given synth, then its
icon "grays out", and can't be dragged to another track. This would
be really easy. Musicians would love it.

> This is why id's are desirable.

IDs for what?