[PD] Synths! (Please Read)

[cyborgk at nocturnalnoize.com]

Hans, I have to respectfully disagree with you there. Midi notes are
pretty logical to work with for most situations. Note, that this is the
case only when you can have fractional note numbers, ie. 60.5 is a quarter
tone up from middle C.

So, even if I wanted a non-standard scale, if it has octave symmetry, it
would be easy to use MIDI note numbers. Since a wrapper exists for
frequency to midi note, this shouldn't be particularly limiting. Granted,
mtof allows conversion the other way, so you could make the opposite
argument. But for most math manipulations, it's much easier to deal with
the math of pitches divided in semitones, than to do the math needed for
frequencies. If you do want to use some kind of other scale, it should be
something linear, aka, 0 to 1 equals one octave wouldn't be too bad to
work with.

The main limitation of MIDI, besides speed, is that CC#'s have a
resolution of 128. I think that all parameters should have higher
resolution, but a synth designed to play "notes" of some sort would be
better off sticking to the MIDI standard.

~David

> Yeah, that would defeat the purpose.  With frequency, 0-1 does not
> make sense.  But a standard does.  Like all synth objects using
> frequency in hertz, rather than MIDI note #s, or whatever else
> someone might think of.
>
> .hc