iPhone More Powerful than Wii

[James]

midi midi midi

[Josh]

I hope you all choke on dicks and die a hundred deaths.

[Finch]

[Cheebs]

Well you'd have to have recordings of someone playing a bunch of different subtle variations on those instruments, because MIDI is only able to control the volume, pitch, velocity, aftertouch, duration, chorus, and reverb of a note

MIDI can control tens of thousands of parameters through "sys-ex" commands. It's been in the standard since the beginning. If your MIDI hardware has a dexterous robotic hand, you could send a MIDI command to have it jerk you off. It's all up to the hardware manufacturer as far as what and how many commands are understood. You just listed "general midi" commands.

and there are many more subtleties to many instruments. For drums, keyboard instruments, etc it tends to be fine, but it can't really convey the subtle changes in bowing speed and pressure on a violin unless you sit there and record a dozen different violin sample banks,

Single-instrument MIDI patches can reach gigabytes in size these days. In that case, yes, all of that subtle crap is there.

and at that point it's not really "simple," and it's not saving you time.

Loading 2 gigabytes of samples into your sampling hardware VS tracking down a professional acoustically-treated recording space and the mics, preamps, and eqs to go with it... Let alone knowing how to set and position it all... Trust me, the humongormous MIDI patch is still simpler by orders of magnitude.

The music in Tales of Monkey Island was written to be able to be stored in a small space and played back in real-time on a Wii. On the PC it was recorded with higher quality samples, but not radically re-written, because the whole point of even doing it that way was to save time and money. Perhaps they weren't pushing the MIDI format to its limits to make you happy. It doesn't matter.

MIDI files themselves are tiny. Without exception. Like Josh said, it contains no music; just instructions to perform music. It all depends on how big your sample tables are. Like I said above, those sample tables could be gigabytes in size, in which case MIDI becomes impractical to fit on a game disc (not to mention paying the hundreds of dollars in licensing fees for each sample if you did put it on the game disc) so you record it as a wav or MP3 or whatever and put that on the game disc. Bigger than the MIDI data alone, but much smaller than the MIDI data plus sample tables. That is what the PC is.

If the computer(console) in question already has some default sample tables (many consoles do) and you know exactly what those tables are, then you can just have the tiny MIDI data on the game disk. That's what the Wii did.

The Wii's freebie sample tables can't match the thousands of dollars of high-end sample tables used to make the PC's recorded music, so the difference slaps the listener in the face and they scream "MIDI!"

[Frogacuda]

Single-instrument MIDI patches can reach gigabytes in size these days. In that case, yes, all of that subtle crap is there.

I just don't think you appreciate the context of this discussion at all. We're talking about the reasons why this MIDI composition in particular doesn't sound as good even WITH high end samples.

Like I said, in order for any of that to mean anything, the music would have to be re-written to control those subtleties, and then you shatter parity with the Wii version, which has to use simpler samples. Thus costing them time and money, which they didn't have. You can't just drop a high-end sample into, say, a General MIDI composition form 1994 and have it sound real. It'll sound decent, but the file isn't going to have the instructions in in it to tell it which of the many subtle ways to play the same note.

Loading 2 gigabytes of samples into your sampling hardware VS tracking down a professional acoustically-treated recording space and the mics, preamps, and eqs to go with it... Let alone knowing how to set and position it all... Trust me, the humongormous MIDI patch is still simpler by orders of magnitude.

They already have a studio and musicians. They're trying to create something that they don't have to make twice, so it gets dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. That's all.

MIDI files themselves are tiny. Without exception. Like Josh said, it contains no music; just instructions to perform music. It all depends on how big your sample tables are. Like I said above, those sample tables could be gigabytes in size, in which case MIDI becomes impractical to fit on a game disc (not to mention paying the hundreds of dollars in licensing fees for each sample if you did put it on the game disc) so you record it as a wav or MP3 or whatever and put that on the game disc. Bigger than the MIDI data alone, but much smaller than the MIDI data plus sample tables. That is what the PC is.

Gee, no shit.

The Wii's freebie sample tables can't match the thousands of dollars of high-end sample tables used to make the PC's recorded music, so the difference slaps the listener in the face and they scream "MIDI!"

That's not the issue, dummy. The issue is the PC version, whose music is MP3 format and DOES use professional samples, but is still the same MIDI composition. Even if you throw high-end samples in, you lose something, unless it's written from the jump with all of that in mind.

[Cheebs]

Like I said, in order for any of that to mean anything, the music would have to be re-written to control those subtleties, and then you shatter parity with the Wii version, which has to use simpler samples. Thus costing them time and money, which they didn't have. You can't just drop a high-end sample into, say, a General MIDI composition form 1994 and have it sound real. It'll sound decent, but the file isn't going to have the instructions in in it to tell it which of the many subtle ways to play the same note.

That's backwards. You make it to the high-end standard. Then you dump in the low-end sample for the other version. There is no need to re-write anything since the low-end hardware will just ignore all of the sys-ex commands without causing any error.

If they composed for general midi and then added in better samples before rendering the PC music like you said, then that's their own fault for being stupid and doing it backwards.

[Frogacuda]

Or maybe it's motherfucking hard to do regardless. It's really not as simple as just dropping in a high quality sample. You have to be able to control all those note variations convincingly. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I've seldom heard it done for the more difficult instruments. You can take that up with Michael Land, I guess.

[kingoffighters]

we need Tommy Tallarico's insight NOW

[Frogacuda]

IBTN

[Josh]

How about the insight of a certified MIDI engineer or perhaps a professional recording engineer?

Oh those are the two people you're arguing with in this thread. Well, carry on then... because I'm sure you know more about what you're talking about then either myself or Cheebs.