also supports
MIDI, which I believe is a problem for LADSPA (Taybin?).
Yes. XAP is supposed to address this (at an abstract level), I believe
that explicit MIDI support ala VSTi is a serious mistake.
I know this subject has been extensively chewed on LAD but perhaps you
can summarize for normal users why it's a bad idea or implementation. I
imagine the MIDI + VST arrangement is quite popular with Win/Mac
musicians. Those musicians coming into Linux might wonder "Why no MIDI
with LADSPA plugins?" (though of course XAP should work to make 'em
happy ;).
Mainly because MIDI is very primitive and supporting MIDI at a low level
ties you to it to some extent. XAP has a highlevel control interface that
MIDI can be converted into trivially, but can handle other things.
I still have trouble understanding this view (except for non-standard
tunings..)
Everyone seems to love knocking MIDI, but MIDI is a *real* standard,
supported by countless manufacturers for two decades now. Any
improvements or a new standard are going to arise from the MIDI
consortium itself and the support of manufacturers.. If MIDI were too
primitive for the job, then we wouldn't have all these neat hardware
synths!! MIDI's simplicity is also one of its greatest strengths along
with its low overhead and easy processing.
I hope that one day some commercial manufacturers will port their apps
to Linux, but does anyone honestly expect their going to use XAP? No, as
soon as this happens XAP will be forgotten. And XAP is just going to
alienate potential audio developers from Linux - from where i stand it
just looks too complicated and over-engineered. I can't help but feel a
lot of energy is being spent here by well-meaning individuals which
could be better spent by settling on a simpler standard and getting on
with application support, the biggest gap for Linux.
Anyone who's done/doing computing at degree level will know all about
the OSI vs. TCP/IP fiasco, and I can't help but see similarities.
end_rant(void)
-nixx
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