6. Peripherals & Devices

The market for MIDI devices & controllers has rapidly expanded. As evidenced by the composer survey, many composers utilize. With the advent of touch screen devices and hardware with cross functionality and integration, users are also adopting various other devices to manipulate MIDI data.

As ‘playing in’ a MIDI performance can be extremely helpful in adding a level of humanness to a sampled sequence, the kind of MIDI device or peripheral used to enter or record the performance can have an influence. Furthermore, given that one of the complexities of musical performances is the various parameters that continually change and alter over time, the ability for the user to control multiple parameters simultaneously can be helpful. From the very advent of MIDI, developers and inventors have created a variety of devices and hardware peripherals to cater for the expanding use of standard in various environments and applications. Whilst this trend largely began with a focus on hardware equipment to interface between the various synthesisers and serve as interconnectors between sound modules and the newly emerging audio workstations, today the focus is largely on facilitating the use of MIDI within the digital domain; and this invariably includes interacting with, using and manipulating sample libraries.

Devices for entering in MIDI data such as keyboards have been staples of composers’ studios almost from when the standard was first established. With the advent and rise of physical modelling synthesis and then sample libraries which utilise several different MIDI CCs and parameters simultaneously, hardware developers began to focus more designing devices which could allow users to intuitively enter in MIDI notes and information which could bridge the gap between the software oriented sample libraries and the act of performing the pieces of music realistically. Following on from the first iterations of MIDI keyboards,  electronic drumkits, and wind controllers such as the Akai EWI Wind Controllers, provided composers with an altogether new means of entering this data in a way comparatively similar to how a musician may perform it, forcing the composer to think in terms of realism and performance in a manner that entering MIDI data with a device diametrically opposite to how the given instrument would behave.                            

By using a hardware device such as a wind controller, the user can manipulate these controls to mimic the desired sound. Following on from these hardware devices, one tool that has just recently become more widely found in composer’s studios is that of the touchscreen interface as a means of controlling or interconnecting between programs and virtual instruments. A common studio setup used by composers today is that of using multiple computers and/or several different Digital Audio Workstations and other programs to help run the extensive libraries with the touchscreen linking between the various programs or switching the given controls depending on what current program is selected.

The composer survey found that 100% of respondents use a MIDI keyboard in their practice. This can present numerous challenges, as a keyboard provides a control interface that can be radically different from that of the instruments and performances a composer may be trying to replicate. As The importance of parameter mapping in electronic instrument design notes how;

In an acoustic instrument, the playing interface is inherently bound up with the sound source…With electronic and computer instruments, the situation is dramatically different. The interface is usually a completely separate piece of equipment from the sound source. - (Hunt, Wanderly, Paradis, 2002)

This issue is further compounded by the playing mechanics of the instrument and its performer. String instruments can present very different challenges being triggered by a keyboard than a percussion instrument, for example;

…the mechanics of a MIDI keyboard and a string acoustic instrument have very little in common. This is the reason why it is fairly hard to render the flexibility and multi-color character of a string instrument from a keyboard - (Pejrola, DeRosa, 2007, p135)

The key benefit of using additional MIDI controllers is that of greater control and flexibility in manipulating various parameters. Devices such as touch screens allowing for both X and Y axis values simultaneously, MIDI breath Controllers which can allow for axis values, air pressure and bite sensitivity, to the new ROLI Seaboard Controller which provides touch sensitivity with the control of a keyboard all provide the composer with many possibilities. Assigning values and parameters within a sample library to various controls, known as ‘mapping’, provides great flexibility and enhanced performance options, particularly for composers who wish to record the MIDI data while it is being performed.