Overloading MIDI

• What does it mean to ‘overload’ MIDI ? Well, the sense I’m using here is that MIDI sends notes one at a time, and if it has to send a lot of notes then some will arrive later than others. And that may be a problem, if they are supposed to sound simultaneously.
• So, consider using the P200 Split mode. This sends all notes played twice ( i.e. on two different channels ).
• Now consider playing a 5 note chord. This will use five 30 bit messages. But in split mode, it will use ten 30 bit messages. The gap between the arrival of the first note, and the arrival of the last, will be 290 bits – this equates to about 0.01s.
• When the maximum latency you can accept across all the components in the system is 0.05s, then 0.01s is significant, and could just make the difference between an acceptable response and an unacceptable response.
• It’s unlikely to be a big problem with a simple MIDI setup like the P200 and the gizmo. But it’s much more of a problem where there are multiple controllers sending to multiple instruments, and then you need to start to design your MIDI setup much more carefully ( e.g. see the ‘MJC8 MIDI Patch Bay’ section on pg 66 of the P200 manual, but ignore the part about ‘how long your MIDI cables are’, that’s crap written by musos who don’t understand physics ).