Re:Midi Fade out
2011/06/20 06:40:45
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MIDI being data doesn't make it impossible to implement. The question is more whether it's feasible to do so. Fades on a MIDI clip could just send the MIDI volume CC, similar to an ordinary MIDI volume clip envelope. The problem would be to decide on which MIDI channel to send. To cater all possibilities it would need to be sent on all 16 channels, regarding that a clip could contain data on any of them.
Whether that would be 128 values or 16383 depends on the method used. MIDI volume can be sent as combined message of CC7 (volume MSB) and CC39 (volume LSB), which can give 14bit resolution. Not all devices understand 14bit volume, though and if you were sending a 14bit fade for all 16 channels through a MIDI cable to outboard, I believe you'll be seriously hogging the stream with billions of volume messages. I don't think there would be a problem if you stay in the box, but I guess there would need to be options to decide whether it uses 7bit or 14 bit volume, and maybe even a possibility to restrict messages to certain channels.
Some DAWs will use the volume and fade handles on clips to process note velocities. That's fairly nice, especially with drums, but of course very different from a fade. But it gets around all the data hog problems elegantly, as it just processes existing note messages. I don't use it much for faking a fade, but it's nice to adjust velocity ranges right on the clips with handles.
All that said, you are better off anytime to do fades on the audio side of things. But it's not at all impossible just because it's MIDI.