[Freepats] has `cheating' been considered?

[Jonas Koelker]

Hi all.

I've been lurking on the list for a while.  I have a some midi files which I
listen to *very* occasionally on my debian box, and I also like to compose
stuff myself (using lilypond).  I'm the kind of person who installs vrms
(which checks for installed non-free software--debian packages, at least).
So, that's my interest in freepats.

I've had an idea which I'd like to get discussed:

The current state of affairs is that there's a lot of programs for which
there's no sound, hence making my midi experience rather poor.  I've thought
of a workaround for that:

Whenever you have sound for a particular kind of instrument (say, an alto
saxophone), reuse that sound for *all* types of that instrument (baritone,
tenor, alto, soprano), and mark all the non-alto as "cheats" (think symlink=
).

I'm predicting that at least some of you are, shall we say, quite displeased
at the thought of it, but hear me out.  My main argument is that slightly(*)
wrong sound is better than no sound.

(*) Those who are displeased will argue that `slightly' is an understatemen=
t.
My point is that you're not using a guitar sound for a saxophone, you're us=
ing
a saxophone sound for a (different) saxophone.

The main counterargument I see is that some people will say that "no sound =
is
better than wrong sound".  Here's my suggestion as how to mitigate that:  g=
ive
people choice--make one package `no-cheats' and one package `with-cheats'. =
 In
that way, the user gets to choose.

The reason why I think wrong sound is better than no sound is that I can at
least hear the `main' tone (think fourier analysis and overtones, which giv=
es
each instrument it's unique `sound').  Yes, the sound of the instrument is
off, but midi is often not that great *compared to PCM audio*, so to me it's
not that significant.

Discuss!

Regards (and thanks for the good work),

Jonas

-- =

"Microsoft has had clear competitors in the past. It's a good thing we have
museums to document that." (At the Computer History Museum, Oct. 2004)

Jonas K=F6lker <jonaskoelker at gnu.org> <URL:http://jonaskoelker.homeunix.org=
/>
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