Post by ehauri on Jan 1, 2015 2:11:58 GMT
Hi Nic,
Thanks very much - I know you had to say it twice, and I can understand that depending on the POV one man's source is another man's destination, but it took me awhile to appreciate this fully. Thanks for the clear explanations.
So with MidiBus, just to make sure I have the POVs correct, on the Transport panel (Destinations) I can view each lane as the app's MIDI IN (even though the arrow is pointing out of the clock...), and on the Monitor panel (Sources) as each app's MIDI OUT (even though the arrow is pointing into the clock...). Right?
It seems to me - admittedly with a hardware-view bias - that Apple's source/destination convention has made visualization of the signal path unnecessarily complicated, because they blur the basic meaning of those very words. In plain English a source produces (transmits) the MIDI messages, and the destination is the place those messages go (the receiver). Yes you can flip the meaning by changing the POV, but why do this? Perhaps there is something to be gained from the coding perspective, but MIDI's own conventions (in, out, thru) were established well before it dawned on anyone at Apple to write MIDI-enabled apps (and being a pre-Apple user of Logic from v.5 I think it is safe to say that the acquisition of Emagic was the moment it dawned on them). People are used to IN and OUT and THRU and I think our conversation has made clear that the mapping of that existing convention onto "Sources" and "Destinations" is rather muddy. And it makes me wonder if this is a hurdle to people understanding what MidiBus is doing (I am an MIT PhD and it was a hurdle for me!).
Ok rant over. Assuming that my mapping above is correct, I feel like I can now fully wield these great apps in my quest to figure out which iOS apps will play nicely together (from a clock perspective) and which ones won't. Thanks for sticking with the thread!
Thanks very much - I know you had to say it twice, and I can understand that depending on the POV one man's source is another man's destination, but it took me awhile to appreciate this fully. Thanks for the clear explanations.
So with MidiBus, just to make sure I have the POVs correct, on the Transport panel (Destinations) I can view each lane as the app's MIDI IN (even though the arrow is pointing out of the clock...), and on the Monitor panel (Sources) as each app's MIDI OUT (even though the arrow is pointing into the clock...). Right?
It seems to me - admittedly with a hardware-view bias - that Apple's source/destination convention has made visualization of the signal path unnecessarily complicated, because they blur the basic meaning of those very words. In plain English a source produces (transmits) the MIDI messages, and the destination is the place those messages go (the receiver). Yes you can flip the meaning by changing the POV, but why do this? Perhaps there is something to be gained from the coding perspective, but MIDI's own conventions (in, out, thru) were established well before it dawned on anyone at Apple to write MIDI-enabled apps (and being a pre-Apple user of Logic from v.5 I think it is safe to say that the acquisition of Emagic was the moment it dawned on them). People are used to IN and OUT and THRU and I think our conversation has made clear that the mapping of that existing convention onto "Sources" and "Destinations" is rather muddy. And it makes me wonder if this is a hurdle to people understanding what MidiBus is doing (I am an MIT PhD and it was a hurdle for me!).
Ok rant over. Assuming that my mapping above is correct, I feel like I can now fully wield these great apps in my quest to figure out which iOS apps will play nicely together (from a clock perspective) and which ones won't. Thanks for sticking with the thread!