The split's getting wider. Talks have broken down. The two sides are digging in and preparing for what could be the bloodiest battle the PC audio world has ever seen. At this very moment mic clips are being loaded, mixers are being calibrated, tube pre amps are being warmed up and DAT machines stand at the ready. The forces of the digital army are poised for an all out assault. Across the field, workers are laying down miles of MIDI cable to open the lines of communication. Top secret .MID files are being opened and System Exclusive data dumps are being deployed to the thousands of hearty souls who have pledged their undying allegiance to General MIDI in the fight for real time control of the PC audio landscape ...

And they wait...

You may wonder why two groups of people with the same basic goal have such different views of MIDI and Digital Audio. It all comes down to definitions. PC development is plagued by inaccurate and inadequate definitions of the different types of audio available. To this day many developers continue to equate MIDI with FM synthesis. Others insist that any form of digital recording will result in sparkling CD quality reproduction. This is simply not true. Even more important is an understanding of the strengths of each technique and the ability to implement each where most appropriate. For example, in a role playing game where the player will walk into a room full of people talking and hit the juke box - digital audio is the clear choice. This decision is not based on the presumption that digital audio is somehow better or cleaner, but rather that game play dictates that the room always sounds that way.

MIDI, on the other hand, is all about control. In a game where the player may spend forty-five minutes running around level thirteen shooting anything that moves, having a soundtrack that can alter itself in real time would make the experience much more compelling. Think about it...the machine knows if something's hiding around the corner with a chainsaw and a sly grin. Why not have the drummer get a little more intense while the clarinet player decides to lay on the flat five like it's going out of style? There is just no way that a digital soundtrack spooling off a CD can compete on that level. It would be like going to a party at a friend's house and finding out that his record collection consists of one copy the Bay City Rollers Greatest Hits. Sure, it's cool as long as the roller disco lasts, but the same tune over and over can get a little old, no matter how hip it is.

Of course, it would be great if it were that simple. The lines of distinction are getting blurry. Digital mixing now allows for one stream of music to seamlessly fade into another when the action requires it. Wave-table synthesis and sampling technology (SoundFonts) bring digital audio under MIDI control. The tricky part is keeping on top of the changes and making the decisions that keep the title sounding and running the best that it can.

But then again, that's always the tricky part- isn't it?