Funk Goes On Midi Here

MIDI, on the other hand, is digital perfection. It is the sterile 1s and 0s. It’s the sound of a sequencer playing exactly on the grid at 120 BPM with zero velocity variation.

You can’t do that with fingers on a real Stratocaster. Only a mouse can. funk goes on midi

MIDI allows you to manipulate this with surgical precision. You can take a simple C7 chord, set the velocity to 127 (max) for the attack, and immediately drop to 20 for the release. MIDI, on the other hand, is digital perfection

So why is the niche genre of suddenly un-ironically awesome? You can’t do that with fingers on a real Stratocaster

So next time you open your DAW, skip the vintage compressor plugin. Load up the General MIDI sound set. Crank the tempo to 112. And let the ones and zeros get funky.

Early MIDI modules (Roland Sound Canvas, Korg M1, Yamaha DX7) had funk sounds that were... adorable. The slap bass sounds like a rubber band stretched over a shoebox. The brass stabs sound like a kazoo choir.

We aren’t talking about cheesy General MIDI soundfonts from a 1995 Sound Blaster card (though, nostalgia is a hell of a drug). We are talking about the ethos: Funk goes on MIDI.