As we have a lot of experience with MIDI, we would like to give readers
more insight in the facts and measurements we have on file.

It takes MIDI about 0.330 milliseconds to transmit 7 bits.  You will
need 3 times 7 bits to send a complete "MIDI note on" command, so in
total 0.990 or lets say 1 millisecond (one thousand of a second ).

On a standard Decap organ you move about 3.6 meters cardboard each
minute, so one millimeter is about 0.01666 seconds, or 16.6
milliseconds.  So you can send 16.6 "note on" commands within 1
millimeter cardboard transported.  We are very happy with that figure,
but faster would always be better.

We have experienced the same problem described in the articles but
we found that the sound module is mostly responsible for the timing
errors.  You must remember that MIDI is transmitted to the sound module
first, but then the module must response AFTER receiving the MIDI data.
Not all modules do this very well, but if you buy a module that can
play, for example, 128 notes at the same time (128 notes polyphony),
the problems would be less obvious.

As drums are very much the time factor in music, it would help to
advance them one clock pulse, so that they are processed first in the
sound module.

Tony Decap
Gebroeders Decap