Re: machine types as instrument abstractions, or IA-Machines

[ben]

> What does everyone think? This seems to incorporate Ben's ideas about
> instrument types being pluggable. It also seems to capture what Chris
> was saying about maps and envelopes being global resources (that
> MIDI-mapping bit was a very good point) and also his interest in the
> "sample/instrument modes in impulsetracker" idea, where you have varying
> levels of sophistication in an instrument abstraction. Basically we
> could have IA-Machines of varying complexity. I think your ideas go
> together.

It sounds wonderful to me! :)  Making the waves accessible via global
pitch/velocity->wave maps seems like a good idea, and the IA-machine
method seems like a very flexible way to do it (yeah, that was pretty
much what I was thinking of).  It also seems like a good idea to have
envelopes as a global resource - even an envelope table much like the
wave table, with the ability to select envelopes via pitch/velocity
maps.. but that might be complicating things a bit too much..