162_Ranks wrote:When very reasonable people have difficulties agreeing on what category something fits into, it is usually an indication that the categorization systems is insufficient.
I'm not sure why the current system is insufficient. The "Live" indication means that the performance/recording was made by a human pressing the keys on his/her console The "MIDI" indication means that it was MIDI file created initially through a sequencer or a notation program and played back with Hauptwerk (e.g., no human being pressing the keys). The latter category has many fine practitioners -- the late "jocr" and still active "giwro" and "Pointyflute" (as just two examples). It is its own art.
But since all of the recordings in question here are being made using Hauptwerk and digital consoles (as opposed to on "real" pipe organs), there is certainly nothing mystical or more real about a "Live" performance captured in real time by microphones or any other system, or somebody who records directly to WAV file. Recording the live (human) performance to MIDI and then playing it back to make a WAV file is not different from hearing it played the first time -- it can't be, because Hauptwerk (unlike a real organ) has no data involved that is not controlled via MIDI. There is nothing more precise available than what MIDI input/data is being provided (from your MIDI controlled console) based on your playing, so there is nothing magical about the performance being captured "live" in the moment, as opposed to being recorded into a MIDI file by a human. When playing a real (mechanical action) pipe organ, there are additional parameters that cannot necessarily be quantified (subtle though they may often be). But these are not in question here since everybody involved is using a MIDI-driven Hauptwerk setup.
I think thus the current two flag system is perfectly sufficient. When there are additional details, they can go into the notes as people do -- for example when a human has recorded his/her performance on one sampleset and then it is played back on another different organ (as Voxus has done). That can be noted there (as to which sets), and people are aware. But it's still very much a human (=live) playing (with desirably "imperfect" human timing and articulation), quite different from using a sequencer/notation software to produce the results.