[HN Gopher] Microsoft opens MIDI 2.0 repo
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Microsoft opens MIDI 2.0 repo
Author : anigbrowl
Score : 132 points
Date : 2023-06-28 16:16 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (devblogs.microsoft.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (devblogs.microsoft.com)
| saintradon wrote:
| I wonder what took so long. Maybe it's partially due to midi
| being perfectly fine for 90% of its use cases. Still, seeing
| "midi 2" legitimately announced reminds of that meme of "Music 2"
| being announced.
| jrajav wrote:
| It's mainly getting more traction recently thanks to the push
| from MPE gaining more popularity. MPE improves on MIDI in
| several crucial ways, mainly allowing for much better
| polyphonic parameter controls. However, it's also kind of a big
| hack internally, hijacking things like MIDI channels to work
| properly. MIDI 2.0 is largely a response to the proven need, to
| clean all that up and back the effort up to full industry
| collaboration (where MPE was a proprietary push from the likes
| of Roli).
| Eduard wrote:
| MPE = MIDI Polyphonic Expression
|
| https://www.midi.org/midi-articles/midi-polyphonic-
| expressio...
| Dwedit wrote:
| Some people read the word "MIDI" and immediately think of music
| played back using the Microsoft GS Soundfont, and absolutely
| nothing else. But MIDI was meant as a protocol for instruments to
| talk to sequencers, synthesizers and PCs, rather than a playback
| format for audio.
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| Yes, but canyon.mid and passport.mid will always have a place
| in our hearts <3
| netsharc wrote:
| jazz.mid for me! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYcW_ux2tas
| rakah wrote:
| I sure hope it finally supports MPU-401 style intelligent mode!
| cachvico wrote:
| What are the major features of MIDI 2 over MIDI 1?
|
| Does MIDI 2 have broad vendor buy-in? We all know about
| Microsoft's history here.
|
| Is MIDI 2 a good thing overall?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| MIDI 2 has huge vendor buy-in. MS isn't leading the charge,
| Google and apple are supporting it too. I posted this because I
| thought the repo might be more immediately useful than the pure
| specifications, which were released a few weeks ago.
| jrajav wrote:
| It has broad vendor buy-in from the vendors that matter much
| more than OSes: Instrument manufacturers. Yamaha, Korg, and
| Roland all demo'ed MIDI 2.0 prototypes at NAMM recently.
| [deleted]
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _What are the major features of MIDI 2 over MIDI 1?_
|
| "What Musicians & Artists need to know about MIDI 2.0":
| https://www.midi.org/midi-articles/what-musicians-and-artist...
| duped wrote:
| There's some boring/obvious QoL stuff like expanding the notion
| of channels into groups + channels (16 groups of 16 channels in
| MIDI 2 instead of the implicit single group of 16 channels on
| MIDI 1), better synchronization messages, higher resolution
| control changes/velocity/aftertouch, polyphonic control
| changes, and so on. Basically the limitations of MIDI 1's 8 bit
| protocol are being lifted.
|
| But the big difference is that MIDI 2 is duplex (devices can
| send and receive messages from each other, rather than just
| broadcasting them into the void). This allows for discovery
| (devices can find each other on the same connection/network),
| capability inquiry (devices can get metadata about each other)
| and the super power: property exchange (get/set properties as
| JSON).
|
| The reason the last bit is so big is because it fixes some
| giant issues with MIDI, like being unable to control the tuning
| system used by all the connected devices. With some conventions
| and the new protocol we should see MIDI 2 open up a lot of room
| for non-western and microtonalities without resorting to tedium
| or hacks.
|
| But that's just an example. It's kind of like a binary protocol
| for hardware and software music devices that goes beyond basic
| performance controls.
| ilyt wrote:
| Yes and yes, it isn't microsoft that started pushing it.
|
| Biggest promises on top of better data types is actual device
| discovery, so for example after connecting control keyboard to
| a synth you can have the knob names automatically populated.
| And no hacks needed to get MPE
| pwenzel wrote:
| And how does it compare to OSC (Open Sound Control)?
| glimshe wrote:
| MIDI is one of those things that work great in 80-90% of
| scenarios, and very poorly on the rest. It's actually a lot like
| other "good enough" technologies with enormous staying power. I
| don't love MIDI, but I understand it and it "just works" for me,
| so there is zero incentive to switch.
| ganoushoreilly wrote:
| It's great. I have a 8x8 motu midi rack that i've had for
| probably 25 years, might be one of the only consistent pieces
| of rack gear I've had.
| mjr00 wrote:
| yep. MIDI is great for a keyboard/piano interface with
| velocity, pitch bends and a sustain pedal, maybe some filter
| modulation if you're feeling frisky. But using it for guitars
| and orchestras? Use the right keyswitch note to change the
| articulation, use a different keyswitch to pick the "right"
| note (since many instruments e.g. guitars have multiple notes
| that play a C3), maybe the actual notes themselves don't make a
| sound but instead shape a chord that can be strummed by a
| separate strum trigger note. Oh and the dynamics of the sound
| might be controlled by a CC, which shows up in Kontakt if
| you're lucky and requires looking at the manual if you're not.
| Oh yeah and none of this is standardized, so a Spitfire
| orchestra library's keyswitch controls are entirely different
| from EastWest. Fun.
|
| Sounds like MIDI 2.0 will help with some of this, at least.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| Your comment about guitars is why I decided to continue
| playing with guitars despite the EDM craze(and I love EDM).
|
| The ability to create analog waves naturally is something
| that I thought software would struggle with, or at a minimum,
| be too difficult/time consuming.
|
| It hasnt turned into anything useful, never ended up making
| any public music, but as far as I can tell, I can create
| weird sounding music faster than anyone with software.
|
| I'm happily waiting for AI Music to turn my blah into fab.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Aren't most musical scores these days all done in MIDI? With
| the other option being to hire X number of musicians plus a
| conductor? So seems like a pretty AMAZING thing that this 80s
| technology is able to do what previously took a score of
| people to do, and a use case that was probably not
| considerated during it's creation.
| xhevahir wrote:
| Considering how hostile Windows has been to MIDI, I wouldn't put
| much store by this. Working with MIDI on Windows is such a PITA;
| the SoundFont player I used to use (VirtualMIDISynth) was
| constantly breaking due to some change Microsoft had made to
| their certification rules or whatever the hell, forcing me to
| switch back to the ancient GS Wavetable thing that MS have never
| bothered replacing. (Fortunately for me, my purposes don't
| require high quality samples.)
| masspro wrote:
| I remember in the early 2010s sometimes excitedly checking the
| MIDI Manufacturers Association's blog for updates on MIDI 2.0 and
| seeing things like "great news! At this year's NAMM, industry
| partners agreed to consider agreeing on considering MIDI 2.0 at
| next year's NAMM!" I'm a bit out of the music game at this point
| but it would/will be cool to encounter some new gear being made
| with MIDI 2 support!
| gdubs wrote:
| When I was developing Polychord for iPad, I got very deep into
| MIDI and one of my favorite things about the standard is how it
| immortalizes manufacturers from the 1980s [1]
|
| In the system exclusive message section you can find references
| to Fairlight, Kurzweil, etc.
|
| 1:https://www.recordingblogs.com/wiki/midi-system-exclusive-me...
| zh3 wrote:
| >Microsoft has gotten so much better with integrating and
| supporting open source over the years.
|
| Eh...integrating yes, support? And effectively declaring
| themselves in charge of MIDI specs, hmmm ("...no longer under NDA
| etc").
| lockhouse wrote:
| They own this one website that hosts a few open source projects
| for free...
|
| https://github.com/
|
| Maybe you've heard of it.
|
| In all seriousness, I would say that today Microsoft does a
| better job supporting open source projects than most of their
| peers.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Fun fact: a much younger version of me started the push for this
| 22 years ago
|
| Edit: I don't want to make out that I spearheaded the project or
| anything. I just spent several years politely bothering people at
| music industry trade shows and on industry forums. All the heavy
| lifting was done by other people.
|
| https://www.soundonsound.com/people/sounding-36
| jxramos wrote:
| Can you share what precisely you were pushing for. How did you
| phrase it to others at the time?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| It's literally in the linked op-ed article?
| mort96 wrote:
| Heh, I didn't realise you were the submitter of the
| article. HN should probably mark that a bit more clearly
| greenthrow wrote:
| To avoid sounding like you're trying to take some credit you
| might have phrased it:
|
| "This is something I've been wanting for 22 years."
| mort96 wrote:
| Why's this a Microsoft thing?
| delfinom wrote:
| Man, I'm afraid to get banned by opening a GitHub issue but the
| usb driver looks bad.
|
| AMEI themselves wrote a clean Windows interfacing portion of the
| driver. But they copy and pasted a MIDI driver meant for Arduinos
| for message parsing
|
| The code formatting is awful. you can't even follow nesting of if
| statements properly in some places
|
| https://github.com/microsoft/MIDI/blob/main/src/usb-driver/U...
| https://github.com/microsoft/MIDI/blob/main/src/usb-driver/U...
| https://github.com/microsoft/MIDI/blob/main/src/usb-driver/U...
| https://github.com/microsoft/MIDI/blob/main/src/usb-driver/U...
|
| Not something I ever want to see in a OS Vendor endorsed and
| probably soon distributed by default USB Driver lol
| hospitalJail wrote:
| Yay MIT License!
|
| Not sure if this is genuinely important, but always happy to see
| humanity make a solid step forward with almost no chance of
| regression.
| lockhouse wrote:
| I've noticed a lot of corporate sponsored open source projects
| favoring the MIT license these days.
| ranting-moth wrote:
| Is this the official MIDI Association repo, hosted on MS org
| github?
|
| They make it sound that way: "We're opening _the_ repo! "
| UtopiaPunk wrote:
| MIDI rules. I love that I can hook up an old keyboard from the
| 80s to my PC running the lastest flashy synth VST in a DAW. When
| such keyboards were manufactured, personal computers were rare,
| let alone DAWs. It's just neat to see technology stay relevant
| and useful over decades, instead of becoming e-waste. Thanks
| MIDI!
| eweise wrote:
| love the 5 pin connectors as well. Its like the 80s are still
| here.
| photonerd wrote:
| Aren't they just standard 5-pin DIN connectors?
| epcoa wrote:
| Sure - that's very 70s to 80s Euro hi-fi though. I guess
| most olds here associate it with the PC/AT clone keyboard
| connector in the early 90s.
| tremon wrote:
| Standard 5/180 DIN connectors, yes. The DIN standard
| specified the number of pins and the angle (arc) between
| the first and last pin.
| mikeInAlaska wrote:
| My final project in a 1989 Electronics class was a MIDI interface
| for the IMSAI 8080 PC. I had various instruments mapped to each
| of the red/blue switches. Now thinking back about it, I wonder
| how the heck I got any information on MIDI specs without the
| Internet.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| You can fit enough of the MIDI 1.0 spec for a basically working
| implementation on a single sheet of paper.
| mikeInAlaska wrote:
| MIDI 1.0 is 38 years old, I wonder if that is some kind of record
| for a protocol standard. But, what about the years between with
| MIDI over USB? Is that fairly called MIDI 1.0 still no matter the
| transport mechanism?
| jasonjayr wrote:
| MIDI is very similar to RS232
| https://www.compuphase.com/electronics/midi_rs232.htm
|
| But RS232 dates back to the 60s
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-232
|
| > In telecommunications, RS-232 or Recommended Standard 232[1]
| is a standard originally introduced in 1960[2] for serial
| communication transmission of data. It formally defines signals
| connecting between a DTE (data terminal equipment) such as a
| computer terminal, and a DCE (data circuit-terminating
| equipment or data communication equipment), such as a modem.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| Shout out to RS232, as an aside!
|
| One of my very first experiences with coding was
| communicating with devices over serial with RS232. 25 years
| later it's mostly usb-adapters and 5v TTL converters instead
| of the old school (in my day) db9 connectors. But I still use
| it all the time for hobby projects.
| dfox wrote:
| MIDI is similar to RS-232 only if you conflate RS-232 (which
| specifies voltage levels and physical connector) with
| asynchronous start-stop serial, while that is the most common
| application for RS-232, it can be carried over a lot of
| physical layers and also RS-232 can carry synchronous serial
| (which is a part of the reason for the DB25 with a lot of
| "unused" pins).
|
| MIDI physical layer is pretty much unique to MIDI and a kind
| of an ugly, but cheap and reliable (when done correctly),
| hack.
|
| Edit: technically you can wire RS232 transmitter to MIDI
| receiver and if both follow the respective specification the
| Tx should not source enough current to blow the Rx
| optocoupler. But it will generally not work the other way
| around because in absence of said optocoupler the
| relationship of the MIDI signal (which is a current loop
| referenced to more or less unspecified potential) to receiver
| ground matters.
| ilyt wrote:
| > MIDI is very similar to RS232
|
| It wouldn't be wrong to say MIDI is protocol running on top
| of RS232 (of specific config and bitrate)
|
| In fact easiest way to get MIDI IN/OUT is using UART on
| microcontroller + an optocoupler
| Someone wrote:
| Wikipedia says TCP is from 1974
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_Control_Protocol).
| That would mean it turns 50 next year.
|
| There likely are way older protocols in telephone networks.
| Aloha wrote:
| CAMA is one of the few I can think of thats still around.
|
| SS7 is newer than TCP
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Yes. MIDI is the sequence data protocol, not the transport
| specification. There are multiple alternatives to the basic, eg
| Elektron had a proprietary system that gives ~10x better
| speed/timing accuracy.
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