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Good day,
Some very interesting things going on with MIDI...as well as some interesting things I just discovered...
Have a peep...Presentation by Mike Kent on the Future of MIDI
* Mike Kent is from Surrey, BC! Interesting!
Also, I was not aware that in 1977 Ralph Dyke, also from Vancouver BC, was the initial developer/conceiver of MIDI.
Some other info: MMA has confirmed MIDI 2 at NAMM 2019
I am certainly no midi history buff and rarely find a use for it in the work I do, but it seems to me that the general use of midi in consumer/pro music products has been around a lot longer than 1997. In fact according to a brief scan I just did of midi's history, I gather that its use goes back to at least the early '80s. Check out this article by Craig Anderton, which is just one of many that discusses the history:Quote:
Originally Posted by mr_es335
https://www.midi.org/articles/a-brief-history-of-midi
Good day,
A type-o...glad you caught it...it was 1977...
Thanks for sharing that was interesting.
Good day,
And this is taking place soon as well: Audio Developer Conference.
Also this: MIDI 2.0
From the MIDI Association
Gosh...will this mean an update to Studio MidiWorkShop?
As primarily a guitarist, I hope they expand the instrument-type definition beyond keyboards and percussion. For instance, on a guitar there is more than one place to fret the same note - and yet, beyond pitch, they sound quite a bit different. But, MIDI 1.0 presumes that all pitch events are universal - so there is no way to discriminate between an open A string and an E string fretted at the 5th fret. Similarly, slides on the same string are translated to MIDI as multiple individual key presses - which are decidedly different things. And how about fretless string instruments? There is nothing in MIDI 1.0 for them but work-arounds. I don't play reed instruments, but I know that there are different effects that are a product of the players physical interface with the instrument. It would be nice if the new standard was broad enough to define these nuances.
Also, it would be nice to codify the event generator's ability to transmit how it will be communicating with the event fulfillers. So, if you plug a MIDI guitar into a sampler - the guitar hardware would inform the sampler what it was capable of and the types of information about the performance that it hoped the sampler could flesh-out. Similarly, the sampler could pass back to the MIDI guitar hardware what portion of that set it was capable of fulfilling. And, of course, the standard should not be limited to some preset instrument types. Rather, it should be broad enough to define any imaginable (or, ideally, un-imaginable) instrument. After all, MIDI is an agreement as to how a performance will be transmitted. The event generators and fulfillers should be able to make use of that in whatever way they choose to.
I can understand why MIDI was originally designed for keyboards. The physical limitations of a keyboard helped keep the definition simple enough for it to become a usable standard. But - at this point, the surrounding technology has expanded to the point that it has, long since, become confining - particularly if your instrument of choice is not a keyboard.
John,
As a guitarist myself, I would wholeheartedly agree with you here!
From what I understand, the MIDI 2.0 spec will allow for instrument timbral changes to be recognized.
* I must apologize for as I was performing some other research a while back, I did come across a violinist who was commenting on the MIDI 2.0 specifications being able to recognize the "enharmonic equivalents" - such as guitar players experience on (1) 0 and (2) 5.
* I have been unable to locate that material again - but I will keep looking and if I do find that information, I will provide it here.
Regardless, from what I read at the time, it did look as it MIDI 2.0 would make such possibilities - realities.
That's good. Some of those capabilities are available now as non-standardized extensions to MIDI. For instance, Fishman's Triple Play has teamed with a small number of sampler makers to supply versions of their products that are more useful to guitarists if they have Triple Play. And at least one sampler manufacturer has created software that is sensitive to the non-keyboard-compatible details of MIDI horns hardware - like the Akai. But, since there is no standard, everyone has to start from scratch.
It reminds me of the CPM days when your software had to be ported to each version of CPM and computer. A floppy disk formatted for one couldn't be read by the others. The real reason that the IBM PC took off was not that it was vastly superior to the Z-80 computers that pre-dated it. It was that software made to run on it would also run on the ATT 6800, and the Compaq sewing machine portable, and any other machine that adhered to the PC standard that IBM had created and had the gravitas to uphold in the public. Standards are good.
Amen to that!!! (...and not only in regard to MIDI). :)Quote:
Originally Posted by John Ludlow