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> MIDI 2.0 delivers more nuanced expressiveness for electronic instruments. It’s now possible to convey the same kind of subtle expression normally associated w

by K0SM0S 7y ago

> MIDI 2.0 delivers more nuanced expressiveness for electronic instruments. It’s now possible to convey the same kind of subtle expression normally associated with acoustic instruments, thanks to higher-resolution dynamics and control data, vastly extended controller options (including per-note controllers for exceptional articulation), and simplified controller assignments. This could be a musical revolution in the making, some 10-20 years from now. Huge, huge implications for the entire industry and craftmanship of "instruments". At the bottom of the market, this could be the proverbial end of the 'cheap' analog stuff for the masses, a world of fantastically sounding budget intruments). At the state of the art, a whole new category of instruments with potentially crazy original software-defined features. MIDI 2.0 would have been sci-fi not so long ago. It's fantastic that we are here.

72deluxe 7y ago
But will anyone hear such subtlety with the over-handed compression applied to everything these days, and the low-quality streaming quality 99.9% of listeners are satisfied with?? It is indeed great news but I do not hear a lot of subtlety in most music, particularly electric genres that believe loud loud square and triangle waves are the future, given the amount I hear. I must be getting old.
- derefr 7y ago
  > low streaming quality You mean AM radio? ;) Keep in mind, MIDI is also used for live performances—and not just in raucous club concert venues, but also in pin-drop quiet orchestral performance halls (if the genre isn’t classical.) Also, more than ever, people are releasing music in high-bitrate lossless formats, making even a compresssed soundstage not particularly lossy.
- unlinked_dll 7y ago
  The difference between 7 bit control changes and continuous floating point automation is night and day, and neither dynamic range compression nor lossy compression affects that. EDM in particular is full of sonic subtleties that MIDI 1.0 did not really support. I don't think you're really listening to it if you think it's all triangle waves, those aren't even particularly popular in contemporary sound design.
  - hootbootscoot 7y ago
    I'm not sure you are referring to a control protocol here... "dynamics" are not directly correlated to velocity, and see my lengthy spiel above for why 7 bits is enough, lol... I really don't follow you on this "EDM full of sonic subtleties that MIDI 1.0 didn't support" ? 1) EDM full of sonic subtleties? pray tell. 2) how does a control protocol support sonic obtusities or subtleties in any way shape or form? MIDI = note numbers, note ON, note OFF (or you need to hit reset as the note will hang) CC or continuous controller, velocity, modulation, pitch-bend... https://www.midi.org/specifications-old/item/table-1-summary-of-midi-message https://www.midi.org/specifications-old/item/table-1-summary... you can sniff MIDI messages... there's not much to them. I'm trying to understand how the control protocol would influence the sonic subtleties? It's my distinct experience to note that most EDM features little to no velocity variance nor any mapping of that to volume of oscillators etc. I've also noted a distinct lack of anything resembling subtlety in EDM, but call me biased as I produced dance music for about 30 years and lived touring as a performing act from it for over a decade, but I digress, as I am wont to do from time to time... triangle waves? do you mean square waves? aka the artifact of ridulously over-compressed music?
    - nitrogen 7y ago
      7 bits makes zips on control sweeps. 7 bits is also not nearly enough to cover the expressive velocity range of e.g. a piano.
      - hootbootscoot 7y ago
        7 bits directly coupled to a control of a filter cutoff, for example, will create a zip. I doubt any living pianists can present substantially more than 127 discrete velocity values, however. Regarding the former point you made: let's not confuse a simple low-level means of remotely issuing continuous controllers with a limited bit value (MIDI CC's) with how you map it in your synthesizer or effect. Smoothing, ramping, interpolating, filtering... You are essentially mapping a coarse range to a finer range and you can apply acceleration curves, etc. there's no limit here, and there hasn't been in software synths/fx for 20 years on this. zipper noise is amateur. MIDI is essentially a very simply synchronous wire, a stream of events in which the transport timing is THE timing framework, leaving mtc aside for the moment. to call this protocol MIDI 2.0 is not accurate, as it's more like a meta-MIDI protocol much more like OSC. all are physical transport agnostic, it's just that MIDI and its 5 pin DIN connector are ubiquitous, present on old gear (old gear is valued with music people...) and you can connect 1 of those wire, pin 2 or 3 IIRC, directly to your microcontroller and be toggling your sound thingy faster than you can say "debounce"... it's stupidly simple, and the notion of "protocol negotiation" runs counter to the spirit of the original entity. call this OSC ALT 2 or something...
hootbootscoot 7y ago
are you referring to a control protocol or a magical signal path effect? you could always do what you described since at least 20 years now, as MIDI need not describe your synths parameters controls the issues with MIDI are not so much dynamics as timing resolution. 7 bits of dynamics might not sound like much but I'm not confident in any known musicians ability to express dynamics with more than 127 discrete levels lol... timing resolution of MIDI is great for more quantized musical styles, but for accurately capturing nuanced rubato performances this is the area that needs to be improved. the primary issue with timing in physical MIDI interfaces is timing STABILITY. this is arguably worse on a modern Mac with CoreMIDI than on an Atari 1020ST... This is directly a product of scheduler vagaries and even firmware. MIDI should be locked to the sample clock, perhaps updating as often as once a buffer or even less... (there was even a recent Macbook Pro that had it's audio clock jittering all over the place due to a power-management IC hardware rev, aka you can't download an update to fix THAT one, but I digress...)
- nitrogen 7y ago
  I share your disappointment in what seems like a downward slope in audio latency and jitter on modern hardware. My old AMD Athlon 64x2 with a Sound Blaster Live 5.1 was more consistent than my modern Core i7 workstation with a pro/prosumer audio interface.
- K0SM0S 7y ago
  > 7 bits of dynamics might not sound like much but I'm not confident in any known musicians ability to express dynamics with more than 127 discrete levels lol... Think one step further: when I hit a key on the piano, or a fret on a guitar, virtually all other strings resonate to some degree, however minutely, and this has to do with harmonic resonances, the geometry of the piano, etc. (Fourier + chaos). Now the only way to convey that kind of subtlety currently is either to digitize "as a whole" (microphone) or discretely (e.g. individual string sensors); but each has its tradeoff that you don't get from the other (no discreteness in your microphone, and the discrete approach probably won't render any accoustic feel, let alone room shape, etc. Basically, at a mathematical level, it seems like we should be able to get both worlds — a discrete yet complete description of an "instrument", which obviously has to be designed for the purpose. It's really breaking wide open the barrier between the physics of real-world tangible objects and the mathematics of software objects, computation for music. You may thus simulate analog stuff 'perfectly' (good enough to human ear), or quantize real analog also 'perfectly' (enough). Obviously you could do all of that now building your own stuff, instruments and software and protocols. But having it baked in MIDI is a game changer in terms of actual mainstream use, thus products to market.

by K0SM0S 7y ago

72deluxe 7y ago

But will anyone hear such subtlety with the over-handed compression applied to everything these days, and the low-quality streaming quality 99.9% of listeners are satisfied with?? It is indeed great news but I do not hear a lot of subtlety in most music, particularly electric genres that believe loud loud square and triangle waves are the future, given the amount I hear. I must be getting old.

derefr 7y ago
> low streaming quality You mean AM radio? ;) Keep in mind, MIDI is also used for live performances—and not just in raucous club concert venues, but also in pin-drop quiet orchestral performance halls (if the genre isn’t classical.) Also, more than ever, people are releasing music in high-bitrate lossless formats, making even a compresssed soundstage not particularly lossy.
unlinked_dll 7y ago
The difference between 7 bit control changes and continuous floating point automation is night and day, and neither dynamic range compression nor lossy compression affects that. EDM in particular is full of sonic subtleties that MIDI 1.0 did not really support. I don't think you're really listening to it if you think it's all triangle waves, those aren't even particularly popular in contemporary sound design.
- hootbootscoot 7y ago
  I'm not sure you are referring to a control protocol here... "dynamics" are not directly correlated to velocity, and see my lengthy spiel above for why 7 bits is enough, lol... I really don't follow you on this "EDM full of sonic subtleties that MIDI 1.0 didn't support" ? 1) EDM full of sonic subtleties? pray tell. 2) how does a control protocol support sonic obtusities or subtleties in any way shape or form? MIDI = note numbers, note ON, note OFF (or you need to hit reset as the note will hang) CC or continuous controller, velocity, modulation, pitch-bend... https://www.midi.org/specifications-old/item/table-1-summary-of-midi-message https://www.midi.org/specifications-old/item/table-1-summary... you can sniff MIDI messages... there's not much to them. I'm trying to understand how the control protocol would influence the sonic subtleties? It's my distinct experience to note that most EDM features little to no velocity variance nor any mapping of that to volume of oscillators etc. I've also noted a distinct lack of anything resembling subtlety in EDM, but call me biased as I produced dance music for about 30 years and lived touring as a performing act from it for over a decade, but I digress, as I am wont to do from time to time... triangle waves? do you mean square waves? aka the artifact of ridulously over-compressed music?
  - nitrogen 7y ago
    7 bits makes zips on control sweeps. 7 bits is also not nearly enough to cover the expressive velocity range of e.g. a piano.
    - hootbootscoot 7y ago
      7 bits directly coupled to a control of a filter cutoff, for example, will create a zip. I doubt any living pianists can present substantially more than 127 discrete velocity values, however. Regarding the former point you made: let's not confuse a simple low-level means of remotely issuing continuous controllers with a limited bit value (MIDI CC's) with how you map it in your synthesizer or effect. Smoothing, ramping, interpolating, filtering... You are essentially mapping a coarse range to a finer range and you can apply acceleration curves, etc. there's no limit here, and there hasn't been in software synths/fx for 20 years on this. zipper noise is amateur. MIDI is essentially a very simply synchronous wire, a stream of events in which the transport timing is THE timing framework, leaving mtc aside for the moment. to call this protocol MIDI 2.0 is not accurate, as it's more like a meta-MIDI protocol much more like OSC. all are physical transport agnostic, it's just that MIDI and its 5 pin DIN connector are ubiquitous, present on old gear (old gear is valued with music people...) and you can connect 1 of those wire, pin 2 or 3 IIRC, directly to your microcontroller and be toggling your sound thingy faster than you can say "debounce"... it's stupidly simple, and the notion of "protocol negotiation" runs counter to the spirit of the original entity. call this OSC ALT 2 or something...

hootbootscoot 7y ago

are you referring to a control protocol or a magical signal path effect? you could always do what you described since at least 20 years now, as MIDI need not describe your synths parameters controls the issues with MIDI are not so much dynamics as timing resolution. 7 bits of dynamics might not sound like much but I'm not confident in any known musicians ability to express dynamics with more than 127 discrete levels lol... timing resolution of MIDI is great for more quantized musical styles, but for accurately capturing nuanced rubato performances this is the area that needs to be improved. the primary issue with timing in physical MIDI interfaces is timing STABILITY. this is arguably worse on a modern Mac with CoreMIDI than on an Atari 1020ST... This is directly a product of scheduler vagaries and even firmware. MIDI should be locked to the sample clock, perhaps updating as often as once a buffer or even less... (there was even a recent Macbook Pro that had it's audio clock jittering all over the place due to a power-management IC hardware rev, aka you can't download an update to fix THAT one, but I digress...)

nitrogen 7y ago
I share your disappointment in what seems like a downward slope in audio latency and jitter on modern hardware. My old AMD Athlon 64x2 with a Sound Blaster Live 5.1 was more consistent than my modern Core i7 workstation with a pro/prosumer audio interface.
K0SM0S 7y ago
> 7 bits of dynamics might not sound like much but I'm not confident in any known musicians ability to express dynamics with more than 127 discrete levels lol... Think one step further: when I hit a key on the piano, or a fret on a guitar, virtually all other strings resonate to some degree, however minutely, and this has to do with harmonic resonances, the geometry of the piano, etc. (Fourier + chaos). Now the only way to convey that kind of subtlety currently is either to digitize "as a whole" (microphone) or discretely (e.g. individual string sensors); but each has its tradeoff that you don't get from the other (no discreteness in your microphone, and the discrete approach probably won't render any accoustic feel, let alone room shape, etc. Basically, at a mathematical level, it seems like we should be able to get both worlds — a discrete yet complete description of an "instrument", which obviously has to be designed for the purpose. It's really breaking wide open the barrier between the physics of real-world tangible objects and the mathematics of software objects, computation for music. You may thus simulate analog stuff 'perfectly' (good enough to human ear), or quantize real analog also 'perfectly' (enough). Obviously you could do all of that now building your own stuff, instruments and software and protocols. But having it baked in MIDI is a game changer in terms of actual mainstream use, thus products to market.