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MIDI should be studied by anyone interested in protocol design. Very few protocols had its staying power - despite not being perfect for every type of music, it

MIDI should be studied by anyone interested in protocol design. Very few protocols had its staying power - despite not being perfect for every type of music, it has done its job admirably for close to 50 years due to its simplicity and flexibility.

T-A 3y ago
More like 42: MIDI was revealed to the world, on the Sequential Circuits stand at the NAMM show in January 1983 (precisely one year since Smith’s proposal got the brush off)
detourdog 3y ago
Midi being an “artist” tool places it more as a medium like paint. The artist was able to use it to build complex worlds. MIDI’s cousin RS-422 existed in a technical environment but probably enjoys as much use as MIDI but technicians have many protocols to choose from. the artist just needs to get it speak MIDI to feel in control and the artist generally has fewer stakeholders, which I believe helps maintain continuity of an implementation.
- kubielid 3y ago
  > Midi being an “artist” tool places it more as a medium like paint. I’ve used MIDI “as paint”. Written music using code to MIDI(1), and wrote “cross instrument” music, ie using my keyboard as drum machine. But these days MIDI is chiefly an archival method for me. Every time I touch my keyboard is recorded, is much smaller than a comparable audio recording, by design “forced fidelity” in the recording, the music is “searchable”, and I am able to pipe the MIDI format through transcription software (which would be near impossible from an audio recording today). (1) http://overtone.github.io/ http://overtone.github.io/
  - detourdog 3y ago
    I worked on a project for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. We mad a series of physical blocks that represented musical samples. The block each had a 1-wire iButton on the bottom to identify the block and context and play the appropriate sample. Because it was the CSO the biggest part of the budget went to sample cards that played instruments up to the conductors standard. Each exhibit could create a composition and play it back like a symphony.
    - kubielid 3y ago
      Sounds like a really cool project. Any links to the exhibit? Unsure if this comment was a refutation of my own or just a fun cherry on top anecdote, but in case I was unclear I was trying to say that “I completely agree with the shorthand of calling midi ‘paint’, AND here’s a cool use case that I think is fundamental to the technology but rarely held up as a benefit of said technology, namely archiving and assisted transcription of musical composition.”
- epcoa 3y ago
  > MIDI’s cousin RS-422 RS-422 is a differential electrical interface standard, while MIDI specifies both a current loop electrical interface and a high level protocol, the latter of which is probably its most defining characteristic today as MIDI can run over any serial interface. Today most commonly it runs over USB or its own current loop signaling, and has less commonly in the past been used over RS-232 or RS-422 from time to time. This is to say, it’s a stretch that MIDI and RS-422 are cousins. (Standard MIDI interfaces typically seen with the 5 pin DIN connector are not RS-422 if that is what you’re thinking)
  - detourdog 3y ago
    Actually it may have been I mixed up RS-485 and RS-422 the project I got this notion from was research in the mid 90's. I remember a project that I used either 422 or 485 as jumping off point for MIDI because I thought at the time that MIDI grew from the spec.
    - epcoa 3y ago
      It was probably RS-422, because RS-422 as a transport for MIDI back in the day was not uncommon as a desktop serial interface (like on old Macs and their lineage), but neither was FireWire later and now of course USB, that’s why I wouldn’t refer to them as cousins any more than USB and MIDI are. RS-485 is electrically similar (and in some aspects compatible) to RS-422 but with provisions for multi-point networks due to switchable drivers. The MIDI spec and the signaling is not related to either. https://midi.org/midi-1-0-detailed-specification https://midi.org/midi-1-0-detailed-specification
      - detourdog 3y ago
        Sounds like cousins to me:)
        epcoa 3y ago
        Sure whatever, to be clear the RS-422 port on a Mac was a generic serial port not a MIDI port per se. If you were running a PC at the time you would often use the 9 or 25 pin RS-232 port for the same purpose (which is the same port used for a modem or some mice). A number of period devices would have a selector switch between RS-422 and RS-232 for a single 8 pin mini DIN input. https://support.roland.com/hc/en-us/articles/201951959-PMA-5-Changing-the-Hardware-Switch-settings-on-a-Roland-Serial-MIDI-Device https://support.roland.com/hc/en-us/articles/201951959-PMA-5...
em3rgent0rdr 3y ago
MIDI is just good enough for the vast majority of musical needs. Any more complicated and the protocol would have been too hard to implement on early computers.
chrisjj 3y ago
> MIDI should be studied by anyone interested in protocol design Absolutely. A shambles hopefully never repeated.
- ZFH 3y ago
  I was waiting for this comment :) I'm sure nobody expected it to live this long, as the grumbling about its various shortcomings must've started in the late eighties at the latest. The curse of good enough strikes again ...
  - chrisjj 3y ago
    > the grumbling about its various shortcomings must've started in the late eighties at the latest. Disproof: https://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/midi-what-s-wrong-with-it/1398 https://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/midi-what-s-wrong-with-it...
  - elihu 3y ago
    I've recently come into possession of a number of back issues of "1/1 - the Journal of the Just Intonation Network" from the 80's and 90's. It's interesting how much content was devoted just to the topic of figuring out how to use non-12-tone-equal-temperament scales on the MIDI instruments of the time. Most of one issue (volume 3 number 4 from 1987) was taken up with an article on how the author was able to reverse-engineer and modify the firmware of the Ensoniq Mirage to support the kind of microtuning he wanted.
- BodyCulture 3y ago
  I want to study it and understand what you mean! Would you please like to describe the shortcomings / problems you see and how it could be done better? That would be so helpful to us! Thanks!
  - chrisjj 3y ago
    Well, #1: Don't put out an Implementation Chart template with Yes and No the wrong way around. If this doesn't sound serious, you had to be there.
makapuf 3y ago
MIDI as a non-proprietary, non-patented, non ad supported or privacy invasive protocol opened so many innovation from synth and others electronic musical instruments constructors or makers. We really need this type of candid innovation back.
- elihu 3y ago
  It's great that it's an open standard, but I feel like the MIDI Association is kind of dropping the ball on openness. You have to register with midi.org just to read the specs. That's not a huge hardship, but it's kind of off-putting. It also feels like corporate behemoths are running the show. You can register as a site user for free and you can buy a SYSEX Id number for $240 a year, but to actually have a say in anything it looks like you need to be a corporate member. https://midi.org/corporate-membership-app https://midi.org/corporate-membership-app Most of the interesting advances in musical instruments these days seem to be coming from small companies making unusual products. Things like the Osmose, the Linnstrument, the Continuum, and so on. MPE serves that community decently well, but I feel like we could at least in theory do a lot better by ditching the piano-centric assumptions built in to MIDI and hashing out a new protocol as a community effort.
TazeTSchnitzel 3y ago
I think we are lucky it was created when it was. The temptation to make a much more complex and fragile protocol would have been harder to avoid if they weren't constrained by what could be cheaply and efficiently implemented on microcontrollers in the early 1980's.
JKCalhoun 3y ago
MIDI over CAN Bus. I like it.
- elihu 3y ago
  CAN bus would probably fix the latency/bandwidth issues with serial MIDI, and it side-steps the device/host problem and the short cable problem with USB. I'm in favor. (I'm actually working on a MIDI controller. It has a CAN bus interface in addition to serial MIDI and USB. I don't have anything to talk to over CAN bus yet, but it's sort of there for future development. I probably won't send actual MIDI over CAN bus, but rather a protocol yet to be designed that's sort of like MIDI but less piano-centric.)

T-A 3y ago

More like 42: MIDI was revealed to the world, on the Sequential Circuits stand at the NAMM show in January 1983 (precisely one year since Smith’s proposal got the brush off)

detourdog 3y ago

Midi being an “artist” tool places it more as a medium like paint. The artist was able to use it to build complex worlds. MIDI’s cousin RS-422 existed in a technical environment but probably enjoys as much use as MIDI but technicians have many protocols to choose from. the artist just needs to get it speak MIDI to feel in control and the artist generally has fewer stakeholders, which I believe helps maintain continuity of an implementation.

kubielid 3y ago
> Midi being an “artist” tool places it more as a medium like paint. I’ve used MIDI “as paint”. Written music using code to MIDI(1), and wrote “cross instrument” music, ie using my keyboard as drum machine. But these days MIDI is chiefly an archival method for me. Every time I touch my keyboard is recorded, is much smaller than a comparable audio recording, by design “forced fidelity” in the recording, the music is “searchable”, and I am able to pipe the MIDI format through transcription software (which would be near impossible from an audio recording today). (1) http://overtone.github.io/ http://overtone.github.io/
- detourdog 3y ago
  I worked on a project for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. We mad a series of physical blocks that represented musical samples. The block each had a 1-wire iButton on the bottom to identify the block and context and play the appropriate sample. Because it was the CSO the biggest part of the budget went to sample cards that played instruments up to the conductors standard. Each exhibit could create a composition and play it back like a symphony.
  - kubielid 3y ago
    Sounds like a really cool project. Any links to the exhibit? Unsure if this comment was a refutation of my own or just a fun cherry on top anecdote, but in case I was unclear I was trying to say that “I completely agree with the shorthand of calling midi ‘paint’, AND here’s a cool use case that I think is fundamental to the technology but rarely held up as a benefit of said technology, namely archiving and assisted transcription of musical composition.”
epcoa 3y ago
> MIDI’s cousin RS-422 RS-422 is a differential electrical interface standard, while MIDI specifies both a current loop electrical interface and a high level protocol, the latter of which is probably its most defining characteristic today as MIDI can run over any serial interface. Today most commonly it runs over USB or its own current loop signaling, and has less commonly in the past been used over RS-232 or RS-422 from time to time. This is to say, it’s a stretch that MIDI and RS-422 are cousins. (Standard MIDI interfaces typically seen with the 5 pin DIN connector are not RS-422 if that is what you’re thinking)
- detourdog 3y ago
  Actually it may have been I mixed up RS-485 and RS-422 the project I got this notion from was research in the mid 90's. I remember a project that I used either 422 or 485 as jumping off point for MIDI because I thought at the time that MIDI grew from the spec.
  - epcoa 3y ago
    It was probably RS-422, because RS-422 as a transport for MIDI back in the day was not uncommon as a desktop serial interface (like on old Macs and their lineage), but neither was FireWire later and now of course USB, that’s why I wouldn’t refer to them as cousins any more than USB and MIDI are. RS-485 is electrically similar (and in some aspects compatible) to RS-422 but with provisions for multi-point networks due to switchable drivers. The MIDI spec and the signaling is not related to either. https://midi.org/midi-1-0-detailed-specification https://midi.org/midi-1-0-detailed-specification
    - detourdog 3y ago
      Sounds like cousins to me:)
      - epcoa 3y ago
        Sure whatever, to be clear the RS-422 port on a Mac was a generic serial port not a MIDI port per se. If you were running a PC at the time you would often use the 9 or 25 pin RS-232 port for the same purpose (which is the same port used for a modem or some mice). A number of period devices would have a selector switch between RS-422 and RS-232 for a single 8 pin mini DIN input. https://support.roland.com/hc/en-us/articles/201951959-PMA-5-Changing-the-Hardware-Switch-settings-on-a-Roland-Serial-MIDI-Device https://support.roland.com/hc/en-us/articles/201951959-PMA-5...

em3rgent0rdr 3y ago

MIDI is just good enough for the vast majority of musical needs. Any more complicated and the protocol would have been too hard to implement on early computers.

chrisjj 3y ago

> MIDI should be studied by anyone interested in protocol design Absolutely. A shambles hopefully never repeated.

ZFH 3y ago
I was waiting for this comment :) I'm sure nobody expected it to live this long, as the grumbling about its various shortcomings must've started in the late eighties at the latest. The curse of good enough strikes again ...
- chrisjj 3y ago
  > the grumbling about its various shortcomings must've started in the late eighties at the latest. Disproof: https://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/midi-what-s-wrong-with-it/1398 https://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/midi-what-s-wrong-with-it...
- elihu 3y ago
  I've recently come into possession of a number of back issues of "1/1 - the Journal of the Just Intonation Network" from the 80's and 90's. It's interesting how much content was devoted just to the topic of figuring out how to use non-12-tone-equal-temperament scales on the MIDI instruments of the time. Most of one issue (volume 3 number 4 from 1987) was taken up with an article on how the author was able to reverse-engineer and modify the firmware of the Ensoniq Mirage to support the kind of microtuning he wanted.
BodyCulture 3y ago
I want to study it and understand what you mean! Would you please like to describe the shortcomings / problems you see and how it could be done better? That would be so helpful to us! Thanks!
- chrisjj 3y ago
  Well, #1: Don't put out an Implementation Chart template with Yes and No the wrong way around. If this doesn't sound serious, you had to be there.

makapuf 3y ago

MIDI as a non-proprietary, non-patented, non ad supported or privacy invasive protocol opened so many innovation from synth and others electronic musical instruments constructors or makers. We really need this type of candid innovation back.

elihu 3y ago
It's great that it's an open standard, but I feel like the MIDI Association is kind of dropping the ball on openness. You have to register with midi.org just to read the specs. That's not a huge hardship, but it's kind of off-putting. It also feels like corporate behemoths are running the show. You can register as a site user for free and you can buy a SYSEX Id number for $240 a year, but to actually have a say in anything it looks like you need to be a corporate member. https://midi.org/corporate-membership-app https://midi.org/corporate-membership-app Most of the interesting advances in musical instruments these days seem to be coming from small companies making unusual products. Things like the Osmose, the Linnstrument, the Continuum, and so on. MPE serves that community decently well, but I feel like we could at least in theory do a lot better by ditching the piano-centric assumptions built in to MIDI and hashing out a new protocol as a community effort.

TazeTSchnitzel 3y ago

I think we are lucky it was created when it was. The temptation to make a much more complex and fragile protocol would have been harder to avoid if they weren't constrained by what could be cheaply and efficiently implemented on microcontrollers in the early 1980's.

JKCalhoun 3y ago

MIDI over CAN Bus. I like it.

elihu 3y ago
CAN bus would probably fix the latency/bandwidth issues with serial MIDI, and it side-steps the device/host problem and the short cable problem with USB. I'm in favor. (I'm actually working on a MIDI controller. It has a CAN bus interface in addition to serial MIDI and USB. I don't have anything to talk to over CAN bus yet, but it's sort of there for future development. I probably won't send actual MIDI over CAN bus, but rather a protocol yet to be designed that's sort of like MIDI but less piano-centric.)