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What's after MIDI?


trevcda

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So MIDI has been around since the mid-eighties, at least in a usable form and available to the general public. It doesn't seem that long ago to me, but it really has been at least thirty years. The question I pose for discussion is whether MIDI is still good enough for today's keyboard player or does it have issues that you wish could be addressed by either MIDI 2.0 or an entirely new format. What say you?

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I think tone generation systems and the user interface need to improve before "advanced" midi can be justified. On the other hand, being able to put all your gear under one operating system might be useful although the MFGers would probably kill any efforts toward that end.

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MIDI is just fine as is. Most people today don't MIDI a stack of dozens of synths and rack modules like they did in the 80's. They use MIDI over USB from their keyboard controller to their DAW or MainStage, or whatever ITB things they're using. No need for anything too complicated with MIDI, IMO. If not ITB, then there's the modular synth resurgence where MIDI is pretty much used only as a controller input from a keyboard.

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The main shortcoming of MIDI as I see it that it was designed for a hit-something-to-make-a-sound-at-a-defined-pitch instrument (i.e. keyboard). There's been a lot of alternative products out there -- MIDI violins, MIDI theremins, wind controllers, etc. -- but it always takes some sort of finagling to map what they do onto the MIDI protocol. So it's sort of a chicken-and-egg situation -- lack of a more flexible protocol restricts the possibililties for alternative controllers, but there's not going to be a lot of call for an updated protocol until those controllers are more widespread.

 

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How do most of you guys use MIDI these days? I know I came from a heavy sequencing background in the late 80's and 90's. I was the guy Ed referred to above; basically a Rick Wakeman without the talent or the cape. I had racks of MIDI modules and truly used all of them. I worked a lot with hardware sequencers in the beginning and occasionally ran up against MIDI limitations when writing large tracks which required multiple universes or when sequencing songs with a lot of controllers in them. Tricks like doubling the tempo to get more PPQs and eventually sequencers that would allow for something 960 PPQ made much less of the issue. This days, the rare time I'm even playing keyboards it might be to layer a couple of keyboards together, but the band I'm in doesn't seem to like the idea of being a slave to a click track.

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MIDI is still working ok for my needs. I do primarily ambient music and have an "old school" MIDI studio set up. My main controller is either a Korg Karma or Roland V-Synth. That goes into a MIDI patchbay which goes out to the following modules: Korg M3, Wavestation SR, Trinity Rack, Roland JD-990, and Kawai K5000R. Those go out in stereo into a 16 channel mixer and then out to my ProTools rig. This is only for recording, not gigging.

 

My live rig is very different since I'm actually more of a guitarist than a keyboardist. I use a Fender Stratocaster with a built-in Roland synth pickup, which goes into a Roland guitar synth and from there goes MIDI out to a Korg Micro X keyboard. My only issue here is with the guitar to MIDI conversion, which does not always track perfectly, but for the kind of ambient music and sustained pads I do, its ok.

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I find MIDI still works fine to connect synths together, to a sequencer, or DAW. I have noticed no difference between USB MIDI and the traditional connector. My problem is with DAW virtual instruments like synths, electric pianos, clarinets, etc. as they consume resources and slow down the computer, unless you have a lot of memory. Couldn't it be as simple and effective as on the keyboards like analog, virtual analog, and samplers? Maybe a sound interface that takes the processing out of the computer?

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It's the keyboards that have issues that need to be addressed.

 

Feel free to elaborate. Is it problems with keyboards sections or sound module sections? This is just a conversation, so don't worry about high jacking the thread!

 

 

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So MIDI has been around since the mid-eighties' date=' at least in a usable form and available to the general public. It doesn't seem that long ago to me, but it really has been at least thirty years. The question I pose for discussion is whether MIDI is still good enough for today's keyboard player or does it have issues that you wish could be addressed by either MIDI 2.0 or an entirely new format. What say you?[/quote']

 

MIDI is still brilliant. Stephen K's Karma's is what is next. I am very grateful to both. They are both breakthroughs.

 

I am especially grateful that few people seem to want to learn to use either one.

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Feel free to elaborate. Is it problems with keyboards sections or sound module sections? This is just a conversation, so don't worry about high jacking the thread!

 

 

 

I don't post too much on keyboard forums anymore. I started to sound like a broken record with my complaint list.

First and foremost is the lack of release velocity. IMO, the keys of a keyboard can do 3 common things, sense velocity,

produce aftertouch (channel or polyphonic), and sense release velocity. There are others, but much less common.

 

Simple to implement, and almost no one does it. Lots of manufacturers are even putting out boards without

aftertouch nowadays.

 

I just buy used boards that meet my needs nowadays, and have little to no interest in most of the fluff being put out.

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First and foremost is the lack of release velocity.

 

I could see that adjusting the release time of the ADSR from cut short pizzicato to a nice long decay depending on how quickly you released the key. How else would you use that parameter?

 

 

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Grand piano release effects come to mind as well as different trails both real - like bloom, breakup, squish etc. and artificial which could be anything. To me synthe are a fail in the real time dept. Mod/Vibrato is always phony. Bend usually sucks as well. What's up with that?

 

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MIDI went through a huge improvement when it was able to work over USB, That ended the slow serial interface nature of it.

 

The next step would be higher resolution for controllers and such. The MMA keeps plugging away at an enhancement to the MIDI spec, but it couldn't really be called MIDI although it could be made backwards compatible.

 

But if you REALLY want to know what's in the future for MIDI, click here.

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To trigger additional polyphony from outboard modules...although I find it's use cumbersome, the improved midi over USB thing is a great direction to go, the boards need to come up to speed with the control options, routings and assignments simplified .

A whole universe of sound could be triggered with a proper integration of MIDI, USB and Audio streams in a single protocol. Doesn't seem to be the way things are going though, according to MMA...

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