Music Accessibility Standard (MAS)

[BlindMusician]

Hello all KVR members (and also plugin developers),
I am Juho Tuomainen, a blind (not seeing anything with my eyes) musician from Finland. I would like to start this new topic because there is a need for disalbed (and, obviously, the blind) musicians and people to use the same software, hardware and products that the non-disabled music community is using, and that's why an idea about Music Accessibility Standard (MAS) was born. However, I would like to point out that it has not just been an idea of some months; The actual desire to improve the music accessibility in the music industry has been on my head about 9 years now. In the further posts, we would discuss this topic broadly first and then go deeper in to the structure and the success criteria of the standard. I do not currently have a clear picture about the complete structure of the standard, but I am sure that, with discussion (and as I have at least some time to think the structure of the standard) we would even create the initial structure of the standard in the very long timespan of this thread.

As I stated in the previous thread that I started, entitled "Separate Accessibility Forum at KVR Audio and an Idea about Music Accessibility Standard (MAS)" (and available at viewtopic.php?t=578734), I am aware of the current status of accessibility in the music industry. It is, as you might expect, quite negative reading. There is one company, Native Instruments GmBH, who has somehow improved the accessibility of their Komplete Kontrol MIDI keyboards so that a blind (or someone else needing speech) can use the keyboard with NI (Native Instruments) products and some other products that support the keyboard's .nksf format. However, the accessibility stops there and does not apply to the other products, including, without limitation, the Kontakt sampler, Tractor DJ 2, Reaktor, FM8 and other plugins and libraries of the company. Also, because the disabled are small in numbers (eg there are much less disabled than non-disabled persons) and because the topic has not been publicly discussed continuously, there is very little research done on the matter. Emma Frid, who currently works in France and graduated from a Swedish university in 2020, made her doctoral dissertation about musical instruments. One of the articles was entitled "Accessibible Musical Digital Instruments (ADMIs)" where she said that only very little has been done to improve the accessibility of the musical instruments (Frid 2020). In addition to this, there is no current accessibility standard for the music industry (however, there are many accessibility standards for web, such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)). Because of this, it would be a high time if we started creating together the Music Accessibility Standard (MAS), whose goal would be to improve the accessibility in three main areas: product accessibility (digital or physical accessibility), music hardware and music software. Below is a message excerpt I sent to mr. Ben Turl, the manager of the KVR Audio (in quotes) describing the process and the standard more widely:
"I introduced very shortly the idea about Music Accessibility
Standard, MAS, which would be heavily based on currend de-facto web
accessibility standard combination WCAG (Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines,
https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/)
and ARIA (Web Accessibility
Initiative Accessible Rich Internet Applications,
https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-1.1/),
and would also use other similar
documents describing the technical accessibility issues and how they
should be overcome technically (this also includes WCAG ICT document
which describes how to implement accessiblity solutions for persons
with disabilities in non-web products, see
https://www.w3.org/TR/wcag2ict/).
In addition to these technical
standards and supporting documents, the standard would be based on
functional performance standards that are generally used in ICT
product development and measurement. Moreover, the standard would also
have citations to well-known and well-working accessibility evaluation
methods (perhaps as its supporting document "How to Apply Functional
Performance Standards to Music Accessibility Standards (HAPSMAS)").
This would, of course, require many years of development before the
MAS 1.0 would be released. It would, where possible, be based on both
functional standards and technical standards stated above, and have
its own unique supporting documents and success criteria. One of them,
for instance, would be that a person using a screen reader can perform
the same amount of tasks, whose nature and difficulty level varies
from easy to hard, like a person who uses a mouse. These would, for
instance, include things such as clear navigation and screen reader
support guidance. Finally, it would epmhasize the user-centric point
of view in the functional performance in addition to the technical
point of view in order to make it more user-centric. In addition, it
would have citations to well-known policies and monitoring (would also
be Quality Assurance, QA) policies found from the companies,
universities and other orgahizations that are well-working.
This process would have many interested parties, all known as a
committee or working group (such as "Music Accessibility Standard
Working Group, MASWG), developing and maintaining the standard
professionally: projects such as RAMPD and Attitude is Everything,
music instrument, hardware and software manufacturers (like Yamaha
Corporation from Japan, M-Audio (part of InMusic Brands) from the
United States of America, Propellerhead from Sweden, Arturia from the
France, Tone2 from Germany, Ableton GmbH from Germany, Native
Instruments GmbH from Germany and Steimberg Media Technologies GmbH,
the inventor of Virtual Studio Technology (VST) from Germany, a part of Yamaha Corporation), maybe
even some official supporters of RAMPD (such as artists with no
disabilities) and experts working with people with disabilities (such
as accessibility experts). There would also be user representatives
from different disability groups such as the deaf, the blind (totally
physically blind), people with low vision, people with neurological
disabilities etc. However, it is worth noting that those people that
we don't currently have any clearly-defined standard or development
method wouldn't be included to the standard, because there is no a
straightforward way to include these people to the process yet. The
manufacturers might be on very difficult problems if they tried to
apply the techniques for, for instance, to the cognitive disabilities
because there is not currently a common understanding on how and in
what way this would be tested. However, the Music Accessibility
Standard Working Group (MASWG) would already discuss with these groups
and experts, while the standard-making would be going on, to discuss
ways on including previously excluded people (such as people with
cognitive disabilities) to the standard as soon as there is
clear-enough described processes on how to test, evaluate, design and
measure accessibility for person with cognitive disabilities."
Please note that the sections where I referred to functional performance standars etc things are from the following book dealing with general digital accessibility and its issues:
Lazar, J, Goldstein, D. & Taylor, A. 2015. Ensuring Digital Accessibility through Process and Policy. Elsevier Science (Elsevier B.V.).
An accessible version for those with print disabilities can be found from the Bookshare service (more precisely, the American Bookshare): https://www.bookshare.org. Please note that, in order to get this version of the book, you have to have an active Bookshare account. However, the information of the book can be watched without creating an account to the service.
sources:
Frid. E. Accessible Musical Digital Instruments Accessible Digital Musical Instruments—A Review of Musical Interfaces in Inclusive Music Practice. An article from the doctoral dissertaion of Emma Frid. Accessed on 2.3.2022. Rethrieved from https://mdpi-res.com/d_attachment/mti/m ... 057-v4.pdf.
Kind regards,
Juho
Edit: The RAMPD (Recording Artists and Music Professionals with Disabilities), mentioned several times of this post, is an association improving the music accessibility and advocating the accessibility in the music industry. Anyone can join to RAMPD as a community member and receive RAMPD-related material of new opportunities and general events where the community members can take part in. The professional membership requires sending an application (and, you have to be a disabled music professional to qualify for this). In addition to this, RAMPD, which would be one of the many representatives of the Music Accessibility Standard Working Group (MASWG), has already its own website which you can find by surfing to https://www.rampd.org/. They also have their own Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and Discord server (the link to the Discord server ("RAMPD Discord Server" cannot, unfortunately, yet be found from the website mentioned above). In these channels, both the professional and the community members can gather together and discuss various topics. Please note that the Discord users using a screen reader need to use the app with the iOS devices. I am currently not in any of these additional channels, but maybe I will join to them (or at least one of them) in some day.

[Tj Shredder]

You mentioned Native Instruments hardware, which is I guess the first step. Then I think on the level of a DAW, you would need a DAW which is specially adapted for blind people, most likely in combination with hardware fader boxes and alike. The UI of almost all DAWs is centered around visual elements, which are pretty useless for blind people. But I do see a lot of controllers, that allow to navigate a DAW without the need to look at a screen. In terms of plugin control, there is a need for standards to connect to controllers, which would automatically be relevant for blind people. Most synthesizer architectures have common elements like oscillators, filters, envelopes. If there would be a standard to assign those to specific controllers automatically, this would help, but the amount of registered parameters in the Midi spec is underwhelming, this could be something to push the Midi association to… NRPNs are not that helpful, as its written on the tin, they are not standardized…
Softubes console 1 controllers at least point in a direction for mixing…
To boil it down, you first need to connect to DAW and hardware developers rather than to synth developers…
Also its about specific tools rather than access to crucial information like in accessibility in browsers…
Just wondering, which DAW on which OS are you using?

[BlindMusician]

You mentioned Native Instruments hardware, which is I guess the first step. Then I think on the level of a DAW, you would need a DAW which is specially adapted for blind people, most likely in combination with hardware fader boxes and alike. The UI of almost all DAWs is centered around visual elements, which are pretty useless for blind people. But I do see a lot of controllers, that allow to navigate a DAW without the need to look at a screen. In terms of plugin control, there is a need for standards to connect to controllers, which would automatically be relevant for blind people. Most synthesizer architectures have common elements like oscillators, filters, envelopes. If there would be a standard to assign those to specific controllers automatically, this would help, but the amount of registered parameters in the Midi spec is underwhelming, this could be something to push the Midi association to… NRPNs are not that helpful, as its written on the tin, they are not standardized…
Softubes console 1 controllers at least point in a direction for mixing…
To boil it down, you first need to connect to DAW and hardware developers rather than to synth developers…
Also its about specific tools rather than access to crucial information like in accessibility in browsers…
Just wondering, which DAW on which OS are you using?

Dear Tj Shredder,
Thank you a lot for your comments! Excuseme that I have not read this earlier, but it was because I thought that perhaps I should inform other parties (like NI) before we would go on (unfortunately, I have forgotten this, but your post really woke me up for it)!
First and foremost, I w ould like to inform you all that I am currently using Reaper version 6.43 on a Windows 10 Professional operating system with JAWS 2020.2012.13 and NVDA 2021.3.1 screen readers. Please note that, if you are a Windows user, you can download new (and older) versions of NVDA free of charge by going to https://www.nvaccess.org/. The GitHub profile of OSARA (including the download for both Windows and Mac OS) is available at https://github.com/jcsteh/osara.

TJ Shredders, I would want to agree with you that I would contact first the hardware manufacturers (like I said, I would contact NI first). However, I see it very important that we would first discuss the generic questions related to the MAS (such as its structure) before deciding on which aspects we would focus (well, most propably the hardware) first and what would come after that. Also, it would be inportant to inform all the possible stakeholders (or parties), including virtual synthesizer manufacturers, about this standard so that anyone who would have time and the right, constructive attitude (like you or I) would join to the discussion in this forum topic in order to prepare, in the long run, the first (and any new) version of MAS. A good example of an accessible VST instrument is Surge XT which you can find by surfing to https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/
(Nb: with the so-called Accessibility Ratio nearly 100 % (the "Accessibility Ratio here was currently an imaginary metric but a potential MAS metric used to measure accessibility). The plugin can be found by clicking the "View the Surge XT Repository" link or pressing Enter or Space on it, or by going to https://github.com/surge-synthesizer/surge.
Despite the fact that Surge XT has few accessibility issues, it would be a good starting point for both open and closed source vevelopers because they both would benefit from it: the open source developers would benefit straight from the Surge XT by applying the GPL V3 (GPL meaning "General Public License") source code in their own projects by either having either as GPL V3 or integrating them to their projects with any GPL V3-compatible license but keeping the Surge XT parts in the GPL V3 license. On the other hand, the closed source, mainstream plugin developers would benefit from Surge XT indirectly, as they would not use the source code of Surge XT straight away but would create similar code structures to their own synthesisers that are used in Surge XT.
Finally, I would like to present you (TJ Shredder) and the other KVR members (and all other interested parties/people) the very first, unfinished and pleriminary structure of the Music Accessibility Standard (MAS) which, I am sure, will only mature as the discussion will develop further, deeper to the topic.
The Structure of The Music Accessibility Standard
This is a very basic structure of the Music Accessibility Standard (MAS) which will be discussed in the forum topic "Music Accessibility Standard (MAS)" found from the "Everything Else (Music-related)" forum of KVR Audio (https://www.kvraudio.com/). Please note that it will change when the first (and most important) discussion is done by individuals with disabilities, the music hardware and software manufacturers and other interested parties. The one French dash (-) before the section informs that it is a main section (such as "1. . The two dashes (--) indicate that it belongs to a second level (e.g. 3.1) of the standard. The three dashes (---) indicate that the section is in the third level of the standard (e.g. 1.1.1 Product accessibility (physical and digital)). The four dashes (----) before the section indicate that the part (or section) is in the fourth level of the hierarchy (like success criterion "2.2.1.1.Perceivable Controls). To ease the use of this document with Screen Readers (and to ease the sighted user's ability to recognise the different main sections and differentiate them from each other) I have used chapters, meaning that each main section is a new chapter in this document. Please note that when the full MAS is ready, a suitable HTML document is created with respective heading levels (indicated by the dashes stated above). It would, additionally, be written in Marcdown language ).md file) but this would be discussed further later on in this forum topic.

Structure

-1. Product accessibility (physical and digital)
--1.1. Physical Product Accessibility
--1.2. Digital Accessibility

-2. Music Hardware Accessibility
--2.1. Definitions: This section would contain definitions for the term "Music Hardware" like this: "A Music Hardware is a device that is used when playing music, producing it (including mastering) or handling it (such as the effect hardware).
--2.2. Success Criteria for Music Hardware: This section would contain information about the success criterion for music hardware.
--2.2.1. Success Criterion Group 1: Perceivable
----2.2.1.1. Perceivable Controls: The Music Hardware must have clearly identifiable controls by person with sight-related disabilities (such as the blind or low vision people).
Note: the supporting document on applying the standard would give more information about this success criterion.

-3. Music Software Accessibility

I hope the structure above cleared a picture on the possible structure ideas of the standard. Perhaps we would first start from the "Music Hardware" section by discussing about its scope and other relevant aspects and then implementing it in the long run, after which we would do the same for other (and remaining) sections stated above. I am looking forward to hearing your answers!
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen fron Finland

[Tj Shredder]

I could see, that the Midi Association might be a good place to get this promoted. Of course they would translate MAS as Midi Accessibility Standard, but that doesn‘t hurt. In the end its about how to get well defined parameters to be controlled. As soon something like that is established, you can create a correct mapping to any plugin in the DAW, even if the plugin itself would ignore it, as its just a mapping. Like NKS can be adapted to any virtual instrument…

[BlindMusician]

Hello KVR Members (including Mr. Shredder),
I would agree with you (like I said) that I would work with the MIDI Association, but I would rather see the MAS as a much broader accessibility standard than just the MIDI world. Perhaps, because of this, it would be more practical to call the whole collection of documents with the name Music Accessibility Standard which would include the MIDI Accessibility Standard. However, I would perhaps still stick to Music Accessibility Standard and as there will be more involved person here discussing about the matter, we would go deeper to the structure of the standard and decide the complete naming convention later before the publication of the standard (but early enough so that we would have a clear name for it). I have not yet contacted the MIDI association regarding this topic. Finally, I would like to note that most likely, we will need the assistance from W3C (World-Wide Web Consortium) and its employee Michael Cooper (or person with a similar knowledge if needed )on asking consultation on assessing the success criteria of the MAS (Music Accessibility Standard) from the point of view of the WCAG2ICT document which describes how to implement the accessibility criteria to non-web applications to which the music applications mostly belong. Thhis even applies for the downloading and installation software (such as the famous Native Access or Arturia Software Center (ASC) even though they install software to your computer because they are not used from the interned and therefore are locally installed to your computer).
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen

[jprykiel]

Hello Juho . Thank you for this very interesting thread.
I am a blind musician from Paris France, have been using analog synthesizers such as the MiniMoog and the Prophet 5, then moved to FM synthesis with the Yamaha DX7, then to samplers and finally to Daws and plug-ins.
I must say that in the DAW/plug-in world, the situation is not quite as bad as what you describe . Reaper, which you use, but also Samplitude on Windows, and Logic pro and Protools on Mac, are all accessible to a certain degree , and already allow so much to be done . In most cases, plug-ins parameters are accessible via the DAW'S automation dialog , and blind musicians sound engineers can already achieve a lot.
Like you, I would like things to improve . For example , I would love Ableton Live to become accessible. Unfortunately , I think the biggest problem is that in order to gain bull accessibility, most products would have to be redesigned from scratch, at least their user interface. You were speaking of Surge XT, and the reason why this syth is so amazingly accessible, is that its accessibility has been taken into account from the beginning of its conception. That said, I don't know how accessibility could be standardized for all products. It would be nice if it could , but it sounds a bit like asking every company to use a standard user interface which would be the same for all products, while every product has different features . Yet , there is still an other possibility . This one is a bit off topic as it would be less in the technical field and more in the human one. In today's very individualistic world, everyone wants to do everything by themself . This is off course emphasized by technology, I guess this can be called evolution , and a musician can now virtually play all instruments, record, mix, and master his work. The down side of this is that collaborative work has now shrank a lot, and that is true for visually impaired folks as well.
I am lucky enough to have a sighted person who works with me, and I enjoy that a lot, because even if I need a bit of solitude in my creation process , someone els's presence can be of great benefit , as it allows human exchange.
Don't miss-understand me, I still would like our software and hardware equipment to be as accessible as possible, but if it takes too long to happen , which it will, there are other ways that also have their advantages . When I say it will take long, I don't see how something as complex as Kontakt could be made accessible if its not totally redesigned . To take an other example , Izotope RX, which is an incredible sound cleaning re-balancing tool, is already quite accessible, but it also allows things like acting on harmonics levels , and this is achieved by le-drawing the wave form. It's purely graphic and therefor will be hard to make accessible.
Hope you get my point, and I don't mean to be discouraging in any way.
All the best,
Jean-Philippe insertion point at end

[ScottChesworth]

Hi Juho, I'm Scott from London, a fellow blind producer/musician who's also using REAPER. I'm a regular contributor to OSARA and I've been banging away at increasing adoption of accessibility for many years.

I understand how those robust web standards seem appealing and why many people would wish to have similar frameworks in place for accessibility around the software they use to make music, but in reality, the situations are quite different. The vast majority of web front-end is built on only a handful of well established languages, most of which have their own steering committees etc. In comparison, the tech landscape that brings DAWs, plug-ins and software instruments to fruition is a wild west. I don't see how the level of standardization you're proposing could exist with such a wide spread of languages, libraries and frameworks involved in the run up to any accessibility assessment being carried out.

However, that doesn't mean the idea is a dead end. One thing that perhaps you'd consider is building a user-populated database of current accessibility, something like AppleVis for music-makers. I think this could be super valuable because:
1. It could collate specific resources, case studies and check lists for developers.
2. Users would have a place to check before pulling the trigger on new purchases, often saving time and money if someone has already taken the plunge before them and assessed the software.
3. As you're no doubt aware, our numbers aren't huge, and this is even more of a problem when you consider that the total is fragmented across multiple DAWs and platforms. A site like this could provide a more accurate picture of the total number of people who are using each of the plug-ins and/or software instruments in the database.
4. So long as the site is well administrated, I think having a public resource that tracks accessibility progress and the advocacy around it would be a great way to make sure we're pooling our collective efforts effectively.
5. Potentially, it could also serve as a neat hub to encourage more user testing at earlier stages of development.

Right now, I have too many other branches in the fire to lead on such a resource, but I'd love to be involved in some capacity if you decide to pursue this.

Hope something in there gives you ideas you can run with.

Scott

[BlindMusician]

Hello all KVRers, KVRists and others,
I would like to thank Scott and Jean-Filippe for their valauble thoughts around this standard. Scott, I understand your opinions regarding the music world, meaning that I also think it currently is a wild west and has many programming languages, frameworks (such as VST and JUCE) and many manufacturers. Because of this, the Music Accessibility Standard would be developed. I actually did a Finnish-language report on accessibility of music hardware and software the blind can use, so the idea of making such a portal in English to the website that lists the current status of the accessibility of DAWs and Plugins is very important and useful. However, I would like to tell you that I do not currently have a working server space to which (most likely) a WordPress would be installed. Another option would be using markdown documents, which could then be converted to HTML and put to GitHub Pages. Perhaps the WordPress would be a more valuable option...

The report I made as a part of my Internship suggested that the most accessible DAWs for the visually impaired are REAPER (when used with OSARA) but only on Windows and Mac, LOGIC Pro and GarageBand on MAC (I did not, however, tell much about the GarageBand Mac version), Samplitude on windows requiring the Samplitude Access script and the notation software MuseScore, Sibelius on Windows and Symphony Pro on iPhone/iPad world. The accessible keyboards studied (the Arturia ones only theoretically) were Native Instrument's Komplete Kontrol and Arturia's KeyLab MK II series (both the Essential and normal versions). The most accessible plugin is SurgeXT, as you told here earlier, and Pianoteq 7 by Modart also has some accessibility support from the version 7.0 up. However, even though many plugins do not have the accessibility with the keyboard, their parameters can be driggered from the Parameter List view of OSARA when using REAPER amd also in some other way in Samplitude. However, the most of the DAWs specified here (like Samplitude) are not accessible straight out of the box, qrequiring a script (such as an AUtoHotkey script) to be started first and even before that working with the screen scale function (at least on Windows where the AutoHotkey scripts can only be used).

I would also like to inform you that I have already contadcted The MIDI Association and the Native Instruments to ask their thoughts on joining to this standard but have not heard anything from them yet. I would hope that they would answer to my email and support requests and am certain that at least Native Instruments would do that in few days. The way I see it, the facts Jean-Filippe and Scott gave about the increased accessibility in DAWs are actually right. However, I would like to clarify that I said in the very first post of this thread that the accessibility is working somehow, for instance in the Native Instruments' products with the Komplete Kontrol keyboards, but I did not perhaps clarify well enough that the accessibility does not apply to the software of the company, such as to the Kontakt sampler or to the Traktor DJ 2 DJ software, meaning that it cannot be used fluently with a screen reader (or not used at all). However, with the discussion here and with the standard in the very far horizon (including all the supporting materials and documents, also the porta containing the relevant accessibility information) would all be needed to make this standard really evolve. It is, also, true that the collaboration between the musicians has decreased generally speaking due to the virtual instruments and the strong individualism of making everything themselves; However, that's where we can make a change by coming together and choosing to work things collaboratively. For example, the Music Accessibility Standard (MAS) would be one example for the collaborative work. The fact that our (blind and visually impaired) needs and also the needs of the disabled are not taken urgently is the lack of knowledge and, the many cases in my experience, the wrong attitude according to which the disabled people do not use the products. However, when someone thinks this way they would have to notice that this is not a productive way, especially these days, to any company both financially and image-wise, because if a company does not make accessibility improvements to the software, hardware or other musical product and nobody requests it or keeps it in the discussion, nothing would certainly not happen. However, if we keep the noise about this thing (of course, by keeping a constructive viewpoint as all the discussers here have done), we can gradually spread the word of the MAS and create also the standard in the very long run.
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen

[BlindMusician]

Hello all KVR members,
I contactet Native Instruments Customer Support and while asking solution to my private problem I also announced to this standard (Music Accessibility Standard), including the link to this thread which was then passed on to the developers of Native Instruments GmbH. According to a private email sent by the customer support person, the developers said that they want to follow the evolution of the standard and that they want to improve in all the areas (perhaps meaning the areas of accessibility here). To revise, the main areas of Music Accessibility Standard (MAS) are the following:
1. Music Software,
2. Music hardware, and
3. Other musical products.
I would like to hope that companies, Native Instruments GmbH and Arturia S.A. among them, would gather together and announce also their suggestion to this standard, since it would be done cooperatively across the companies working in the different fields on the music industry.
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen

[BlindMusician]

Dear KVR Members (and others reading this thread),
I received a message from MIDI Association's current president Nathan Billias who has actually a bit of experience with accessibility in the music software and hardware industry. Before the MIDI Association, he worked 22 years for Yamaha, designing, for example, the Motif synthesizer which I also have got. Billias has also worked with Dancing Dots, a company making and distributing accessible music software (and distributing the hardware as well), Bryan Smart (a blind musician) and as an accessibility consultant for Arturia S.A., giving accessibility tips for the Arturia's Accessibility Initiative. What's more, the Special Interest Group called MIDI in Music Education would potentially push forward the development of the Music Accessibility Standard (MAS). it contains educational institutions such as Berklee College of Music, Columbia and Full sail as well as many other educational institutions. However, it is worth noting that the MIDI Association is volunteer-based, meaning that everything inside The MIDI Association is voluntary and nothing happens if the members (either companies or individual ones) of the association did not decide to participate in the standard. However, despite of this, Billias said on a private e-mail sent to me that there would be an annual meeting of The MIDI Association members on January 24th so he could propose the idea of the Music Accessibility Standard (MAS) to the Special Interest Group stated above and to see what companies would be interested in participating there. I am personally looking forward to getting the information of the MAS's interest on this conference!
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen

[wonshu]

Thanks for the information.

How can an individual be part of MAS?

[BlindMusician]

Dear KVR Audio readers,
To Wonshu:
An individual can be a part of MAS as an adeator/suggestor, giving suggestion to the standard. I have not joined to the MIDI Association yet, but since the individual membership (for others than MIDI software and hardware manufacturers) is free, I will most likely do it in the future.
To all the readers:
I have now had virtual, Teams-based discussions (using Microsoft Teams) with Mr. Athan Billias, the President of The MIDI Association. We have now a very rough plan for the process of the Music Accessibility Standard (MAS). However, I am now waiting the responses of Mr. Billias and the special interest group called "MIDI In Music Education Special Interest Group" about the Music Accessibility Standard. Furthermore, Mr. Billias spoke early this morning (Thursday, February 8th, 2023) to the members in the MIDI In Music Education Special Interest Group and they were interested in taking part into this standard but said that they first need to create a list of requirements for the standard. As I get the list of requirements from this group, I would then tell the most important points here in my next post (or next posts). So, to sum up, I would like to say that the I am very thankful to Mr. Billias and to the members of the MIDI In Music Education Special Interest Group because now, with the interest in that special interest group with MIDI-related experts and educators, this standard might finally be very gradually implemented after the list of requirements is received from this group. Together, we would form the Music Accessibility Standard Working Group (MASWG) which would, eventually, create and control the standard. In the very long run, the standard would also be standardized with ISO (Internatioal Standards Organization) and later applied to the laws of the European union and other countries as a rreference. With these steps, the standard would require the acessibility of music hardware, software and other music-related products (such as accessible concert tickets), and the commitment of The MIDI Association would be one important chain in the big picture on the creation of the standard.
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen

[BlindMusician]

Dear KVR Members,
I forgot to mention one important topic from my previous message. Toni Barth, a blind person, has sstarted a fan-based project called "Audio Plugin and Instrument Accessibility Catalog" whose goal would, in the very long run, to provide a database of audio plugins, both instruments and effects, as well as sample libraries and their accessibility in whole, wether they are not accessible at all, are partially or fully accessible and on which part(s). Please note, however, that the project is fan-based, meaning that it will not get anu financial support from any entity or interested party. However, it would be potentially used as one resource when planning, processing and implementing the Music Accessibility Standard and its sections for the Music Software and Music Hardware. The page does not look quite appealing to the sighted users because it has been created by a blind person. However, please do not let that disturb you as you (non-disabled) should be able to navigate it through quite easily. It would also be important in keeping in mind that it already works for the blind users. The link to the website project is the following: https://timtam.github.io/musicalsight/#/catalog
Kind regards,
Juho Tuoaminen

[The MIDI Association]

Hi,

My name is Athan Billias and I am the current President of the MIDI Association. I worked at Yamaha for over 20 years and during that time was very aware of issues of accessibility.

Accessibility has a very broad meaning and should and must include all people face accessibility challenges that include both physical and perceptual limitations.

I worked with many musicians who were visually impaired. Some very famous like Stevie Wonder and Ellis Hall (who I have known since we were both young struggling musicians in the Boston area) and some like Brian Smart were simply blind musicians who were trying to help other musicians with similar challenges.

Juho reached out to me a few weeks ago and we have been meeting regularly. In fact, we are meeting in less than an hour.

There are many companies who are already working on making their products more accessible including Arturia (who I am consulting with), Audio Modeling and others who participated and attended some workshops at the Audio Developers Conference last fall.

Juho and I are working on a plan for a MIDI Association Special Interest Group. A Special Interest Group is a way for people who are not corporate members of the MIDI Association (our corporate members including OS companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft, hardware companies like Yamaha, Korg and Roland and Steinberg, DAW companies like Steinberg, Logic, Bitwig, MOTU, etc., Soft synth companies like Spectrasonics, Ivory, Arturia. A majority of our MIDI Association corporate members are small companies with revenues less than 1 million dollars who pay $600 a year to be members. Our largest members pay $20,000 as our dues are based on annual revenue.

A MIDI Association Special Interest Group is a vehicle for a group of individuals who are not corporate members, but represent a specific interest can come together to make recommendations on behalf of the community they represent. The Interactive Audio Special Interest Group (IASIG) has been representing the interests and needs of the Game Audio community in the MIDI Association since 1996. There was just an article about them posted on MIDI.org.

https://www.midi.org/midi-articles/the- ... ssociation

The MIDI Association is having a annual planning meeting on Feb. 23 and as President, I will take the idea of a Music Accessibility Special Interest Group to our members and believe that they will be supportive.

With Juho's help and advice, we have already started to look at ways to improve and monitor accessibility.

As a small example, we have another special interest group - the MIDI In Music Education Special Interest Group. That group is composed on educators from institutions including Tufts, Columbia, Florida State, Full Sail, Berklee College of Music and many more. They are working on a developing MIDI teaching materials and a curriculum. I brought up Juho's ideas and Brian Smithers from Full Sail has drafted a set of accessibility requirements which will be sent to authors creating the materials.

The idea of a music accessibility standard is a big idea and will take time to develop and to gain acceptance. In fact, it is probably not a destination, but a journey that we will go on.

The MIDI Association is very busy preparing for the April NAMM show, but I will be watching for posts on this thread and Juho and I will continue to meet and provide feedback here.

Once we have a concrete plan and an official MIDI Association Special Interest Group established, we would post here and explain how people on this forum could join and participate.

I need to prep for my meeting with Juho, but please post here with comments and suggestions.

[The MIDI Association]

If there would be a standard to assign those to specific controllers automatically, this would help, but the amount of registered parameters in the Midi spec is underwhelming, this could be something to push the Midi association to… NRPNs are not that helpful, as its written on the tin, they are not standardized

@ Tj Shredder

Actually MIDI 2.0 and MIDI 2.0 Profiles should really help with this. MIDI 2.) changes MIDI from a monog to a dialog and allows devices to talk to each other and auto configure themselves

The new MIDI 2.0 specification makes RPNs ( registered parameters) atomic messages (one complete message not three) and are called Registered Controllers. There are over 16,000 of them and they will be assigned to Profiles so in the future a controller can say " I support the Drawbar Organ Profile so I will be sending Registered Controllers for the nine drawbars on these specific Registered Controllers". These are translated back into MIDI 1.0 as RPNs so there is backward compatibility.

Anyway, with MIDI 2.0, there are many possibilities for increasing the ease of use of MIDI for everyone.