KVR Audio

Equilibrium · Post by **Equilibrium** » Sun Dec 11, 2005 6:43 pm

I read an interview with BT (don't turn this into a BT slagging thread plz

) where he was saying how crap Midi is and how it should be replaced. I have also read a book over the last few days which has said that learning Midi a great depth might be not making the best use of your time as it is going to be replaced.

Now I've read a book on Midi, and absorbed about 30% of what it was trying to say about it. What I fail to see however, is what is so crap about midi? It just seems to work for me, but then again perhaps I'm just too much of a noob to have a vision of a world with something more impressive. Another question is what is it that is going to replace Midi, if it is getting replaced anytime soon? And, if it does get replaced will a lot of VST's go the way of the Dodo?

Reverse Engineer · Post by **Reverse Engineer** » Sun Dec 11, 2005 6:50 pm

Theyv'e already tried (and failed) Introduced in 1994, ZIPI was hailed as the replacement for MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface). A lack of commercial devices supporting ZIPI, the introduction of the superior "FireWire" (IEEE1394) standard, and the sufficiency of standard MIDI for most applications soon led to the practical demise of the standard.

Unlike MIDI (which used a peer-to-peer serial port), ZIPI was designed as a bus standard, meaning that multiple instruments could share a single cable or chain. This led to somewhat complicated addressing standards that were a factor in its lack of adoption.

Technical umm.....shit here

http://cnmat.cnmat.berkeley.edu/ZIPI/mpdl.html

DaveL60 · Post by **DaveL60** » Sun Dec 11, 2005 6:51 pm

I've heard / read occasional comments about the deficiences of MIDI, and the ago of MIDI, and how we need something better. What I don't recall having seen anywhere is either a list of specific deficiences of MIDI or a list of what would constitute "better." By and large, it seems to just work, and there aren't enough things in our digital world about which you can say that. So I'm not holding my breath for a MIDI replacement, nor do I feel a particular needs for one.

DaveL

dirtnap · Post by **dirtnap** » Sun Dec 11, 2005 6:56 pm

I've been ok with midi ever since I left the all hardware setup and went softsynth. Timing/latency/dropped note issues can be pretty damn annoying.

DaveL60 · Post by **DaveL60** » Sun Dec 11, 2005 6:59 pm

Reverse Engineer wrote:Theyv'e already tried (and failed) Introduced in 1994, ZIPI was hailed as the replacement for MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface).

And here I thought ZIPI was an inscrutable comic strip! -- oops, that's "Zippy", my bad!

I'd never heard of ZIPI. A Google search didn't yield much, but a somewhat more concise description can be found here.

DaveL

arke · Post by **arke** » Sun Dec 11, 2005 7:01 pm

The only really bad thing about MIDI is that for most things you only have a parameter range of 0-127. This has been partially addressed with things like NRPN etc., but for the most part you only have 0-127. The only thing I'd change about MIDI is getting rid of NRPN and all that and just have parameters be a full 15 bytes instead of 7 (which gives a range of 0-32767, a large improvement!). I don't think it'll happen soon that our synths have more than 32767 automatable parameters (anybody mentioning 640k is getting slapped)

tetraplan · Post by **tetraplan** » Sun Dec 11, 2005 7:03 pm

MIDI will be replaced tomorrow, between 9:00 AM and 17:30 PM GMT +1. You may experience a temporary MIDI downtime.

We apologize for the inconvenience,

Groet, Erik

jouni · Post by **jouni** » Sun Dec 11, 2005 7:06 pm

Also midi doesn't support really bidirectional communication (ie. you need two cables instead of one), sysex is really crappy and every manufucturer does it's differently - even between their own products. And no float parameter values (all VST parameters are float parameters, 32-bit audio is float).

Ildon · Post by **Ildon** » Sun Dec 11, 2005 7:08 pm

A lot of people like to be picky and complain about MIDI latency and all that bologna, but the fact is that there're too many people used to MIDI. MIDI's not perfect, but what is? I don't think MIDI'll be replaced. Maybe added onto, but not replaced.

arke · Post by **arke** » Sun Dec 11, 2005 7:12 pm

Mark Vera wrote:Also midi doesn't support really bidirectional communication (ie. you need two cables instead of one), sysex is really crappy and every manufucturer does it's differently - even between their own products. And no float parameter values (all VST parameters are float parameters, 32-bit audio is float).

That's the whole point behind sysex, its just that people are abusing it. Read the spec.

Equilibrium · Post by **Equilibrium** » Sun Dec 11, 2005 7:30 pm

ah thanks for the helpful responses. I think that settles the matter for me.

jtxx000 · Post by **jtxx000** » Sun Dec 11, 2005 7:43 pm

What about OSC?

Ildon · Post by **Ildon** » Sun Dec 11, 2005 7:49 pm

jtxx000 wrote:What about OSC?

They tried to replace MIDI with OSC, but it still failed. Too many people were used to MIDI, I guess.

Failed Muso · Post by **Failed Muso** » Sun Dec 11, 2005 7:50 pm

Don't forget mLan. It still uses the original MIDI protocols but combines bi-directional MIDI communication plus multi channel audio data across a single Firewire connection.

jtxx000 · Post by **jtxx000** » Sun Dec 11, 2005 8:06 pm

Ildon wrote:
jtxx000 wrote:What about OSC?
They tried to replace MIDI with OSC, but it still failed. Too many people were used to MIDI, I guess.

I wouldn't say failed... it's seems like it's starting to gain a following. Reaktor 5 supports it as well as a touchscreen controller that had a thread here a while back.

When will Midi be replaced?