LinnStrument MIDI 2.0 Plans?

[Lizzard]

I thought the official release of the MIDI 2.0 spec would be a good time to revisit this topic.

I get that there are multiple reasons that make implementation of that new standard for the LinnStrument potentially undesirable, as discussed in this thread:

• MIDI 1.0 is baked into the USB connector (meaning that MIDI 2.0 could only be supported for the DIN MIDI jacks)
• eats up dev time that might be better spent on other topics
• introduces risky change while not adding a lot of value on top of what MPE already provides
• currently mostly unsupported by VSTs, DAWs, etc.

However, I still feel that it might be worthwhile at least considering this for the LinnStrument Roadmap, due to the following reasoning: Software support is bound to get better, especially as more and more hardware vendors implement the protocol, leading to multiplier effects. This will make the value of MIDI 2.0 support go up, especially regarding the new options for Capability Inquiry and Property Exchange, which I consider to be some of the most interesting additions to the protocol. Basically, I am hoping that this will allow for semi-automatic configuration of a given VST (synth, sampler, ...) to the requirements of the LinnStrument. This has the potential to significantly ease the barrier of entry when pairing a new VST to the hardware (and vice versa), especially as a beginner who hasn't yet gotten acquainted with all of the channel configuration options and who just wants to try out some of the synths they already own. Ideally, pairing the two should be something of a literal "plug and play" process where the user doesn't have to perform any manual configuration at all anymore.

I don't think that this will add any musically expressive potential, but I do think that in the long run, most VSTs will probably implement MPE simply by supporting MIDI 2.0, so there's also the argument of investing into long-term relevance (though I readily admit that this will probably be a slow development that's quite a ways off as of today).

What do you think? Is this something worth considering, or do you want to wait to see how the market develops before committing to any specific course of action?

[gbevin]

I started looking into this, adopting the MIDI 2.0 message protocol might not be possible without a huge amount of work. However MIDI 2.0 CI and Property Exchange are. At this point the CI spec is too undefined to have anything useful to implement for LinnStrument.

With the MPE working group, we're currently working on defining an MPE MIDI CI Profile. Once that gets close to the finished stage, I will implement what is required to allow LinnStrument to use that MIDI CI Profile.

[Lizzard]

That's very interesting information, good to know! Seems that the MPE MIDI CI Profile might deliver precisely what I was hoping for
Thanks, and I'm looking forward to seeing how all of this pans out.

[SteveElbows]

The main initial specs actually came out a long time ago now, but as said above there are some missing pieces when it comes to certain specifics, there are a lot of details in various different areas of MIDI 2.0 to get into. Its probably best to think of this stuff as a multi-year mission that has a long way to go yet, but progress is still visible.

This video from NAMM 2022 will probably help explain where things are at, some of the things that have been contributing to the long timescales (eg Windows support), some of the things that should help improve uptake (eg the Raspberry pico dev boards): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69hzeBFOPfo

Hard to predict exactly how fast things will evolve with synths and DAWs. MPE support has come a long way in that realm and the early years of MIDI 2.0 might involve issues and missing pieces that dont allow the ultimate end-user ease of use/config to come to full fruition in one go, dont make this stuff more accessible and practical for end users to start with, dont exceed what can be done already with MPE synths etc. But I expect plenty of people will come together to make this happen gradually. Maybe future generations of expressive controllers will be enabled by this stuff eventually (such potential and existing MPE are mentioned in that video), and I always have faith that the Linnstrument will evolve (where technically possible within the constraints of its hardware) to embrace the new stuff when the time is right. As a nerd I keep an eye on MIDI 2.0 from time to time, but its too soon for me to start experimenting - I wait till other much cleverer people have made more tech stacks/libraries/APIs for other people further down the capabilities pyramid like me to make use of when experimenting with prototypes etc.

[iowastate89]

(deleted duplicate content in another thread!)