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MIDI 2.0 Specs Now Public


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The core MIDI 2.0 Specifications are now available to download.

Over 200 pages across 5 documents and it's all a bit geeky.

Free download at www.midi.org. You need a membership there (no charge).

Mike Kent

- Chairman of MIDI 2.0 Working Group

- MIDI Association Executive Board

- Co-Author of USB Device Class Definition for MIDI Devices 1.0 and 2.0

 

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The core MIDI 2.0 Specifications are now available to download.

Over 200 pages across 5 documents and it's all a bit geeky.

Free download at www.midi.org. You need a membership there (no charge).

 

This is a stupid question but haven't they always been?

 

I guess not since you're posting it, but maybe I'm confusing it with the Specs that have been available at MIDI.org over the years.

 

Maybe you can help me with this actually. I have so many questions.

 

When someone wants to use, say the "Compact Disc" logo to show that a CD meets the specs for - I don't, say Red Book Standard from Sony/Phillips (or like S/PDIF) they have have to license that from Sony IIRC.

 

For devices to carry the GM logo, did they have to pay a licensing fee, or is it just meet specs and get approval?

 

Is Roland's GS included in that?

 

A student in my class said "MIDI 2.0 is coming out" but I think they meant this - that the documentation was being released.

 

But aren't we on the verge of 3.0? (or long overdue for it)

 

i wish GM would become a bigger thing now - back in the 80s, if you went in and looked at a synth, it was "Is it GM compatible" because if it wasn't you were out the door.

 

Now even Roland buries their GM sound set and features - sure you can still turn it on and have a SMF play to it (unless someone made it on a Yamaha...).

 

I've also wondered, why won't Roland just make their really good sounding piano Patch 1 instead of the cheesy GM pianos.

 

Anyhoo, I could see a standardization for CC - 14-18 ish - those general purpose controllers, to be standardized for, for example, String patches to do CC15 for Pizz, CC16 for Marcato, and so on. It'd be cool if there were the same for various Trumpet techniques or other similar things on other instruments.

 

What's the story with Celeste, Phaser, and - there's another one up there I think - they seem to have been abandoned.

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But aren't we on the verge of 3.0? (or long overdue for it)
Nope, we've been on MIDI 1.0 all this time. 2.0 is the imminent upgrade, with the first controllers geared toward it hitting the market this year.

 

Probably the longest running, widely used, 1.0 standard of all time. With all its flaws, I'd say "well done" to the original authors!

 

Rock bottom bass

Fakebook Pro Sheet Music Reader - at every gig!

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This is a stupid question but haven't they always been?

No, I believe you're thinking about General MIDI (GM) and GM2, which clarified for instance how the Program Change (PC) messages should be assigned, as opposed to MIDI 1.0 which defined the electrics of the DIN plug and the MIDI message structure, etc.

E.g. PC1 (Hex 00) assigned Grand Piano in GM.

GM2 extended this list assigning a further 128 'voices' by using 'Bank Select' messages (and percussion).

Thse are just two examples, there were quite a few other things.

I guess not since you're posting it, but maybe I'm confusing it with the Specs that have been available at MIDI.org over the years.

No, MIDI 1.0 specs, and GM + GM2, have been available in printed form for ages, in pdf form for a few years only.

Maybe you can help me with this actually. I have so many questions.

When someone wants to use, say the "Compact Disc" logo to show that a CD meets the specs for - I don't, say Red Book Standard from Sony/Phillips (or like S/PDIF) they have have to license that from Sony IIRC.

 

For devices to carry the GM logo, did they have to pay a licensing fee, or is it just meet specs and get approval?

Good question, I think, a registered member of the MMA with an assigned 'MIDI manufacturers number'.

Is Roland's GS included in that?

No, Roland GS, like Yamaha XG, is the manufacturers' unique implementation of the MIDI 1.0 spec. but isn't GM or GM2.

It conforms to all the rules of the MIDI 1.0 spec but not necessarily to the voice assignement or the assigned use of the various MIDI 'Continuous Controllers (CC) messages.

A student in my class said "MIDI 2.0 is coming out" but I think they meant this - that the documentation was being released.

But aren't we on the verge of 3.0? (or long overdue for it)

Yes, the release of the specifications on the 20th of Feb. No, MIDI 2.0 significantly updates the original MIDI 1.0 specification, it doesn't change GM2.

I suppose it could be argued that a GM3 specification is now needed.

i wish GM would become a bigger thing now - back in the 80s, if you went in and looked at a synth, it was "Is it GM compatible" because if it wasn't you were out the door.

Now even Roland buries their GM sound set and features - sure you can still turn it on and have a SMF play to it (unless someone made it on a Yamaha...).

 

I've also wondered, why won't Roland just make their really good sounding piano Patch 1 instead of the cheesy GM pianos.

I suppose because they want you to think of their patches as being better than the vanilla ones of GM or GM2.

Anyhoo, I could see a standardization for CC - 14-18 ish - those general purpose controllers, to be standardized for, for example, String patches to do CC15 for Pizz, CC16 for Marcato, and so on. It'd be cool if there were the same for various Trumpet techniques or other similar things on other instruments.

Well, with the new Property Exchange capability in MIDI 2.0 it will be possible with new devices to pass across the concept of e.g. CC15=pizzicato, CC16=marcato, CC17=sforzando or whatever.

What's the story with Celeste, Phaser, and - there's another one up there I think - they seem to have been abandoned.

 

Not sure about those, I'm afraid.

 

Akai EWI 4000s, Yamaha VL70m, Yamaha AN1x, Casio PX560, Yamaha MU1000XG+PLGs-DX,AN,VL.

 

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Maybe what he means is a lot of the general concepts of MIDI2.0 have been out in the open for the last 2-3 years as the group has been bouncing ideas around. For instance, we've known that they will include some official designation for MPE in MIDI2.0, but not exactly to what end over its existing MIDI1.0 implementation.

 

As for standardized CCs, i've always been slightly dubious about OVER standardizing controllers. It's really helpful to have a lot of empty slots for parameters you don't anticipate. For instance, between 9 to 38 organ drawbars have never officially been standardized. You can imagine up useful CC parameters until the cows come home, but you're never going to think of ALL possible features. Better to leave a bunch open to interpretation. No reason developers can't dream up their own, and users can map them wherever.

Puck Funk! :)

 

Equipment: Laptop running lots of nerdy software, some keyboards, noise makersâ¦yada yada yadaâ¦maybe a cat?

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Plus meeting a spec' doesn't mean the implementation is good or even complete. In my early days in computers I worked for companies that made compilers and programming tools and had deal with programming language standards and implementations could get fuzzy.
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Maybe what he means is a lot of the general concepts of MIDI2.0 have been out in the open for the last 2-3 years as the group has been bouncing ideas around. For instance, we've known that they will include some official designation for MPE in MIDI2.0, but not exactly to what end over its existing MIDI1.0 implementation.

 

As for standardized CCs, i've always been slightly dubious about OVER standardizing controllers. It's really helpful to have a lot of empty slots for parameters you don't anticipate. For instance, between 9 to 38 organ drawbars have never officially been standardized. You can imagine up useful CC parameters until the cows come home, but you're never going to think of ALL possible features. Better to leave a bunch open to interpretation. No reason developers can't dream up their own, and users can map them wherever.

 

I must have been thinking GM2

 

I guess I'm confused about what "MIDI" versus "GM" means

 

I had read (I thought on MIDI.org) that MIDI "1.0" was essentially the retconnned name now that 2.0 is in effect - but that was years ago.

 

Honestly, I too have been looking at CCs lately because, with DAWs, you often have a controller you need to assign like 22, 23, 24, etc.on so you can have control over a Fader on a Track without it sending CC7 messages on to a synth, or some other CC number that's going to affect something else you don't want.

 

It always puzzled me why some things, like Volume and Expression are 7 and 11 rather than 7 and 8 - I get why they left space around some of them - like IIRC 64 is Sustain Pedal and that was described in 1.0 and then 65 (or whatever) became standardized in - what I thought was 2.0 but I guess it was GM2.

 

What maybe we really need is a bank of 128 reserved for standardized controllers, and then a bank of 128 "user controllers" that are free to be assigned. But I guess that's what it sounds like the "property exchange" is going to do.

 

Crap, this means I'm going to have to learn more stuff - and obviously, I seem to have mislearned some of it already!

 

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No, I believe you're thinking about General MIDI (GM) and GM2, which clarified for instance how the Program Change (PC) messages should be assigned, as opposed to MIDI 1.0 which defined the electrics of the DIN plug and the MIDI message structure, etc.

E.g. PC1 (Hex 00) assigned Grand Piano in GM.

GM2 extended this list assigning a further 128 'voices' by using 'Bank Select' messages (and percussion).

 

 

OK, yeah, I had the acronyms and numerals mixed up.

 

I thought MIDI 1.0 was GM, and GM2 was MIDI 2.0.

 

So, if I'm reading you correctly, MIDI 1.0 did not specify that Piano was PC 00 and Violin was PC 40 (or patches 1 and 41 respectively).

 

That came along in GM, correct?

 

Then GM2 added the additional 128 patches (which no one seems to know about or use!) and additional things like both Channel 10 and 11 (instead of only 10) would be used for Percussion, etc.

 

And all of that was done by MMA?

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I"m hoping that we"ll see instruments that take meaningful advantage of MIDI 2.0 in the next year or two. Something like the Osmose with a firmware upgrade could play really well in that world, but of course it will be a while before all of our tools (including DAWs!) get with the program. Given how many don"t support MPE or even poly AT in some cases, it could be a while.

 

In the meantime it"s hard to get excited about writing software to support it without anything that I can test it against.

Acoustic: Shigeru Kawai SK-7 ~ Breedlove C2/R

MIDI: Kurzweil Forte ~ Sequential Prophet X ~ Yamaha CP88 ~ Expressive E Osmose

Electric: Schecter Solo Custom Exotic ~ Chapman MLB1 Signature Bass

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OK, yeah, I had the acronyms and numerals mixed up.

 

I thought MIDI 1.0 was GM, and GM2 was MIDI 2.0.

 

So, if I'm reading you correctly, MIDI 1.0 did not specify that Piano was PC 00 and Violin was PC 40 (or patches 1 and 41 respectively).

 

That came along in GM, correct?

 

Then GM2 added the additional 128 patches (which no one seems to know about or use!) and additional things like both Channel 10 and 11 (instead of only 10) would be used for Percussion, etc.

 

And all of that was done by MMA?

 

Quite right, you have it clear now. ;-)

 

MIDI 1.0 specified the MIDI Din interface and an initial design of the electronics to drive it.

The MIDI protocol, the various message types e.g. note of, note off, the controller structure, RPNs and NRPNs, SysEx, etc., and a definition of what some of those controllers did.

It also specified the structure of an SMF, e.g. timing messages, etc.

 

GM defined the assignment of voices to Program Change numbers and what notes on channel 10 would trigger which percussion sounds.

It also defined what minimum set of controllers should be available to be compliant, so manufacturers could label their products with the "GM" logo.

GM2 extended this set as you've set out plus various other things.

 

Both of the GM and GM2 specs are available to download on the MMA site.

You have to be a member to get them, but joining is free.

Those two documents are not too onerous to read, unlike some of the MIDI 1.0 specifications.

Sadly I mucked about and wrote a MIDI dump program back in the late eighties for the Yamaha HS organs, so paid for the various specs. :-(

But ... I consider it money well spent. ;-)

 

Akai EWI 4000s, Yamaha VL70m, Yamaha AN1x, Casio PX560, Yamaha MU1000XG+PLGs-DX,AN,VL.

 

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