Pete Brown is both the MIDI Association Exec Board Chair and a Principal Software Engineer in the Windows Developer Platform team at Microsoft. He focuses on client-side dev on Windows, apps and technology for musicians, music app developers, and music hardware developers, and the Windows developer community.
For musicians, there are two key enabling technologies for making music – MIDI and Audio. Microsoft announced updates to both are coming soon to Windows.
Microsoft announced updates to both MIDI and Audio at the Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit 2024.
What did we announce today for musicians and other audio professionals?
Musician Software coming to Arm64 Steinberg Cubase and Nuendo in preview this week Cockos Reaper in preview today Reason Studios Reason in preview in early 2025
Audio Hardware coming to Arm64 Vendor-specific USB Audio / ASIO driver preview from Focusrite early in 2025 Vendor-specific USB Audio / ASIO driver preview from Steinberg/Yamaha in 2025
In-Box Support coming to Arm64 ASIO and low-latency USB Audio Class 2 driver previews mid 2025, in-box in Windows when complete MIDI 2.0 (Windows MIDI Services) previews in Windows Insider builds this November, in-box in retail Windows early next year.
From my own use and from working with others in the music industry, I know we need to have support for two major features on Windows for musicians to have a great experience:
Better APIs which support MIDI, including MIDI 2.0, with backwards compatibility with MIDI 1.0 APIs and devices. Our older MIDI stack hasn’t kept up with current needs, and needed replacing so that we can grow and innovate.
Full support for low-latency, high-channel-count audio, using standards already accepted by the industry
Pete Brown-Microsoft
Windows MIDI Services: The New Windows MIDI Stack
Windows MIDI Services supports MIDI 1.0 as well as the MIDI 2.0 Universal MIDI Packet (UMP) standard. Together this provides compatibility with existing MIDI devices as well as the new MIDI 2.0 devices already in-market or coming soon (I have several MIDI 2.0 devices here in my studio).
MIDI CI, which bridges the gap between MIDI 1.0 and MIDI 2.0 UMP, is supported through normal SysEx support, and we recommend the use of open source cross-platform libraries which help with creating and parsing those messages.
Pete Brown-Microsoft
Backwards compatibility with the WinMM MIDI 1.0 API
The Association of Musical Electronics Industries (AMEI), the organization that oversees the MIDI specification in Japan, committed to funding the development of an open-source USB MIDI 2.0 Host Driver for Windows Operating Systems under a memorandum of understanding between AMEI, AmeNote Inc, and Microsoft.
AMEI is underwriting the cost and has engaged AmeNote Inc. to develop the driver because of AmeNote’s extensive experience in MIDI 2.0 and USB development. In addition, concurrent to this, Microsoft has also agreed to start development of a Windows standard open-source MIDI 2.0 API.
The driver and API will be developed in accordance with Microsoft’s quality control standards, and will be managed as a permissively licensed (MIT license) Microsoft open-source project. As a result, anyone can participate in the development as an open-source contributor in the future, or use the code in their own devices or operating systems. Because of this open source arrangement, continuous and timely improvements and enhancements to the USB MIDI 2.0 Host driver and MIDI 2.0 API are expected.
Here is a list of the AMEI companies supporting this work.
l AlphaTheta Corporation
l INTERNET Co., Ltd.
l Kawai Musical Instruments Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
l CRYPTON FUTURE MEDIA, INC.
l CRIMSON TECHNOLOGY, Inc.
l KORG INC.
l Educational Corporation Shobi Gakuen
l SyncPower Corporation
l ZOOM CORPORATION
l -SUZUKI MUSICAL INST. MFG. CO.,LTD.
l TEAC CORPORATION
l Yamaha Corporation
l Yamaha Music Entertainment Holdings, Inc.
l Roland Corporation
l Analog Devices, K.K.
For the full blog from Pete on the New Windows MIDI Stack, please click on the link below.
We’ve recently kicked off a project with Qualcomm and Yamaha to create a brand new USB Audio Class 2 Driver in Windows, with both WaveRT (our internal audio) and ASIO interfaces, following the latest standards for Windows driver development using the ACX framework.
The new driver will support the devices that our current USB Audio Class 2 driver supports, but will increase support for high-IO-count interfaces with an option for low-latency for musician scenarios.
It will have an ASIO interface so all the existing DAWs on Windows can use it, and it will support the interface being used by Windows and the DAW application at the same time, like a few ASIO drivers do today. And, of course, it will handle power management events on the new CPUs.
This driver will work with USB Audio Class 2 devices, so you can plug in your device, and get right to making music.
Finally, we’ll make the class driver source available to others on GitHub, just like we have with MIDI, so that any company creating their own USB Audio Class 2 drivers will be able to learn from how we handled events and also give us suggestions for how we could do better. It’s a two-way conversation.
Pete Brown-Microsoft
Announcing: Hardware-optimized USB Audio drivers on Arm64
Our new in-box driver needs to work well for all compliant USB Audio Class 2 devices. But some hardware developers are expert driver authors, and for years have known that if they write their own optimized drivers for their USB Audio Interfaces, even on other platforms with built-in drivers and low-latency APIs, they can achieve even better round-trip latency at the same levels of stability. Every millisecond counts!
Pete Brown-Microsoft
Focusrite – Native on Arm64
“Focusrite is targeting releasing native Arm64 drivers for all of its supported USB audio interface products in early 2025, bringing compatibility with all ASIO and non-ASIO applications running on the platform.”
Tim Carroll, CEO Focusrite Group
CEO Focusrite Group, President of The MIDI Association
Yamaha – Native on Arm64
Yamaha creates the Steinberg-branded USB audio interfaces, which are fantastic performers on Windows and loved by their customers. In addition to working on the in-box class driver for Arm64, they are going to release optimized device-family versions of their audio interface drivers for Windows on Arm, giving users of their devices the best of both worlds. We’re excited to see these drivers coming out for Arm64 in 2025!
Pete Brown- Microsoft
Announcing: New Musician-focused apps coming to Arm64
With the new MIDI stack and in-box ASIO, these three killer DAW apps, and two families of audio interfaces with optimized drivers for Arm64, we’re set up to help make the experience of creating music amazing on Windows. I am beyond excited for so many of these efforts to come together at this point in time. A huge thanks to all our hardware and software partners who have stepped up to help musicians and other audio creators on Windows.
Pete Brown-Microsoft
Cubase x Snapdragon: Redefining mobile music production
For the full blog from Pete on Make Great Music with Windows on Arm, please click on the link below.
At the MIDI Forum, there were a number of technology presentations and one of the most fascinating was from Robin Zhang about the open source software he developed called Digishow.
Robin runs a creators’ collective in a beautiful old building that used to be the home of the Lester School and Technical Institute. They get diverse people from different backgrounds (musicians, lighting, artists, designers) to work together and create unique pieces of art using Digishow.
DigiShow is a lightweight control software designed for live performances and immersive show spaces with music, lights, displays, robots and interactive installations. It serves as an easy-to-use console for signal controlling, also enables signal mapping between MIDI, DMX, OSC, ArtNet, Modbus, Arduino, Philips Hue and more digital interfaces.
With using DigiShow LINK app, there are some scenarios assumed:
Producers: For live music or theatre performances, DJ or producers can arrange show lighting cues and stage automations on MIDI tracks alongside the music tracks in Ableton Live or other DAW. At the show, press the button on the Launchpad, the music loop and lighting effects will be instantly played in sync.
Ableton Live with tracks programmed for Digishow
Picture of magnetic and MIDI demo with lightshow
Performers: When playing MIDI instruments like drums or keyboards, DigiShow can trigger dynamic lighting changes and even robotic movements by MIDI notes following the beat or the music. Sensors can also be added to acoustic or DIY instruments to automatically generate MIDI notes.
Artists and Designer: For building interactive art installations, the creators often need to make software that works with the hardware. DigiShow provides OSC, ArtNet, WebSocket pipes for inter-application communication. Designers can create their interactive content in some creative software like TouchDesigner, Unity 3D, P5.js and access the hardware easily through DigiShow. Developers can also program using Python or JavaScript to connect DigiShow and extend interaction logic.
Storefront Display programmed by Digishow and simulated in Touch Designer
Makers and Hobbyists: DigiShow is for all show makers as well as hobbyists with little professional skills. Make digital shows for your own party time, or just make your house into a mini ‘disneyland’.
