We have received our CES Allied Association Booth for 2025 and want to invite everyone to come see us at Booth 8578 of Las Vegas Convention Center in the North Hall.
We may have a slightly streamlined booth compared to last year partly because a lot of the instruments that companies have loaned us are out with the Riverside City College students who will be performing at the 2025 NAMM show.
Here is a picture of our CES 2024 booth.
Also l at CES 2024, we had a surprise visitor to our CES booth.
We have been making great progress with the Music Accessibility Special Interest Group and Arcana Instruments, BetterMaker, and Audio Modeling (along with Sam Prouse and Jay Pocknell) have been working on an amazing demo of voice control of hardware and plugins that will be featured at the NAMM 2025 booth.
We want to thank the Allied Associations team of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA)®.
Just like The MIDI Association and NAMM, they are a trade association. They are a “little” bigger because they represent the $398 billion U.S. consumer technology industry.
ADC is a non-profit event, dedicated to the audio community, focused on learning, facilitating networking and positive working relationships, sharing best practice, and promoting equality, diversity and inclusion across all that we do.
Audio Developers Conference
Tickets to ADC24
Tickets to ADC24 are available for both in person and virtual attendance and range in price with discounts for Academics and Students. Click the button below to see all the options.
MIDI Association Companies Sponsor The Audio Developers Conference 2024
For many years now The MIDI Association has been a community sponsor of the Audio Developers Conference.
At ADC24, MIDI Association members Juce and Focusrite are Gold Sponsors of the conference. Arturia, Avid, Muse Group and Roland are Silver Sponsors and Steinberg is a Bronze sponsor.
MIDI Association Companies Presentations At Audio Developers Conference
MIDI Association companies are giving a number of presentations at ADC24.
The MIDI Association is actually underwriting support for the Workshop: Inclusive Design within Audio Products.
This workshop which is being run by Jay Pocknell of the Royal Institute for the Blind highlights the work being done to make music music more accessible to everyone and features the work of many of the people in the MIDI Association’s Music Accessibility Special Interest Group.
Workshop: Inclusive Design within Audio Products
What, Why, How?
14:00 – 17:00 UTC | Monday 11th November 2024 | Empire
Following the success of last year’s ‘An Introduction to Inclusive Design of Audio Products’, we are delighted to be presenting a follow up this year. The session will promote the work happening across the audio industry to support accessibility and inclusive design. We will focus on providing practical design principles for attendees to take away, backed up by engaging lived experience insights and demonstrations.
In particular, we will showcase the practices of two companies who have been making big waves within accessible music in the last year: Ableton and Arcana Instruments. Jay Pocknell and Tim Yates will be exploring how these companies involved the disabled musician community throughout the design of their products, as well as sharing accessibility top tips for attendees to take away, along with insights from musicians Elizabeth J. Birch and Andre Louis.
Why is this important?
As the audio industry seeks to improve diversity within its workforce, and the music industry seeks to widen the diversity of artists creating music, it is essential that inclusion becomes woven into the design of the tools available.
Overview of the social model of disability. 10 mins.
Why design inclusively? The importance of accessibility in mainstream audio technology. 10 mins.
Inclusive design principles and best practice guidelines for music-making and audio products, including examples from products already on the market. 40 mins.
[Break. 10 mins.]
Call to action. How to learn more, further resources to explore. 5 mins.
Case study – Developing with the community: what Ableton have learnt since investing in accessibility and connecting with their user community during the development of Live 12, Note, and Move. Andre Louis will also demonstrate the accessibility features of Ableton Move. 30 mins.
Case study – From the ground up: how Arcana built a company around inclusive design and developed their first instrument, the Arcana Strum, for all. 30 mins.
Panel Q&A. All panellists. 30 mins.
Beyond ValueTrees
(Confessions of a ValueTree Skeptic)
15:40 – 16:00 UTC | Monday 11th November 2024 | Bristol 2
Presenter:Brett g Porter Lead Software Engineer Artiphon and Executive Board of The MIDI Association
The JUCE website says “The ValueTree class is JUCE’s secret weapon,” and it’s true. They give you:
A really easy way to capture and pass around the entire state of your application’s data at run time
A rich mechanism to watch that data at a fine degree of granularity
Trivially easy persistence of application state
…but at the cost (in comparison to using native POD or class/struct variables) of being:
slower
less convenient to use
less type-safe, since all values are stored in the JUCE var variant type.
This talk will explore the new Cello library to abstract away the underlying API calls in favor of syntax that’s more like working with POD data. The original goal was to be able to write code something like the below, but using ValueTrees as the backing data store:
Roland’s Holistic Approach to AI for Music Creation
12:20 – 12:50 UTC | Tuesday 12th November 2024 | Bristol 3
Presenter:Paul McCabeSVP Research & Innovation Roland Future Design Lab
Presenter:Ichiro YazawaAdvanced R&D Group Leader Roland Future Design Lab
Presenter:Kazuyoshi SasamoriAI Product Manager Roland Future Design Lab
This presentation introduces Roland’s approach to AI for music creation and will include a technical demonstration of a new AI-powered application. Roland will also overview its holistic strategy for AI which considers R&D, policy, and governance mechanisms. As a general-purpose disruptive technology, Artificial Intelligence is in the process of impacting virtually every aspect of life, including creativity. As a leading music technology innovator, Roland is highly optimistic about the potential of AI to enhance and empower human music making but is deeply aware of the need to innovate responsibly.
Expanding SDKs and APIs in Pro Tools
12:20 – 12:50 UTC | Tuesday 12th November 2024 | Bristol 1
Dave TylerSenior Manager, Development Partner Program Avid
In this session, we will discuss how SDKs will play an important part in the future of Pro Tools to enable the integration of partner technologies and workflow solutions.
Introducing ni-midi2
A Modern C++ Library Implementing MIDI2 UMP 1.1 and MIDI CI 1.2
14:00 – 14:50 UTC | Tuesday 12th November 2024 | Bristol 1
Franz Detro – Member of the MIDI Association Technical Standards Board and contributor to MIDI 2.0 and USB Audio/MIDI Device Class specifications. Co-founder of midi2.dev – a collaboration platform for MIDI 2.0 developer resources.
MIDI 2.0 implementations arrived in recent macOS and Linux versions, and Windows MIDI 2.0 support is expected to arrive end of 2024.
ni-midi2 is a modern C++ library implementing MIDI2 UMP 1.1 and MIDI-CI 1.2. The platform-independent library allows you to easily migrate your code to support MIDI 2, while maintaining compatibility to the traditional MIDI 1 protocol.
The talk will cover basic concepts of the library and real-world examples of how it helps you to achieve protocol-agnostic MIDI 2 support in your codebase.
Sponsor Talk from Focusrite
12:20 – 12:50 UTC | Wednesday 13th November 2024 | Bristol 2
TBD
Going Deeper with CLAP
12:20 – 12:50 UTC | Wednesday 13th November 2024 | Bristol 3
Alexandre Bique of Bitwig and Urs Heckmann of u-he join the stage to present updates on CLAP (CLever Audio Plugin API). A lot has happened since CLAP was presented at ADC 23. Alexandre and Urs will briefly focus on industry adoption and give an overview of latest extensions, roadmap and goals. Then they’ll be digging deeper by showing example implementations of some of CLAPs core features, such as Polyphonic Parameter Modulation and Voice Info.
An Efficient, Open-Source C++ Loop Classifier and Tempo Estimator
The Algorithm Behind Audacity’s Brand New Tempo Detection Feature
15:00 – 15:50 Wednesday 13th November 2024 UTC
Matthieu HodgkinsonSenior Software Developer Muse Group
An efficient, offline C++ algorithm for loop classification and tempo estimation is presented, alongside its evaluation framework. The framework provides the area under the ROC curve (AUC) of the classifier, facilitating regression-free development and tuning of the algorithm. The AUC is now 0.93 when evaluated against the set of files (publicly available on freesound.org under the Creative Commons license) listed in the framework’s source code. By providing computation time measurement, the framework has also been useful for optimizing the algorithm, which is now typically over 2500 times faster than real-time (measurement made on a Windows laptop with a 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12800HX processor and 32 GB of RAM). Furthermore, the framework can be used to set the target false positive rate according to the requirements of your application. Algorithm and evaluation framework are open source, and care has been taken to keep the algorithm easily reusable.
The algorithm can be seen as a “classical” algorithm and reuses ideas described elsewhere in the literature. However, the idea behind the classifier is original. A set of loosely plausible numbers of tatums (or ticks) fitting in the duration of the provided audio file is taken. The likelihood of each tatum count hypothesis is evaluated by measuring the distance of each onset to its closest tatum and using the onset’s strength in the weighted average of all distances. The average is then compared to a threshold, and, if below, a disambiguation step is carried out, where the number of tatums is reused to determine the most likely tempo (BPM) and time signature.
As implied above, the input audio must be a loop for its tempo to be detected. This limitation was not deemed critical for the application the algorithm was intended for. On the other hand, it opened possibilities to improve the discriminant factor of the classifier, allowing a higher success rate while keeping the false positive rate low. This choice may explain the originality of the approach despite its simplicity.
As you can see the Audio Developers Conference and The MIDI Association have a close and copacetic relationship because many of our corporate members are supporters and sponsors of the Audio Developers Conference.
If you are at ADC24, please keep your eye out for these presentations and come up and say hello to the many MIDI Association members who will be there.
The Music China 2024 edition was an extraordinary and opportunity-filled experience for us at Audio Modeling. In collaboration with the MIDI Association and in the MusicX area, we had the chance to explore the Chinese music market and strengthen our presence in this key sector.
Discovering the Chinese Music Market
During the event, we had the opportunity to deeply understand the specific characteristics of the Chinese music market by meeting key players in the industry. We discovered a strong interest in the integration of technology in music education. The role of music education in China is central and constantly expanding, representing a great opportunity for us to develop innovative technological solutions that can make a significant impact.
Partnership with ROBKOO: A New Chapter
One of the highlights of Music China 2024 was the signing of our partnership with ROBKOO, a leading company in the production of electronic controllers and wind instruments. This collaboration marks a strategic step for Audio Modeling, opening doors to a growing market where electronic controllers are becoming increasingly popular.
The partnership with ROBKOO highlights the importance of a rapidly growing sector in China, allowing us to work with a leading company to develop cutting-edge and accessible musical solutions for an ever-expanding audience.
Awards and Innovation: The Success of UniMIDI Hub
At Music China, we were proud to receive two prestigious awards: the MIDI Innovation Award and the China User Choice Award, both won thanks to our UniMIDI Hub prototype. This project embodies our vision of musical accessibility, aiming to make music creation accessible to everyone.
UniMIDI Hub represents just the beginning of our commitment to creating an inclusive musical ecosystem, usable by people with disabilities as well as anyone who wants to explore new forms of musical expression.
Lecture at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music (SHCM): Engagement and Interest
Another significant moment during our time in Shanghai was being guests at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music (SHCM), where we held a lecture on our SWAM instrument physical modeling technology. The lecture saw great participation and interest from the students, who asked numerous questions to understand how this technology can revolutionize the way music is produced and performed.
The enthusiasm shown by the students at the Shanghai Conservatory confirmed for us how strong the interest in technological innovation is within the Chinese educational sector. We are confident that this collaboration will continue to develop in the future, helping to train the next generation of musicians through advanced technologies.
Music China and the Chinese Musical Instrument Association (CMIA) have really stepped up their support for MIDI and digital music making and right next to The MIDI Association booth was the X Stage where we did a number of presentations over the course of 4 days.
Brian Hardgroove and Sennheiser Immersive Audio Presentation
Because of a long standing relationship, Sennheiser supported Brian Hardgroove’s appearance at Music China’s opening performance. He also did the first presentation on the X Stage next to The MIDI Association. Brian along with IMAC advisory board member Nevin Domer (who ran a punk record label in China and speaks fluent Mandarin) and Zhao Yajun, engineering specialist for Sennheiser presented a talk on the X Stage. Brian focused on the process of cross border, cross cultural communication in working on songs with Bian and Kong and Zhao Yajun focused on Sennheiser products particularly the HD490 Pro headphones.
The MIDI Association had worked with Music China and Sennheiser so people could come to The MIDI Association booth and register to receive a copy of a song written by Brian which featured Bian on Erhu and Kong on piano and also enter a drawing to win a pair of headphones.
This really helped us increase traffic at the MIDI Association booth.
MIDI Innovation Awards and Chinese Users Choice Awards Presentation
Finalists in the MIDI Innovation Awards were invited to participate in Synthefest UK 2024 , Music China 2024 and NAMM 2025. Here is an article we did Synth Fest UK on the event and a picture of from the event itself.
PR firm Rock Paper Scissors, Inc. explores the new terrain at the epicenter of music and technology through their PR and marketing services as well as the Music Tectonics Conference, podcast, online events, and in-person meetups. Everything Music Tectonics does explores the seismic shifts that shake up music and technology the way the earth’s tectonic plates cause quakes…
Boaz from Arcana Instruments Strum, Jean Baptiste Thiebaut from The MIDI Innovation Awards and Andrej Kobal from seqMPEror.
At Music China we had a great panel and participation by several of the winners and finalists. Here is the promotional video we created to promote the event at Music China.
MIDI Innovation Awards and Chinese Users Choice Awards
Finalists in the 2024 MIDI Innovation Awards were also entered into the Chinese Users Choice Awards where Music China promoted the products in China and users were able to vote for their favorites.
Audio Modeling won both the MIDI Innovation Awards in the non commercial software category and the Chinese Users Choice Awards. We covered this in our article The MIDI Association At Music China 2024
This picture shows the ranking of the Chinese Users Choice Award winners.
There were a lot of MIDI Innovation Award finalists and winners at Music China including Audio Modeling, Arcana Strum, Party Maker and Flex Accordion.
Audio Modeling explains the UniMIDI Hub at Music ChinaHaim Kairy holds up the Arcana Strum at the Music Accessibility panel at Music China 2024Particle Shrine Video at Music ChinaParty Maker and Flex Accordian
MusicX Stage Music Innovation Awards Presentation
Music Accessibility Presentation
Above is the promotional video we created to promote the event at Music China.
The Music Accessibility presentation at the X Stage featured two 2024 MIDI Innovation Award winners. Arcana Instruments won in the Commercial Hardware category for the Arcana Strum and Audio Modelingwon in the non-commercial software category for UniMIDIHub.
In addition to the MIDI Innovation Award winners, we invited two of brand ambassadors and a special guest, Liang Ge from Kong Audio . He showed up several minutes before the start of the presentation because he was interested in music accessibility. His company develops virtual instruments covering modern and ancient Chinese instruments as well as western orchestral instruments.
His English is great so we roped him into being the translator for the Music Accessibility presentation at the very last minute. Thanks to Kong Audio for their support.
Liang Ge from Kong AudioHaim Kairy with Arcana Strum
MIDI In Music Education Presentation
With all the support we got last year from Xinghai Conservatory of Music and this year from Shanghai Conservatory of Music, we know that MIDI In Music Education is going to be an important topic in China in the future.
Zhao Yitian and Athan Billias from the MIDI Association executive board gave visitors to Music China an update on our plans to release a MIDI curriculum created by SAE Mexico and encouraged Chinese universities to translate our documents into Chinese.
MusicX stage MIDI in Music Education Music China 2024
In our next article, we’ll cover the 4 hour MIDI Forum that Music China arranged for Saturday, October 12, 2024.
Sound Without Sight is a new non-profit initiative, aimed at supporting sight-impaired people in the fields of audio and music. They will: showcase blind and partially sighted talent, highlight how accessibility barriers can be overcome, combine collective knowledge, and challenge stereotypes.
They have started started a monthly series of meet ups with next one being on Thursday 17th October 2024, 7pm UK time. that will feature a live demonstration of MuseScore Studio with a screen reader by headline guest James Bowden!
James is Braille Technical Officer at RNIB, and his feedback has been key in shaping the development of accessibility features within MuseScore in recent years.
The demonstration will last around 60 minutes, with a further 30 minutes for questions. This will be a relaxed, informal discussion and audience participation is encouraged.
We thought it was time to introduce the members who regularly attend these meetings so you can get to know their backgrounds and why they are passionate about making music making accessible to everyone. The Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group in The MIDI Association has been meeting regularly for over a year now every other Wednesday at 8 am Pacific Time.
Juho Tomanien- MASSIG Chair
Juho Tomanien is a student from Finland who had a vision for a Music Accessibility Standard. Just because you are blind, doesn’t mean that you can’t have a vision. Take Stevie Wonder whose Inner Visions album is considered one of the greatest records of all time.
Juho reached out to the MIDI Association after someone of KVR Audio suggested that perhaps The MIDI Association might be a good place to start up a conversation about Accessibility.
It turned out that there were already a number of MIDI Association member companies who had been working with accessibility consultants like UK producers/recording engineers Scott Chesworth and Jason Dasent and had already been adding accessibility features to their products. Juce which runs the Audio Developer Conference was also already onboard and had been hosting accessibility workshops at ADC for several years.
In 2023 at the ADC conference Jay Pocknell from the Royal Institute for the Blind hosted a packed session of developers trying to learn how to use Juce to add accessibility features to their products.
Workshop: An Introduction to Inclusive Design of Audio Products – Accessibility Panel – ADC23
MIDI Association members from Audio Modeling, Arturia, Native Instruments, Roland and more have joined together with The Royal Institute for the Blind and visually impaired producers and musicians like Juho, Scott Chesworth Jason Dasent and more to discuss how MIDI 2.0 might enable Music Accessibility and make making music accessible to everyone.
Jay Pocknell-SoundWithoutSight.org and the Royal Institute For The Blind
Jay Pocknell, SoundWithoutSight.org and the Royal Institute For The Blind
As a sight-impaired musician, I first considered plans for a project in 2018. I was achieving my dream of working in commercial recording studios but also found that there were significant barriers to accessing the equipment and culture. I became aware that my fully-sighted peers could be more agile within the industry. Rather than becoming frustrated, I wanted to use my experience as motivation to inspire change. I refused to believe that I was the only person to have struggled.
Ph.D. student at the Music Informatics Laboratory at the University of Milan, in collaboration with Audio Modeling.
From a young age, I was captivated by the transformative power of music. However, as I delved deeper into the world of digital instruments, I began to notice a glaring gap in accessibility. The tools that are supposed to empower creativity often come with barriers that exclude many from fully engaging in music-making. This realization fueled my desire to create digital instruments that are not only innovative but also inclusive, designed to be accessible and usable by everyone, regardless of their physical abilities or technical expertise.
Through my research, I aim to challenge the status quo by designing instruments that are adaptable and intuitive, ensuring that the joy of music is within reach for all. To deepen my understanding and to extend my vision of accessibility, I joined MASSIG (the Music and Accessibility Special Interest Group). Being part of this community has allowed me to connect with musicians who face real challenges in their everyday interactions with digital instruments. These interactions have been invaluable in shaping my research, providing me with insights into the practical needs and problems that must be addressed.
My journey is driven by the belief that music should be a universal language, and to achieve that, the tools we create must be as inclusive as the art form itself. As I continue my work, I am committed to breaking down barriers and ensuring that every musician, regardless of their background or ability, has the opportunity to express themselves through digital music. Short bio: I’m Vanessa, and I am currently pursuing a Ph.D. at the Music Informatics Laboratory at the University of Milan, in collaboration with Audio Modeling. My passion for music and technology has led me to a research project that sits at the intersection of both fields: the ideation and development of accessible digital music instruments.
Emanuele Parravicini, co-founder and CTO of Audio Modeling
Emanuele Parravicini is the co-founder and CTO of Audio Modeling. He holds a degree in Telecommunications Engineering and a Master’s in Information Technology. With a deep passion for music and music technology, Emanuele is a strong advocate for inclusivity, particularly in the realm of musical technology.
At Audio Modeling, he leads the development of innovative products, including the UniMIDI Hub, a software platform designed to integrate various accessible devices. This platform enables real-time control of digital instruments or music production software by multiple users simultaneously, whether they are individuals with disabilities, students, amateurs, or professionals.
Emanuele’s commitment to making music technology accessible to everyone is the driving force behind his involvement in the MASSIG – Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group. His expertise and dedication to inclusivity in the field align perfectly with the group’s mission.
I am Emanuele Parravicini, co-founder and CTO of Audio Modeling. I hold a degree in Telecommunications Engineering and a Master’s in Information Technology. With a deep passion for both music and music technology, I am a strong advocate for inclusivity, especially within the realm of musical technology.
In my role at Audio Modeling, I oversee the development of our products, including one of our latest projects, the UniMIDI Hub. This software platform aims to integrate various accessible devices, allowing real-time control of digital instruments or music production software by multiple users at once, whether they are individuals with disabilities, students, amateurs, or professionals.
My commitment to making music technology accessible to everyone is what led me to join the MASSIG – Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group. I believe that inclusive technology can empower people to create and enjoy music, and I am dedicated to contributing to this important mission.
Emanuele Parravicini
Haim Kairy- CEO – Arcana Instruments
I am an engineer, software developer, maker, entrepreneur, and musician, currently serving as co-founder and CEO of Arcana Instruments. Throughout my professional career in technology startups and consulting for banks, energy, and insurance companies, I never found a true sense of purpose. Music has always been central to my life, playing, recording, producing, and performing. Without it, I would surely be lost.
Eight years ago, everything changed when my friend Boaz, a music-school teacher, showed me a video of Gil, a 12-year-old girl with cerebral palsy, trying to play the guitar. Unfamiliar with CP, I was moved by her passion and frustration as she struggled to control her hands and fingers. Realizing that no suitable instrument existed for her, we were heartbroken. However, seeing Gil controlling her motorized wheelchair with a joystick inspired us to create an accessible musical instrument she could play.
What began as a hackathon project for one girl evolved into a year of research, working with individuals aged 5 to 95 to develop the Arcana Strum, an inclusive, adaptable musical instrument. We raised capital from angel investors and government grants, left our day jobs, and fully committed to this mission.
Meeting hundreds of people with disabilities and making music accessible to them has made a huge impact on me. I’ve come to understand that a significant portion of the population is systemically excluded from learning and playing music, a body-brain-developing, spirit-lifting activity I once took for granted.
As part of the MIDI Association Special Interest Group, Arcana gains invaluable insights from musicians and professionals about music accessibility needs. We aim to contribute our resources, knowledge, and experience to create an inclusive and accessible music landscape for everyone.
Micheal Strickland , Specialized Faculty in Music Technology at Florida State University
Michael Strickland is a passionate advocate for music education and accessibility, leveraging his expertise in music technology to create innovative learning and performance environments. As a member of the MIDI Association, he participates in the Music Education and Accessibility Special Interest Groups, where he promotes the use of MIDI as a tool for enhancing musical expression and inclusion. He is also a skilled performer, engineer, and researcher, with a diverse background in physics, music, and improvisation. He is honored to serve as a judge for the MIDI Innovation Awards and celebrate the creative potential of MIDI.
I have previously worked in the broadcast industry, delivering control and monitoring interfaces for visually impaired users and improving access to various production tools.
I know that improvements to a product’s accessibility improves workflows for all of its users and that considering the access to all elements of a product, for all users at the earliest stage of design is the best way to deliver a product that works best for the widest audience. This is not just a social benefit, it is good business practice. Whilst engaging where necessary with product modifiers (such as screen readers), I much prefer to design products that work for each user’s ability. I consider what interface the users can use and how they can access the features of a product. That includes forgetting about GUI for totally blind users, reconsidering tactile controls for users without physical reach or dexterity, designing workflows with appropriate levels of complexity for users with different cognitive abilities, etc.
All of these considerations, and more should be fitted into as many of our products as we can. The core learning is that user interfaces may be significantly different for different users of the same product, to provide a similar user experience.
I have done this in the past and strive to do so with the projects I work on now and in the future. It is this experience, skillset and aspiration to improve musicians experience that attracts me to MASSIG.
Design for all and all benefit.
Sam Prouse- Music Technologist
Samuel Prouse is a passionate music technologist whose journey with sound began in the vibrant 1980s, inspired by the iconic synths that defined the era. Growing up, He channelled this passion into building rigs, DJing, and live performances, initially as a hobby. In 2008, a deep love for music technology led to a bold career shift, prompting him to pursue formal education in the field. However, just before beginning these studies, life took an unexpected turn with the sudden loss of sight in the left eye, later leading to a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. By the end of his BTEC studies, He was registered visually impaired, which brought unique challenges to his educational journey and professional aspirations.
Despite these obstacles, Samuel demonstrated remarkable resilience, earning a foundation degree, a BA Hons, and an MSc in Music Technology. Throughout this academic journey, Samuel explored the creative implications of device interfaces, both hardware and software, with a particular focus on visual accessibility. In 2021, when JUCE released version 6.1 with enhanced accessibility features, he developed skills in C++ and interface design, driven by a commitment to improving accessibility in music technology.
After graduating with distinction, Samuel ‘s PhD bursary proposal was accepted, allowing him to focus his research on universal design concepts within the music technology industry. As an active member of the Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group, Samuel has found a collaborative space to share innovative ideas and concepts, further strengthening his research. Being part of such a committed group has provided constant inspiration to develop new ways of interacting with music technology. Today, he is dedicated to pioneering new ways of interacting with music technology, ensuring that the industry evolves to be more inclusive and accessible for all.
Sam Prouse demoing accessibility settings to the Music Accessibility Standard SIG
Same Prouse Highlights Music Accessibility on YouTube
Demystifying screen readers #1 We can drag and drop.
Accessible prototype synthesiser with voice activated parameters
Accessible piano roll and break point generator prototypes
Designing Plugins for low vision
Music Accessibility at Music China and ADC
We are planning a number of upcoming Music Accessibility events – one at Music China in October and then another led by Jay Pocknell at Audio Developers Conference in November.
Here is a promo video for the event at Music China and then a list of recent posts.
The 10th Audio Developer Conference (ADC) returns in 2024 both in-person and online in a new city, Bristol, UK.
The in-person and online hybrid conference will take place 11-13 November 2024.
Talks at ADC range from audio research, to professional practices, to standards in audio development, as well talks about application areas and career development. Experimental projects are welcome.
Topics include, but are not limited, to:
Digital Signal Processing
Audio synthesis and analysis
Music technology, DAWs, audio plug-ins
Game audio
3D and VR/AR audio
Creative coding
Other applications of audio programming (e.g. telecommunications, multimedia, medicine, biology)
Design and evaluation of audio software and hardware systems
Programming languages used for audio development (e.g. C++, Rust, Python)
Software development tools, techniques, and processes
Performance, optimisation, and parallelisation
Audio development on mobile platforms
Embedded, Linux, and bare metal audio programming
Low-latency and real-time programming
Best practices in audio programming
Testing and QA
Educational approaches and tools for audio and DSP programming
Planning and navigating a career as an audio developer
Other relevant topics likely to be of interest to the ADC audience
The MIDI Association and ADC
The MIDI Association is a community sponsor of Audio Developers Conference and several MIDI Association companies are paid sponsors of the event.
ADC is run by PACE Anti-Piracy Inc., an industry leader in the development of robust protection products, and flexible licensing management solutions. PACE acquired JUCE a few years ago.
JUCE is the most widely used framework for audio application and plug-in development. It is an open source C++ codebase that can be used to create standalone software on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android, as well as VST, VST3, AU, AUv3, AAX and LV2 plug-ins.
Several MIDI Association companies are sponsors of Audio Developers Conference including Gold Sponsors Juce and Focusrite, Silver sponsor Avid, and Bronze sponsor Steinberg.
Franz Detro from Native Instruments will be doing a talk introducing ni-midi2, a modern C++ library implementing MIDI2 UMP 1.1 and MIDI CI 1.2 and also the open source software available on MIDI2.dev.
Franz is on The MIDI Association Technical Standards Board and an active participant in the MIDI 2.0 Working Group, the DAW working group which is working on open source software for how plugin formats including Apple Audio Units, Avid Audio Extension, Bitwig CLever Audio Plug-in, and Steinberg VST3.
He will be available at ADC to answer questions about MIDI 2.0 and The MIDI Association. The Interactive Audio Special Interest Group (Tom Poole from JUCE is on the IASIG steering committee) will hold an online meeting during ADC.
The MIDI Association will have both in person and on line representation at ADC and ADCx Gather.
The ADCx Gather one-day online event is free and open to everyone in the audio developer community (registration required). ADCx Gather is hosted in Gather.Town, a browser-based virtual online platform that allows attendees to interact and collaborate in real-time.
ADCx Gather takes place on the 1st of November starting at Noon UTC.
Registration for this event has not yet started. Sign-up for the ADC newsletter and be the first to know when ADCx Gather attendee registrations begin.
Tickets for ADC
There are different tickets available for ADC with in person tickets for corporate, individual, academic and also the same categories for online participation.
Fast Company recently contacted The MIDI Association about the Music Accessibility Standard.
Janko Roettgers from Fast Company reached out to us and we arranged some interviews with members of the Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group (MASSIG).
It really seems like this Music Accessibility initiative is gaining more and more traction.
The MASSIG meets every other Wednesday at 8 am Pacific to accommodate the many EU based members.
You can join The MIDI Association’s Music Accessibility Standard by registering on the site and indicating Music Accessibility as one of your interests or send an email to info@midi.org and we can get you set up.
Here are some quotes from the article.
The MIDI Association’s work in this field includes an effort to create a technical standard that could help vision-impaired musicians to more easily control their recording and production gear by loading accessibility settings whenever they plug one of their devices into another. The nonprofit also plans to help spread the word about accessibility, and potentially steward open source software efforts in the field.
For Chesworth, the biggest thing music tech companies can do to further accessibility is to actually listen to blind and vision-impaired people. “ The best people to write a screen reader user experience are screen reader users,” he says. Chesworth believes that companies would ideally hire blind developers to work on accessibility, and he even taught himself programming to contribute to the Reaper accessibility extension.
Written for Fast Company by Janko Roettgers, a San Francisco-based reporter who has written for Variety, Protocol, and Gigaom, among other publications.
BTW, the image for this article was generated by AI with the simple prompt ” Futuristic Music Production Studio for people with accessibility challenges”.
Juho Tomanien is a student from Finland who had a vision for a Music Accessibility Standard. Just because you are blind, doesn’t mean that you can’t have a vision. Take Stevie Wonder whose Inner Visions album is considered one of the greatest records of all time.
Juho reached out to the MIDI Association after someone of KVR Audio suggested that perhaps The MIDI Association might be a good place to start up a conversation about Accessibility. It turned out that there were already a number of MIDI Association member companies who had been working with accessibility consultants like UK producers/recording engineers Scott Chesworth and Jason Dasent and had already been adding accessibility features to their products. Juce which runs the Audio Developer Conference was also already onboard and had been hosting accessibility workshops at ADC for several years.
In 2023 at the ADC conference Jay Pocknell from the Royal Institute for the Blind hosted a packed session of developers trying to learn how to use Juce to add accessibility features to their products.
MIDI Association members from Audio Modeling, Arturia, Native Instruments, Roland and more have joined together with The Royal Institute for the Blind and visually impaired producers and musicians like Juho, Scott Chesworth Jason Dasent and more to discuss how MIDI 2.0 might enable Music Accessibility and make making music accessible to everyone.
Music Accessibility Standard Meeting at NAMM Booth 10302 Friday, January 26 at 3:00 PM
Jay Pocknell from the Royal Institute of Blind People / Sound Without Sight
At Winter NAMM 2024, we had a meeting of the Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group and discussed the next steps in creating a standard. Audio Modeling who has been working on a reserach project into this area for several years now outlined their vision of what a music accessibility standard could bring to people.
Audio Modeling’s visions for a music accessibility standard for everyone
As you may know, we are working on a Music Accessibility Standard to make making music accessible to all.
Thanks to MIDI Association member Audio Modeling, we got in touch with Lamar Mitchell and Cristian Perez from Stevie Wonder’s team a few weeks ago and explain to them our ideas about a Music Accessibility standard.
Then a few days Tony Baras, an industry friend from Ultimate Ears called us and let us know that Stevie had some specific ideas about the needs of people with accessibility challenges.
Thanks to Tony, Lamar and Cristian, Stevie visited our CES booth and we were able to explain the goal of the Music Accessibility Standard directly to him and gain his insight on specific needs of people who are visually impaired.
Having worked for Yamaha for many years, I had the pleasure of meeting Stevie before and was actually running the Yamaha booth the year that Ellis Hall (another amazing blind musicia) was playing at the booth and Stevie showed. Ellis moved to electronic drums and they did several songs together. Yamaha also put on a clinic a few years ago at West LA that featured Ellis and Alan Parsons. Stevie showed up to see Ellis at that event too.
It was an honor to be able to share our ideas and goals with Stevie and of course he agreed that making music should be accessible to all.
Come see us at NAMM Booth 10302 on Friday, January 26 at 3 pm for the Music Accessibility Standard panel discussion and then stick around to enjoy Ellis Hall, the ambassador of soul perform.
Ellis is performing at both our booth on Friday right after the Music Accessibility Standard panel discussion and then again at Ultimate Ears booth with Matthew Whittaker, Nate Barnes and Jeremy Jeffers at the Ultimate Ears booth 10720 on Saturday afternoon.
The MIDI Association booth (Booth 10302 at the front of Hall A) at Winter NAMM 2024 is very different than our booths in years past.
It is larger with a 30′ by 30′ footprint. A 10′ by 30′ area will be divided into thirds with displays of MIDI 2.0 products, a MIDI Showcase stage for presentations/performances and an area focused on our MIDI In Music Education, Music Accessibility Standard and Interactive Audio Special Interest Groups. But 75% of the booth is dedicated to 50 seats each with a set of wireless headphones so people can come and comfortably watch and listen to presentations and performances.
We also have Booth 10604 which is a 10′ by 10′ booth shared between Intuitive Instruments who won the Commercial Hardware category in The MIDI Innovation Awards in 2023 and the other MIDI Innovation Award winners
Audio Modeling- Camelot Pro
Hitar- augmented guitar for percussive fingerstyle
Sound Sculpture-an interactive musical instrument comprised of 25 location-aware cubes
Studio 108 is a small meeting space for private meetings during the show.
We are being helped again this year by Jennifer Amaya, Associate Professor of Music at the Riverside City College Coil School for the Arts and member of The MIDI In Music Education Special Interest Group.
We will have 70 students helping with all aspects of the booth including running the Yamaha TF3 digital mixer.
We have put together over 20 different presentations and performances highlighting the innovative power of creating music and art with MIDI.
Below is a listing of all the presentations we have planned. The list starts with a Youtube video summary of the each day’s events and then includes the details of each individual event.
Each day ends with a solo performance by one of the artists who performed in our MIDI@40 celebration at the April 2023 NAMM show on the Yamaha Grand Plaza stage.
Thursday, January 25
Friday, January 26
Saturday, January 27
Sunday, January 28
Full Four Day Schedule (3 minutes and 38 seconds)
MIDI Association Companies at NAMM
37 MIDI Association companies will have booths at the 2024 Winter NAMM show.
Many are in the MIDI showcase area, but there are plenty who are spread around the show in different areas including some of the larger companies like Avid, Steinway and Yamaha.
Here is an alphabetical list of The MIDI Association companies at the 2024 Winter NAMM show with their booth numbers.
Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group kicks off with a Youtube Live Stream
Members of the Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group (MAS SIG) outlined their vision for the future of Music Accessibility in a Youtube Live event on the MIDI Association Youtube channel.
Musicians and producers who face accessibility challenges including Juho Toumainen, Jason Dasent and Scott Chesworth joined developers and representatives from companies like Arturia, Audio Modeling, Native Instruments and Roland who are participating in the MAS SIG. The group meets every two weeks.
Saturday May 8, 2021, May Is MIDI Month 2021 Webinar The Healing Power of Music
The webinar kicked off with Michael Boddicker who has played synthesizer, vocoder, accordion and keyboards on albums by many notables such as Quincy Jones, Randy Newman, The Manhattan Transfer and The Bee Gees and worked on many soundtracks including Saturday Night Fever, Battlestar Galactica and The Wiz.
Boddicker is a Board Member of The Society of Composers and Lyricists (SCL), and he owns an audio post production facility, Sol7 (aka Sol Seven). In 2019, he co-founded the Los Angeles synthesizer music festival, Synthplex.
He described his relationship with music and music therapy and his chance meeting while out for a neighborhood walk with Raffi Tachdjian.
Check out Synth Wizards interview with Micheal where he show off some sounds from his Moog System 55.
Next Raffi Tachdjian MD, MPH, UCLA professor of allergy and pediatric pain specialist and founder of Children”s Music Fund talked about meeting the young patient pictured above during his time a Massachusetts General Hospital and that inspired him to get involved with music therapy (Raffi is a musician himself) and found Children’s Music Fund. In the past decade, CMF has become a leading organization to deliver research on the positive effects of music therapy in sick children and young adults.
Raffi connected with Suzanne B Hanser who was at Berklee College of Music at the time. Dr. Hanser has a long list of accomplishments.
Professor and Chair Emerita of the Music Therapy Department at Berklee College of Music.
Past President of the World Federation of Music Therapy
Past President of the National Association for Music Therapy
Current president of the International Association for Music and Medicine.
It was an incredible honor to have someone who is so important to the world of music therapy attend our webinar and give an impassioned speech about the healing power of music.
Recently there were studies done on the number of people who feel that they are having symptoms of anxiety. In 2019, the percentage of people in the US was 8 percent. In studies completed last month, that number has risen to 30 percent. Given all that is going on the in world. we all could use the healing power of music so we wanted to share one of the many free Youtube videos from Berklee College of Music that are targeted to help ANYONE apply the basic principles of and reap the benefits of music therapy.
In this episode, Suzanne explains the ISO principle. Simply put, most people think that if you are feeling anxious, you should start listening to calming music right away. But that is actually not how your brain works. This video will teach you how to apply the ISO principle and develop your own music playlist to get from one mood to another.
As with all music therapy, this has been researched, tested and documented and it just works.
Walter Werzowa is the founder of Healthtunes.org. HealthTunes® is an audio streaming service designed to improve one’s physical and mental health by pairing medical research with active music links. Binaural beats and isochronic tones are embedded within HealthTunes® music which are two different methods used for brain wave entrainment.
A binaural beat is an auditory phenomenon when two different sine waves, with a close frequency rate, are perceived by an individual through each ear. This experience enables the listener to perceive a third tone. The third tone is a binaural beat.
You may have heard much more of Walter’s music than you know. He has designed the sonic branding for Intel, T Mobile, Fox Sports, Samsung and many others.
Experts in audio branding, custom scoring and sound design for film, broadcast, advertising, and VR. We are an all-inclusive music production studio. Home of the Intel sonic branding mnemonic audio identity.
There is a new project that we didn’t get to cover in the webinar, but wanted to share here. Walter is using AI and MIDI to work on Beethoven’s Unfinished Symphony.
That’s a project that sounds like it deserves a complete article on MIDI.org in the near future.
With an extensive background in the music field, Lori Frazer is the lead program facilitator and technical specialist for the Yamaha Music and Wellness Institute. She trains and supports hospital and clinical staff, as well as research teams. Lori’s expertise extends into medical, as well as retirement communities, senior centers, and special programs that enable people with a host of challenges to enjoy the benefits of creative musical expression. She described her work over the past decade with the Yamaha Music and Wellness Institute.
Yamaha Music and Wellness Institute (YMWI) continues to be actively engaged in exploring the impact of creative musical expression on the human genome as presented in two peer-reviewed scientific research investigations
Alton Mitchell, the Minster of Worship and Arts at Rodman Street Missionary Baptist Church. He spoke to us from his piano lab and explained how the church pioneered a study on using creative musical expression as a catalyst for reducing cardiovascular risk factors. Active participation in vocal and instrumental gospel music is not only enjoyable but good for the heart and soul. Rodman Street’s Health Ministry is making waves, and creating national news.
If you don’t know anything about music therapy, this 18 minute Tedx Talk Youtube video is a great way to understand how music and medicine work together to heal.
Music therapist, Dr. Deforia Lane takes you inside University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center to experience first hand the response of patients to music therapy: hear of music’s effects on an unborn child; watch the reaction of a laryngectomy patient; see how therapeutic singing helps a man with stroke to speak again.
Dr. Lane shares her personal challenge with cancer and how music benefited her healing. She ends with a probing question for each all who will hear.
Internationally acclaimed music therapist, Dr. Deforia Lane is the founder and Director of Art & Music Therapy at the University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, OH. She oversees a 9-member team of art and music therapists who serve the 1000-bed hospital. She is a researcher, clinician, clinical training director, teaches at the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine and the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing and has experienced a pioneering career spanning 4 decades.
Was May Is MIDI Month 2020 really only a year ago?
It seems that everyone has had a bit of trouble keeping time this year. Not musically as that is the one place where time remains constant.
But in talking to people , they often say that one moment last May seems like it was last week and the next it seems like it was 10 years ago.
In the late spring of 2020, the world was in the beginning of the global pandemic and there was a huge amount of uncertainty about what the future would hold. The MIDI Association decided that instead of raising money for ourselves for May Is MIDI Month 2020, we would raise money for people affected by the global pandemic.
Our first plan was to give the money to the Grammy Foundation’s Musicares Coronavirus Relief Fund. Joe LaMond, president of NAMM urged us to find something we could be more directly involved in.
We were on a call with LA studio legend and Grammy award winner Michael Boddicker discussing our Orchestral Articulation profile.
He mentioned his long-time affiliation with the Children’s Music Fund (CMF), and that’s when we knew we had found the perfect partner.
UCLA professor of allergy and pediatric pain specialist Raffi Tachdjian MD, MPH founded the organization in 2002, after he was inspired by a patient during his pediatric residency at Harvard’s Massachusetts General Hospital.
Here is a picture of Raffi with the young patient who inspired him to form Children’s Music Fund. That patient sadly passed away, but lives on in the work that Raffi continues to this day.
In the past decade, CMF has become a leading organization to deliver research on the positive effects of music therapy in sick children and young adults.
The MIDI Association and Children’s Music Fund
CMF maintains a network of carefully screened, board-certified music therapists (MT-BC), and follows the practices and standards established by the American Music Therapy Association.
Due to the pandemic, CMF music therapists were unable to do in person sessions and had to switch to remote telehealth sessions. The MIDI Association donated the $18,000 we raised from our May Is MIDI Month 2020 donation drive to help support CMF’s move to telehealth.
After a few meetings with the CMF board, The MIDI Association realized that we should not just be donating money to CMF, but working closely with them on an exciting new area, using MIDI for remote music therapy.
Many MIDI controllers bring a level of accessibility and ease of use that is impossible with traditional instruments and Web MIDI has the capability to add smartphones and tablets to that mix.
This is a vast as yet untapped area in music therapy and we know we have the right partners to significantly improve the lives of many sick children for years to come.
Watch Lisa Harriton from Smashing Pumpkins, Serj Tankian from System of a Down, Scott Shriner from Weezer, and actress/singer/songwriter Minnie Driver explain the important mission of Children’s Music Fund.
You Give a Dollar. We’ll Give $10. Let’s Give 24 in 21.
It’s just that simple. If we can raise $2000 in donations from individual MIDI Association members, our MIDI Association corporate sponsors will match it with $22,000.
Where else can you spend $1 and get $11?
The MIDI Association is committed to raising $24,000 to help sick kids through the healing power of music and MIDI with caring sponsorships of Art+Logic, Audio Modeling, Bome, imitone, IK Multimedia, Korg, NAMM, Steinberg, Steinway, Sweetwater, and Yamaha.
