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 and make mountains.
Rock, Paper, Scissors
On October, 23, 2024, Rock , Paper, Scissors hosted a creators fair at the at the Annenberg Beach House in Santa Monica. Rock, Paper, Scissors has been working with The MIDI Association for the last few years and at NAMM 2024 hosted an innovation meetup at The MIDI Association booth.
There were a lot MIDI Association companies at the Creators Fair event.
We also got to connect with a whole bunch of students from the Riverside City College Music Industry Club including club president Harley Glenn. Professor Jenny Amaya provides tons of students ( last year we had 60!) to help with our MIDI Association NAMM booth. One of the outcomes of yesterday was getting artiphon, Audio Modeling, Caedence, Geoshred and Robkoo to provide gear for the RCC Music Industry Club so they can start rehearsing for an all MIDI band performance at NAMM.
Music Industry Club (MIC) The purpose of this organization shall be to offer its members the opportunity to gain knowledge, insights, experience, and artistic development in the music industry and community.
Riverside City College
Roland
Roland had a booth showing off their newest samplers and had a Roland Showcase – Sampling Techniques with Jay Ybarra ft. the P-6 & the SP-404MKII.
We were just in Shanghai with Buchla artist TamiX and then got to to meet up with Peter Nyboer from Buchla at the Creators Fair.
Buchla
Blipblox
MIDI Innovation Award entrants, BlipBox was there.
Adam also did an interview with Seids, who works with a lot of MIDI Association companies including Apple Logic and Focusrite.
Dawn Audio
Diego Pinzon, from Dawn Audio was there and we also got a chance to meet co-founder, Mandy Ortiz. We spend a lot of time catching up on the DAW working group activities and the MIDI In Music Education Initiative.
Athan Billias and Diego Pinzon from Dawn Audio. Mandy Ortiz, co-founder of Dawn Audio
Eternal Research
Another MIDI Association member and Innovation Awards entrant Eternal Research was displaying their Demon Box at the Creator Fair.
We also got to catch up with MIDI Association members Andrew Sherbrooke from Art and Logic and Scott Barkley from Whirled Notes.
Loud Pants, MIDI Hoodie and MIDI Hat
At the very end of the event, we ran into the organizer, Dmitri Vietz from Rock, Paper Scissors and one of the artist who gave a talk at the event, Ricky Tinez. Ricky was wearing his MIDI hoodie from his website.
Loud Pants (that’s Dmitri’s nickname), Ricky Tinez in his MIDI Hoodie and Athan Billias with his MIDI hat at the Music Tetronics event.
Already looking forward to next year’s Music Tectonics
This was a really well produced event with tons of great content, lots of music tech start ups and of course a lot of creators who love MIDI.
We are planning on an event with Rock, Paper, Scissors at NAMM 2025 as they are in The MIDI Showcase.
We have even started planning for next year’s Music Tectonics event because it was such a great event in a stunning location.
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.
Explore a new realm of music, where technology and art meet. The Music X Future Museum is about to open, taking you to listen to the sound of the future and participate in an immersive music experience. Get ready and join us to start this soul-stirring journey of future music! This year’s Music X has…
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.
As the VP of Product at Muse, Martin plays a crucial role in overseeing and mentoring the teams responsible for a diverse range of products, including Ultimate Guitar, MuseScore Studio, MuseScore.com, Audacity, Audio.com, and the Muse Hub.
He also runs a YouTube channel called ‘Tantacrul’, where he shares his thoughts on music, technology, philosophy, and design.
The 2024 MIDI Innovation Award Judges
Michelle Darling
Assistant Chair of the Electronic Production and Design Department at Berklee College of Music
Mark Isham
Film Composer and recording artist with over 4 billion dollars in gross of films scored
Bian Liunian
Chinese Erhu musician, composer and musical director of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Closing Ceremonyand the CCTV New Year’s Gala, one of the most watched television programs in the world
Moldover
Musician and instrument designer and is widely recognized as the godfather of controllerism
Jeff Rona
American composer for film and games and the founder and first president of The MIDI Association
Michael Strickland
Specialized Faculty in Music Technology at Florida State University and an active member of both the MIDI In Music Education and the Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Groups of The MIDI Association.
Join us as our esteemed panel of judges review and discuss the three finalists in each of the five categories of the MIDI Innovation Awards and selects a winner for:
Artistic/Visual Project or Installation
Software Prototypes/Non-Commercial Products
Commercial Software Products
Hardware Prototypes/Non-Commercial products
Commercial Hardware Products
For more information on the finalists, click on the link below.
5 OCTOBER 2024 – THE OCTAGON, SHEFFIELD Exhibition \\ Retailers \\ Education \\ Modular Meet \\ Seminars & Demos Come and see Keyboards – Desktop Synths – Modular – Software Synths and much more.
SynthFest UK 2024 takes place in Sheffield on Saturday 5th of October 2024 (10:30am – 6:30pm) and has been created by Sound On Sound magazine to give companies of all sizes an opportunity to showcase their synth products in front of the public in what promises to be a great day out for all musicians, whether a pro, semi-pro or hobbyist. The Octagon Centre, Clarkson Street, Sheffield, S10 2TQ (Next to the University of Sheffield Student Union building)
For more information, check out the Synthfest UK website.
Tickets for SynthFest UK 2024 now on sale via See Tickets
Early Bird Ticket – £15.99 (plus fee) available until 31 August. Advance Price Ticket – £17.99 (plus fee) from 1 September. Walk-Up Ticket – £25 on the day.
Students, Registered Claimants and Senior Citizens (60 Yrs+) – £9.00 (plus fee) Children (14-18 Yrs) – £7.00 (plus fee)
Children (Under 14 Yrs) – Free
Ticket price includes free entry to Seminars and Demos.
Sound On Sound is the media partner of The MIDI Association for The MIDI Innovation Awards and MIDI Innovation Awards finalists, Sound On Sound staff and representatives of The MIDI Association will all be there.
Following companies exhibited in 2023 and many of them have booked for 2024 already with more to come. MIDI Association members are in bold.
The MIDI Association has been actively involved with Music China for many years. You can read about that history in the articles at the bottom of this page.
But in this article, we’ll focus on Music China 2024 because there is a lot going on.
Statistics About Music China
Date: October 10-13, 2024 (Thursday-Sunday)
Last year there were122,184 people who attended Music China from 92 countries and there were 1,832 from 23 countries. You can get an idea of what Music China 2023 was like from this picture.
The MIDI Association Booth
Rendering of The MIDI Association Booth design
The MIDI Association booth will have areas for MIDI 2.0 products, MIDI Innovation Award products and explanations of our major initiatives- MIDI In Music Education, Interactive Game Audio, and Music Accessibility.
This is a picture of Andrea Martelloni, one of the winners of the 2023 MIDI Innovation Awards at last year’s MIDI Association booth at Music China. He traveled to China and spent 4 days demoing to both end users and companies who were interested in his technology.
MIDI Association Companies at Music China
A number of MIDI Association companies will have booths at Music China in the Hall N, MusicX area.
The following MIDI Association companies will have booths at Music China (some in the Music X Area and some in the other halls at Music China).
Music X area
Artiphon
Amenote/Azotech
Audio Modeling
CME
Donner
MIDIPlus
Synido
Novation
ASM-Ashun Sound Machines
Avid
Medeli: W4B42
Ringway: W4E42
Amason: W1D20, N1C55
Donner: W5C52
Hotone: W5E32
Mooer: W5C44
The Chinese Users Choice Awards
Music China arranged for all 15 finalists in the 2024 MIDI Innovations Awards to be entered into the Chinese Users Choice Awards.
This year’s winners of the Chinese User Choice awards are:
Audio Modeling- UniMIDIHub
Artiphon-Chorda
Manifest Audio-Sonification Tools
Christo Squier-Particle Shrine
Playmodes Studio-PPFF
The winner of the Chinese Music Choice Awards will be automatically entered into the Future Shock Awards which includes which includes entrants outside of The MIDI Innovation Awards and also entrants from China.
Presentations at the X Stage in Hall N
The MIDI Association will be doing three presentations at Music China’s X Stage in Hall N.
Chinese Users Choice and MIDI Innovation Award Winners
MIDI In Music Education
Music Accessibility
We’ll provide more details on the presentations and times soon.
Presentations at the Music Lab last year at Music China 2023
Performance at the opening ceremony of Music China 2024 by Brian Hardgroove, Bian Liunian and Kong Hongwei
Brian Hardgroove-Musician/Producer and bass player for Public EnemyBian Liunian- Chinese Erhu musician, composer and musical director of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Closing Ceremony and the CCTV New Year’s Gala, one of the most watched television programs in the world and 2024 MIDI Innovation Award judge.The renowned Chinese jazz pianist, Kong Hongwei (known by his nickname- Golden Buddha) is celebrated as China’s most influential and inspiring jazz musician.
Mr. Hardgroove first started a close relationship with The MIDI Association at the 2023 NAMM show when his band Resonant Alien performed at the celebration at the MIDI@40/HipHOP@50 celebration.
Brian is attending Music China on the behalf of Sennheiser and he has written a song specifically for the occasion that will be mixed in immersive audio. It will feature recorded performances by Mr. Bian and Mr.Kong.
Hardgroove, Bian and Kong will perform the song live at the Music China opening ceremony where people will be invited to come to The MIDI Association to listen to the immersive audio mix on Sennheiser HD-490 headphones.
At The MIDI Association booth, people will be able to scan a code for a free download of the song and enter a raffle to win a variety of prizes including a pair of the Sennheiser headphones, an Artiphon Chorda, NFR codes Audio Modeling SWAM software and Manifest Audio Sonification Tools an other prizes.
Opening Ceremony at Music China 2023
Stay tuned for more about The MIDI Association
at Music China 2024
There is obviously a lot going on at The MIDI Association right now, but check back regularly because there are some really exciting things planned that we are just in the process of confirming. Also check out the following articles detailing our long and friendly relationship with Music China.
By the way for many people around the world, you no longer need a visa to visit China and even for the US, UK and Canada, it is pretty easy to go to Music China under a 6 day transit visa (you just need to travel to another country rather than go directly back to your country of origin).
Entering a New Era for Music and Musical InstrumentsThe Future of MIDI 2.0 Technology Joe Zhang from Medeli and the MIDI Association Technical Standards Board At Music China 2020’s MIDI Technology Forum, Joe Zhang (pictured in the article cover photo) gave an in-depth presentation covering a variety of MIDI topics. Joe is in the R&D department of MIDI Association corporate member Medeli and also…
This is a translation of an article on the Chinese Musical Instrument Association’s website. The original article is linked below. Music China is now scheduled for January 14-17, 2022 Creating an interconnected space for music technology and leading the cross-border integration of the musical instrument industry Under the background of the Internet+ era, science and technology…
The MIDI Association, Music China and the Chinese Musical Instrument Association cooperate together to promote MIDI in China In the past year, with the help of MIDI Association Exec Board member Yitian Zhao, CEO of CME and Technical Standards Board member Joe Zhang of Medeli, the MIDI Association has greatly expanded our promotion of MIDI…
MIDI has grown in importance in China as Chinese companies expand in both domestic and overseas markets The MIDI Association is tasked with promoting and managing MIDI specification for MIDI in every country in the world except Japan where the Association Of Music Electronics Industry (AMEI) is responsible for MIDI. Thanks to the leadership of Yitian Zhao,…
Music China is back after three years During the pandemic, Music China and The MIDI Association worked closely together to keep information and news about MIDI and MIDI products available in China. Music China hosted online events on their WeChat channels and together we figured out a clever way to iFrame our MIDIable meetings so that…
Last year at Music China, Shanghai Intex who runs the Music China show arranged for The MIDI Association to have three brand ambassadors from Xinghai Conservatory of Music in Guangzhou. They were students who were studying at the school and were proficient in English and music technology. They are an amazing help in communicating with…
Last year at Music China, Shanghai Intex who runs the Music China show arranged for The MIDI Association to have three brand ambassadors from Xinghai Conservatory of Music in Guangzhou.
They were students who were studying at the school and were proficient in English and music technology. They are an amazing help in communicating with people at the Music China show. Not only could they translate, but we had videos we had create descriptions in Chinese and they were quick to figure out how to use the Visibox software to trigger the multiple videos via MIDI.
But it wasn’t until the last day of the show that we realized they were also really creative software engineers. The young student in the picture above had created software to work with a beat boxer to do duo performances.
We were provided a sneak peak at a number of entries to the 2024 MIDI Innovation awards from students at the University and an article about the school.
Students at the Xinghai Conservatory of Department of Musical Instrument Engineering are leading the integration of technology and artistic vision. Their diverse curriculum in musicology, design, physics, computer science,engineering,and mathematics equips them for innovative contributions in electronic instrument design and development. Their works reflect a blend of technical skill, imaginative exploration, and the rich heritage of musical tradition with digital technology. Next you will see some of the students’ best work!
FMB Sequencer made by Bin Yuan（Tyler）
FMB Sequencer made by Bin Yuan（Tyler）, FM sequencer part which uses pitch multiplication, and then connected to the triangle waveform of the FM waveform, while connected to the capture module, through the different pitch threshold set up to capture, so as to realize the real-time adjustment of the FM drum machine.The Bassline section is first set up with a panel control module, which facilitates direct visual control of all the connected functions. The settings for pitch and pitch grab are similar to the FM sequencer, but the waveform settings are different. I set up three waveforms: sawtooth, pulse, and triangle, which can be used separately or together for synthesized sound effects.
The sound effects created by the FM sequencer and Bassline are finally integrated with the mixer and then connected to the three effect modules to add richness to the sound. The three sound effects are Delay, Phaser and Reverb. In the panel design, in order to increase the visual effect, I added a two-position spectrum module, according to the sound or effect triggering adjustments and change the waveform or lighting cue changes, so that the sound and rhythm of the changes in the panel directly show, and at the same time, increase the user’s direct senses.
The “Moon Performance System,” a project by Zilu Li
The Moon Performance System seamlessly integrates MIDI controller, FM synthesizer, and drum sequencer presenting a cohesive and visually appealing design. The unique dual-circuit board MIDI controller allows users to simultaneously control the synthesizer and drum sequencer, enabling instant switching and concurrent play within the same system. Beyond its aesthetic appeal, this music system opens up new possibilities for music creators and performers. The Moon Sequencer offers a rich array of features, including the ability to adjust drum tones and pitch, select different effects, and engage in mixing processes without the need for additional sound packs. The Moon Fm Synthesizer boasts a cutting-edge frequency modulation (FM) engine, allowing the use of other oscillators to modulate specific ones, narrowing down the digitalized FM synthesis sound. With its unique XY-axis visual adjustment for envelopes and filtering, coupled with effects like distortion, delay, and chorus, it facilitates the effortless creation of captivating sounds. In summary, the Moon Performance System provides a diverse range of possibilities for music creation.
Yizhong Zheng has created two distinct works, XIAO and DYZZY’s SEQ
The first work is a Kontakt sample-based sound source plugin centered around the traditional Chinese instrument, the xiao. It includes samples of fundamental techniques used in woodwind instruments such as blowing, vibrato, air-driven sounds, and percussion. These samples are categorized into three musical intensity levels: pp, mf, and ff, catering to the needs of music arrangement and production. The plugin also incorporates effects like delay, reverb, chorus, and compression, all of which can be adjusted and viewed through the user interface. In terms of design, Yizhong Zheng used 3D modeling software to create a three-dimensional model of the xiao as the right-side skin window, incorporating elements of vinyl and metal to appeal to modern music producers while blending in elements of both Chinese and Western culture.
The second work, named “DZZYZ’S SEQ,” was crafted by Yizhong Zheng using Reaktor software. In developing this drum sample combination sequencer, he combined existing sequencer functionalities available in the market with innovative features. This drum sequencer comprises four types of drums: kick drum, hi-hat, snare drum, and percussion. Each drum can be modulated through various effects, resulting in completely distinct drum sounds. Furthermore, individual drums can be adjusted for pitch and effects, and mute switches are available for each section to create real-time drum effects ranging from subtle to complex. The user panel’s bottom section corresponds to the beats of the four drums (kick, hi-hat, snare, and percussion) from top to bottom along the horizontal axis. Beneath the green box on the user panel are the corresponding beat positions, allowing users to adjust the volume of individual beats by moving the black square within the box. Finally, a filter effect is placed after all channels to modulate the overall music, enhancing the overall musical experience.
OXIDE-Lofi by Liangsen Chen
“OXIDE-Lofi”is a sophisticated lo-fi effect processor offering a rich toolkit for vintage lo-fi sound production.It features advanced input/output level adjustments for significant sound control flexibility. With its panning control, music can be precisely positioned within the stereo field, enhancing auditory effects. The filter functionality supports various modes to accommodate diverse musical styles and requirements, expanding creative possibilities. Integrated reverb effects enrich the spatial depth of compositions, while seamless DAW integration ensures efficiency and convenience in the music production process. These characteristics demonstrate a commitment to technical innovation and enhancing the user experience in music creation.
The “Ya Sequencer” by Zeya Li
The “Ya Sequencer” by Zeya Li is an advanced 16-step sequencer, equipped with a unique array of features such as four distinct drum kits, versatile melodic and harmonic voices, and a dedicated keyboard timbre for nuanced synthesizer production. It stands out with its live performance capabilities, including a page-turning function, an immersive surround sound system, and seven specialized synth-based sound modules, making it a robust tool for both studio and live settings.
Ya Synth by Zeya Li
The“Ya Synthesizer” , also by Zeya Li, offers a dual approach to sound synthesis, combining additive and subtractive methods. The additive section features a versatile oscillator for generating basic waveforms and enriching the sound with overtones, complemented by pitch modulation, filter options, and an ADSR envelope for dynamic sound shaping. The subtractive section expands the sound palette with waveform selection, noise addition for texture, and comprehensive modulation options including filters, an ADSR envelope, delay, pan control, and reverb, designed to cater to a broad range of users from beginners to experts.
Metal E series by Zichong Wang
The “Metal E” series, crafted by Zichong Wang , showcases a suite of personal music plugins designed for simplicity and efficiency. The series spans across three generations, starting with a synthesizer adept at simulating instruments like trumpets, violins, and guitars with unique control features. The second generation introduces a drum machine sequencer tailored for electronic music, featuring an enhanced interface for optimal usability. The third generation evolves into an effects processor that utilizes C sound’s robust data processing capabilities, offering diverse sound synthesis options. Inspired by guitar effects processors, it allows for seamless effect switching and combinations, illustrating Wang Zichong’s commitment to innovation and user-friendly design in music production tools.
RADARR Semi-automatic playing system by Zichong Wang
RADARR Semi-automatic playing system developed by Zichong Wang, is a revolutionary plugin for enhancing live performances of loop-based electronic music. Utilizing Max/MSP for its development, RADARR comprises a synthesizer section, drum machine, track section, and modulation section. It’s engineered to streamline the workflow of live performances, ensuring stability and orderliness on stage. With a focus on simplicity and a modular interface design, RADARR invites musicians to explore new dimensions of electronic music performance and creation, reflecting Wang Zichong’s vision for the future of music technology.
Here is a performance from last year at Music China featuring an amazing beat boxer from Xinghai Conservatory and the RADARR semi-automatic playing system.
Morphium by Shengxuan Huang
Shengxuan Huang has created an ambient music generator patch called Morphium with Max/MSP, employing algorithmic composition principles. The patch comprises two core sections: sound generation and effects processing. It allows users to craft evolving soundscapes with two independent sound generators for atmospheric and percussive elements. Effects like reverb and tape delay add depth.Envelope followers and a randomizer module shape the sounds, ensuring ongoing evolution. The interface is user-friendly, with oscilloscope visualizations, categorized sections, and extensive sound-shaping options. This patch is perfect for generative background music, infinite pad textures, sound installations, or live performances. It provides endless sonic possibilities, making it a valuable tool for creative endeavors, from studio production to multimedia projects. Let it inspire your next ambient masterpiece!
Spaceship by Shengxuan Huang
“Spaceship” is a software synthesizer plugin developed by Shengxuan Huang, built with SynthEdit to offer extensive sound design capabilities through an intuitive interface. It features a multi-waveform oscillator for creating rich analog-style sounds, adjustable in pulse width and volume. Additional sound shaping is provided by a second oscillator, LFO modulation, a multi-mode filter, and an ADSR envelope, along with a playable keyboard for real-time performance. Aimed at musicians and producers, the plugin encourages exploration and experimentation in electronic music and sound effects, highlighting ease of use, creative potential, and depth in sound programming.
Creative Music Production in China
To sum up, these innovative projects indicate significant advancements in the electronic instrument field. Their work, evidencing comprehensive study and creative exploration, signals the creation of new instruments.
As we prepare to examine these students’ works further, it’s apparent their efforts will enliven the future of music, showcasing a new chapter in electronic instrument design and hinting at transformations in music creation and performance methods.
Ikutaro Kakehashi’s impact on music production is undeniable. He founded Roland and oversaw some of the most seminal MIDI products in history. When he passed away on April 1, 2017, we created an article about his life and times.
Today marks the seventh anniversary of his passing.
Just a week ago, Athan Billias, MIDI Association Exec Board member was in Tokyo after meetings in Hamamatsu with the AMEI Piano Profile working group. He was able to catch up and meet with Kakehashi’s son, Ikuo.
Ikuo Kakehashi (son of Roland Founder Ikutaro Kakehashi, Athan BIllias (MIDI Association) and Takanori Kojima (Tokyo Gakki Expo)
Ikuo updated The MIDI Association on what is going on with Kakehashi Foundation.
The Kakehashi Foundation is a non-profit organization that contributes to the promotion and spread of art that applies electronic technology.
Message from the Chair
The Kakehashi Arts and Culture Foundation is a public interest incorporated foundation based on the surname “Kakehashi” of the foundation’s founder, Ikutaro Kakehashi (founder of Roland Co., Ltd.), and the foundation of the arts and culture that give dreams and hopes to people in Japan and around the world. I was reborn with the desire to become a “kakehashi” Unfortunately, the promotion of art and culture in Japan is lagging behind developed countries due to economic priority and results-based culture. I would like to create a society where culture leads the economy. From now on, our foundation will continue to spread joy and excitement to as many people as possible through electronic technology and electronic musical instruments, in accordance with our basic philosophy of promoting and disseminating artistic culture that applies electronic technology. Specifically, we hold performances and lectures using electronic technology, conduct appropriate and effective support activities in the field of art and culture, and conduct educational development projects such as the Japanese representative office for the Royal Musical Examinations. We would like to contribute to the spread of this technology. We will continue to carry out even more fulfilling business activities in the hope of realizing a rich and creative society. We look forward to your continued support and cooperation. Akiko Santo, Chairman of the Kakehashi Arts and Culture Foundation
Artware Hub in Shinjuku
MIDI Association member AVID has partnered with the Kakehashi Foundation and created a very unique space for electronic music performances.
Shinjuku has a long history as one of Tokyo’s most vibrant areas, and Waseda is arguably the district’s cultural and creative nexus. The area is home to the renowned Waseda University, as well as numerous museums, theaters, night clubs, and performance spaces.
Waseda’s newest venue, the Artware hub, opened its doors in late 2019. Commissioned by the Kakehashi Foundation (Arts and Cultural Foundation), the space is the realization of a lifelong dream of Roland Corporation founder and visionary Ikutaro Kakehashi.
What appears at first glance to be a fairly typical live performance venue is, in fact, much more. Designed as an experimental acoustic space, the facility incorporates an unparalleled 36.8 multi-channel immersive audio system based around an Avid VENUE | S6L live sound system and FLUX::Immersive’s Spat Revolution software engine.
The 2023 MIDI Innovation Awards live stream event took place on 16 September 2023 at 10 am Pacific, 1 pm Eastern and 5 pm GMT.
The live stream was hosted by composer/UX designer Martin Keary (aka Tantacrul) and British musician, synth maker, and author of the YouTube channel Look Mum No Computer, Sam Battle.
Now in their third year, the awards are a joint initiative created by Music Hackspace, The MIDI Association, and NAMM, created to showcase both products and projects using MIDI .0 and2.0 in fresh and original ways, and to highlight the role of MIDI technology in empowering musical creativity.
The show highlighted the innovative use of MIDI by all 15 finalists and featured interviews with an all-star panel of judges that included:
Nina Richards, electronic musician and synth hardware designerBian Liunian, musical director of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Closing CeremonyRoger Linn, American engineer, musician, and inventorJean-Michel Jarre, French composer and electronic music pioneerPedro Eustache, Venezuelan-born electronic woodwind soloist and composerMichele Darling, Assistant Chair of Electronic Production and Design at Berklee College of Music
WINNERS IN THE FIVE CATEGORIES WERE ANNOUNCED AT THE SEPTEMBER 16 LIVE STREAM EVENT, BROADCAST FROM TILEYARD STUDIOS IN LONDON.
Exquis combines a hardware surface equipped with a hexagonal matrix of keys with a companion mobile app, aiming to provide musicians of all levels with a fun and intuitive way to create new melodies and progressions. By default, thirds are placed next to each other, with backlit keys able to display any musical scale or custom mapping, and chords all placed in ergonomic shapes that make them easy to play, learn and understand.
The keys are firm enough to play short notes with precision or trigger percussion sounds, but have enough play to modulate long notes with physical movement — Exquis also boasts MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression) support, meaning that modulation can be applied on a per-note basis within chords. MIDI, CV and USB connectivity is provided, and the included app makes it possible to choose sounds, record loops and quickly try out different parts and arrangements.
Commercial Software ProductAudio Modeling – Camelot Pro
Camelot Pro is a cross-platform (macOS, Windows and iPad OS) app that is capable of acting as a MIDI patchbay/router, setlist manager, digital mixer, software instrument and effects host, PDF music score display and multitrack audio player! Designed to remove the complications of combining MIDI-enabled hardware and software from different manufacturers, the app allows users to control their entire setup from a single location with minimal knowledge of MIDI.
It can be used to switch modes or manage multi-part patches on connected devices without the need to touch the hardware itself, as well as switching between different routing configurations without having to disconnect and reconnect cables. It is also capable of hosting software instruments and effects, and it’s not just MIDI that’s catered for: the device can also be used to manage audio sources, as well as playing backing tracks, displaying scores or sticky notes and much more.
Prototypes & Non-Commercial Hardware Product Andrea Martelloni – HITar
Aimed at percussive fingerstyle guitarists, the HITar is a device that can be fitted to a regular acoustic guitar and is said to reinvent the way in which a player can interact with the instrument’s body. The unit employs five piezo sensors placed underneath the areas most commonly struck by players, and uses an AI engine to determine which part of the hard is used for each percussive hit.
The resulting MIDI output can then be used to integrate hardware or software instruments or samples into a performance, allowing guitarists to trigger drum and percussion samples or blend sample libraries and virtual instruments with their playing.
Prototypes & Non-Commercial Software Products Max Graf And Mathieu Barthet – Netz
Netz is a mixed reality (MR) software instrument that blends the real and virtual worlds by displaying 3D virtual objects within a real environment. It is a self-contained instrument that features an embedded sound engine, allowing users to produce sounds directly from the head-mounted display using hardware such as a Meta Quest 2. Additionally, it can also be used as an MPE MIDI controller to interface with external virtual instruments over WiFi or USB.
The software’s interface appears as a network where nodes represent notes, which can be mapped to a tangible surface for tactile feedback or be positioned in the air. Performers’ hand poses and gestures are tracked in in real time, allowing Netz to translate subtle hand movements to expressive musical controls; gestures such as the opening and closing of fingers — or movements such as wrist rotation — are recognised and interpreted by the system and can be assigned to specific instrument parameters and MIDI controls.
Artistic/Visual Project Or Installation Ryan Edwards And Masary Studios – Sound Sculpture
Sound Sculpture is a large-scale interactive music sequencer designed for installation at venues such as museums, schools, community centres and public art festivals. Comprising 25 cubes kitted out with positioning tags, batteries, processors, a WiFi antenna and an LED array, the installation allows participants to generate musical patterns by physically moving and rearranging the blocks.
A software application continually scans the locations of the blocks, and uses their physical placement to generate a musical composition, typically with the x-axis representing rhythm and the y-axis representing pitch.
TO VIEW THE LIVE STREAM, PLEASE CLICK THE LINK BELOW.
MIDI Innovation Award finalists were also featured at SynthFest UK 2023 that took place in Sheffield, England on Saturday October 7th 2023 (10:30am – 6:30pm) and at Music China in Shanghai on October 11-14, 2023.
On September 16 at 10 am Pacific, a Youtube livestream will showcase the entries of the 15 finalists of the MIDI Innovation Awards, and select the 5 category winners chosen by the jury.
Tune in to discover some of the most exciting music technology products of the moment, and inventors quizzed by an all-star jury composed of Roger Linn, Nina Richards, Bian Liunian, Pedro Eustache, Jean-Michel Jarre and Michele Darling.
Your votes selected the three finalists from each product category. You can click on the image to go to the full article about the product.
MIDI Innovation Award 2023 Finalists
COMMERCIAL HARDWARE FINALISTS
INSTACHORD IC-31
InstaChord is a strummable MIDI chord instrument/controller. By assigning the Nashville Number method to each buttons, even beginners can play right away.
AE-30 AEROPHONE PRO
Roland’s world-class sounds in a high-performance wind instrument that responds to the dynamics and expression worthy of professional woodwind and brasswind players.
Exquis
The expressive MPE controller and intuitive software to produce, perform and learn music
HARDWARE PROTOTYPES AND NON-COMMERCIAL FINALISTS
Abacusynth
Abacusynth is a kinetic synthesizer inspired by an abacus. Its playful interface allows anyone to explore synthesis and timbre, regardless of their musical experience.
Hitar
An augmented guitar for percussive fingerstyle, using AI to transform the body into an expressive MIDI controller for rich multi-dimensional control of drum synthesisers.
Musimoto
MusiMoto is a SW+HW system designed to empower anyone who likes playing MIDI musical instruments to do it while walking, jogging, riding, skating or dancing.
COMMERCIAL SOFTWARE FINALISTS
Beat Scholar
Innovative MIDI sequencer that uses a “Pizza”-like circular interface to give you granular control over any beat division.
Camelot Pro
One program to rule them all: MIDI patchbay/router, setlist manager, digital mixer, software instrument and effects host, PDF music score display, multitrack audio player
Ivory 3
Breakthrough technology combines the realism of digital sampling with the expressivity of modeling. Limitless tone color featuring all new recordings of a German Steinway D.
SOFTWARE PROTOTYPES AND NON-COMMERCIAL FINALISTS
HOT LICKS
A MIDI enabled VST plugin to incorporate a multitude of audiovisual devices into a musical performance.
Music Tapestry
Music Tapestry is a new musical analysis technology that visualizes musical performances in real-time and produces a piece of art.
Netz
Discover Netz, an immersive mixed reality musical instrument and controller featuring a keyboard-like interface with expressive MPE MIDI that learns your gestures using AI.
ARTISTIC/VISUAL INSTALLATIONS FINALISTS
sononyms
sononyms: an immersive sound installation based on the Jazz Cerkno archives and local objects from Cerkno Museum.
Sound Sculpture
Sound Sculpture is an interactive musical instrument, comprised of 25 location-aware cubes. It is a physical sound and light environment that facilitates cooperative sound composition.
THE “DRANKORGEL” PROJECT
The “drankorgel” project is an artistic installation of a MIDI instrument that generates sounds by hitting bottles with spoons and by blowing air over bottles.
We will be sending out more detailed information about the MIDI Innovation Awards live show soon so stay tuned.
We are excited to announce that voting for the MIDI Innovation Awards 2023 is officially open. In the tradition of our past two successful years, we continue to celebrate innovation, creativity, and the fantastic array of talent in our MIDI community. As MIDI marks its 40th birthday this year, we’re thrilled to see how far we’ve come and anticipate the future with MIDI 2.0, which is set to inspire another revolution in music.
This year, you can discover and cast your votes for the most innovative MIDI-based projects across five categories until July 21st. The categories are:
Commercial Hardware Products
Commercial Software Products
Prototypes and non-commercial hardware products
Prototypes and non-commercial software products
Artistic/Visual Project or Installation
The MIDI Innovation Awards 2023, a joint effort by Music Hackspace, The MIDI Association, and NAMM, showcases over 70 innovative entries ranging from MIDI controllers to art installation. The three entries with the most votes will be shortlisted and presented to our stellar jury who will select each category winner.
We’re proud to announce new partnerships for 2023 with Sound On Sound, the world’s leading music technology magazine, and Music China, who will provide exhibition space to our winners at their Autumn 2023 trade fair in Shanghai. Our winners also receive significant support from The MIDI Association and Music Hackspace for the development of MIDI 2.0 prototypes, coverage in Sound On Sound, and an opportunity to exhibit at the 2023 NAMM Show.
The MIDI Innovation Awards entries will be evaluated by a distinguished jury representing various facets of the music industry. The esteemed judges include Jean-Michel Jarre, Nina Richards, Roger Linn, Michele Darling, Bian Liunian, and Pedro Eustache. They’ll be assessing entries based on innovation, inspiring and novel qualities, interoperability, and practical / commercial viability.
Mark these key dates in your calendar:
July 21st: Voting closes, jury deliberation starts
August 16th: Finalists announced
September 16th: Live show online – winners revealed
October: Finalists are invited to participate in the Sound On Sound SynthFest UK and Music China, including the User Choice Awards competition
Vote for your favorites now, and help us champion the most innovative MIDI designs of 2023!
For more details, visit the MIDI Innovation Awards page.
Together, let’s keep the music playing and the innovations flowing!
The MIDI association hosted a live roundtable discussion last week, featuring 2022 MIDI Award winners Krishna Chetan (Pitch Innovations), Henrik Langer (Instrument of Things), Markus Ruh (MusiKraken), and John Dingley (Digigurdy). Amongst the winning products you’ll find the Somi-1 MIDI controller, a motion-sensor wearable that converts users’ body movements into MIDI data. MusiKraken’s MIDI controller construction kit similarly tracks your hands, face, voice and device rotations.
The warm reception toward these mixed reality music products underscores a greater trend towards immersion, novelty, and disruption that’s persisted into 2023.
The MIDI medium is the message
Changes to the way we create music can have an impact on the types of music we produce.
Media theorist Marshall McLuhan famously said that the medium is the message, meaning that our tools reveal something about our collective mindset toward the problems at hand. Conventional MIDI keyboard designs are inherited from the classical piano, for example, and with them comes the assumption that musicians should press buttons and keys to make music. Next-generation controllers like MusiKraken and Somi-1 reimagine the controller landscape by turning human bodies into expressive instruments.
Streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music offer a second example of unconscious bias that comes baked into our technology. Artists are required to release songs with a fixed duration, arranged into singles, EPs and albums. This model for music is inherited from legacy formats in the recording industry. As a result, they exclude modern formats like adaptive music and may be limiting our pace of musical innovation.
YouTube differs from other music streaming platforms with their support of continuous music in a 24/7 streaming format. Extreme AI artists Dadabots took advantage of this opportunity by publishing a number of infinite music videos, like the infinite metal example shown below. WarpSound offers adaptive AI music experiences on YouTube, empowering fans to can cast votes and impact the music during their YouTube livestream. These kinds of experiments are only possible because the medium supports them.
Toward more immersive music making experiences
MIDI software is often experienced through an LCD screen, but that could soon change with the rising popularity of virtual and mixed reality hardware.
Earlier this month, Spatial Labs announced their upcoming AR DAW called Light Field. It’s not available commercially but you can watch a demo of their prototype below. Like a laser keyboard, the interface is projected onto a hard surface and users can interact with UI elements to sequence beats, chop samples, and more.
BREAKTHROUGHS IN MIDI COMPOSING SOFTWARE DURING 2023
Artificial intelligence has had a major impact on the creative arts this year. The popularity of text-to-image generators has coincided with a parallel trend in MIDI software. AudioCipher published its third version of a text-to-MIDI generator this year. The app turns words into melodies and chord progressions based on parameters like key signature, chord extensions, and rhythm automation. You can watch a demo below.
The text-to-music trend has continued to gain traction this year. Riffusion paved the way for text-to-song in December 2022, with Google’s MusicLm following suit in May 2023. Riffusion and MusicLM don’t compose in MIDI. They generate low fidelity audio clips replete with sonic artifacts but they’re nevertheless a step forward.
Most people hear AI Music and think of AI voice generators, due to the recent popularity of AI songs that imitate mainstream artists. An AI Drake song called Heart on my Sleeve reached more than 20,000,000 streams in April and May. United Music Group has made a public statement denouncing this practice.
Earlier today, rapper Ice Cube made a public statement calling AI music demonic and threatening to sue anyone who used his voice. Meanwhile, other artists like Grimes and Holly Herndon have sought to come up with models for consensual licensing of their voices.
So far, there has been very little discussion over the tens of millions of music clips used by Google to train MusicLM. As the owners of YouTube, Google has the right to train on the clips in their database. Many of these songs are protected by copyright and were uploaded by everyday users without the original artist’s consent.
This intro to Google’s AI music datasets outlines their training architecture in more detail and addresses some of the ethical concerns at play, as more companies seek to train on instrumental tracks to build their AI models.
THE RISE OF AI DAWS IN 2023
Digital audio workflows can have a steep learning curve for beginners, but artificial intelligence may soon remove that barrier to entry.
WavTool, a browser-based AI DAW, comes equipped with a GPT-4 assistant that takes actions on any element in the workstation. Users can summon the chatbot and ask it to add audio effects, build wavetables, and even compose MIDI ideas. A full demo of the software is shown below.
The AI assistant understands prescriptive commands like “add a new MIDI instrument track with a square wave”.
Vague requests like “write a catchy melody” yield less satisfying results. In many instances, a prompt like that will generate a major scale that repeats twice. Rich descriptions like “write a syncopated melody comprised of quarter, eighth, and sixteenth notes in the key of C minor” deliver marginally better results.
The AI text-to-midi problem could eventually be solved by AI agents, a special class of text generation that breaks down an initial goal into a series of subtasks. During my own experiments with AutoGPT music, I found that the AI agent could reason its way through the necessary steps of composing, including quality-assurance checks along the way.
For an AI agent to actually be useful in this context, someone would need to develop the middleware to translate those logical steps into MIDI. WavTool is positioned to make these updates, but it would require a well-trained MIDI composition model that even the biggest tech teams at OpenAI’s MuseNet and Google’s Magenta Suite have not achieved to a satisfactory degree.
POLYPHONIC AUDIO-TO-MIDI CONVERSION SOFTWARE
For years, Melodyne has been the gold standard for monophonic audio-to-midi transcription. In June 2022, a free Spotify AI tool called Basic Pitch went live, delivering polyphonic audio-to-MIDI within a web browser.
A second company called SampLab has since delivered their own plugin and desktop app this year, with more features than Basic Pitch. Both tools are pushing updates to their code as recently as this month, indicating that improvements to polyphonic MIDI transcription will be ongoing through 2023.
Suffice to say that MIDI has remained highly relevant in the era of artificial intelligence. With so many innovations taking place, we’re excited to see who comes out on top in this year’s MIDI Innovation Awards!
Check out these in depth interviews with the winners of the 2022 MIDI Innovation Awards
The MIDI Association invited the winners of the 2022 MIDI Innovation Awards to join this round table on May 20, 20323 to discuss the evolution of their award winning products, discuss how they work with MIDI and share their thoughts on MIDI 2.0.
Participants:
Krishna Chetan, Pitch Innovations
Henrik Langer, Instruments of Things
Markus Ruh, MusiKraken
John Dingley, Digigurdy
Moderated by JB Thiebaut, chair of the MIDI Innovation Awards and Secretary of the MIDI Association
Entries for the 2023 MIDI Innovation Awards close on May 23, 2023
For 2023, The MIDI Innovation Awards are proud to welcome new partners including Sound On Sound, the world’s leading music technology magazine, and Music China, who will provide exhibition space to the winners at their Autumn 2023 trade fair in Shanghai.
Musicians and inventors around the world will have a unique opportunity to present their ideas on a global stage, and the winners will gain invaluable help in bringing their products to market. Prizes include an exhibition booth at the 2023 NAMM Show, coverage in Sound On Sound, an opportunity to exhibit at Music China, and significant support from The MIDI Association and Music Hackspace for the development of MIDI 2.0 prototypes.
The MIDI Innovation awards are open to individuals, artists, and companies who work with MIDI to build innovative products or interactive experiences. The 2023 MIDI Innovation Awards categories are:
Commercial Hardware Products
Commercial Software Products
Prototypes and non-commercial hardware products
Prototypes and non-commercial software products
Artistic/Visual Project or Installation
The MIDI Innovation Awards welcomes entries from, but not limited to: MIDI instruments, controllers, software, art installation, MIDI peripherals, I/O boxes, lighting systems, automated systems, and more.
Entries to the competition are open, and applicants are invited to submit their entry via the button below.
Here is the detailed MIA 2023 schedule.
May 23rd: Registrations close
May 30th: Voting starts
July 21st: Voting closes, jury deliberation starts
August 16th: Finalists announced
September 16th: Live show online – winners revealed
October: Finalists are invited to participate in the Sound On Sound SynthFest UK in the UK and also in Music China including the User Choice Awards competition
Are you exploring new ways for musicians to interact with digital musical instruments? Have an idea for an original electronic instrument or controller? Trying to raise investment or attract attention for a new product? If you’re looking to make waves in music technology, you need to know about The MIDI Innovation Awards.
In 2023, MIDI celebrates its 40th birthday. The universal language of synths, controllers, and electronic instruments, MIDI 1.0 revolutionised music in the 1980s. Now, MIDI 2.0 is poised to unleash a second revolution. Massively extended and reimagined for the computer age, yet fully backwards compatible, MIDI 2.0 opens up endless possibilities for creative developers.
A joint initiative created by Music Hackspace, The MIDI Association, and NAMM, The MIDI Innovation Awards are now in their third year. The Awards showcase products and projects that are using MIDI 1.0 and 2.0 in fresh and original ways, highlighting the role that MIDI technology has to play in enabling musical creativity.
For 2023, The MIDI Innovation Awards are proud to welcome new partners including Sound On Sound, the world’s leading music technology magazine, and Music China, who will host the awards ceremony at their Autumn 2023 trade fair in Shanghai.
Musicians and inventors around the world will have a unique opportunity to present their ideas on a global stage, and the winners will gain invaluable help in bringing their products to market. Prizes include an exhibition booth at the 2023 NAMM Show, coverage in Sound On Sound, an opportunity to exhibit at Music China, and significant support from The MIDI Association and Music Hackspace for the development of MIDI 2.0 prototypes.
The MIDI Innovation awards are open to individuals, artists, and companies who work with MIDI to build innovative products or interactive experiences.
The 2023 MIDI Innovation Awards categories are:
Commercial Hardware Products
Commercial Software Products
Prototypes and non-commercial hardware products
Prototypes and non-commercial software products
Artistic/Visual Project or Installation
The MIDI Innovation Awards welcomes entries from, but not limited to: MIDI instruments, controllers, software, art installation, MIDI peripherals, I/O boxes, lighting systems, automated systems, and more.
A jury is being assembled to represent the wider music industry and its many facets, including artists, engineers, and innovators. Entries will be judged on four attributes: innovation, inspiring and novel qualities, interoperability, and practical / commercial viability.
Registration will close in April 2023, and a public vote will begin in June 2023.
The winners will be announced at Music China in Autumn 2023.
For more details, see the MIDI Awards section of this website.
Tapis Magique is a pressure-sensitive, knitted electronic textile carpet that generates three-dimensional sensor data based on body postures and gestures and drives an immersive sonic environment in real-time. Demonstrating an organic and expressive relationship between choreography and music has been a never-ending feat in the performance arts, as seen in previous work by Cage and Cunningham, Horst and Graham, or Stravinsky and Balanchine. Our work unveils dancers’ creative, unconventional possibilities of agency, intimacy, and improvisation over the music through a textile interface.
Motivated by the craftsmanship and connections of cultural textiles such as Javanese Batik or Balinese Ikat to their traditional performance arts, we began to apply an artistic approach into technological textile design and merge new materials, sensing technologies, and digital fabrication with contemporary dance and music into one united and harmonious piece of object and performance.
The tapis design is composed of multi-layer knitted textiles. The top and bottom layers are orthogonal conductive line matrices knitted within a single operation using multi-material twisted yarns. The middle layer is a knitted piezo-resistive textile, a pressure-sensitive layer that interfaces with the conductive matrices to create a sensing grid. The dense geometrical patterns of the stars scattered around the brushstroke details in the tapis represent 1800 pressure-sensing pixels (distributed in 15 MIDI Channels) and are inspired by the galactic space. Parametric design transformed these patterns into a 3-D spatial illusion to illustrate the multi-dimensionality of the sensor data.
The knitted conductive lines are connected to a system hardware consisting of multiplexers, shift-registers, operational amplifiers, and microcontroller that sequentially reads each pressure sensing pixel and sends it to a computer. These pixels collectively generate continuous 3-D spatiotemporal sensor data mapped into MIDI streams to trigger and control discrete notes, continuous effects, and immersive soundscapes through science-inspired musical tools.
Several musical pieces were designed to invoke various emotions to inspire conversations between the choreographer and the instrument. Behind the scenes, runs a digital modular synthesizer made of several patches, each for a different type of performance. The incoming stream of MIDI data is first fed into quantizer modules that align the notes to major, minor, and pentatonic scales, as well as mystic chords. The sounds are then generated by a collection of subtractive, additive, and granular synthesizers. “Venus Sunrise”, one of our performance pieces, as shown in the video above, presents a metaphorical celestial sound of the universe as the dancer is twirling around the stars, traveling through space and time.
Tapis Magique demonstrates the interplay between art and technology, highlighting the deep emotional link between contemporary textiles, dance, and music through the physical-digital connection. It provides a canvas for dancers and sound artists to modulate sound, perform and compose a musical piece based on choreography and vice versa; it also creates an auditory-gestural synesthetic environment that invites and encourages audiences to interact and express themselves with the tapis, experiencing a magical connection that stimulates the body and mind.
GLASYS (Gil Assayas) was a winner of the MIDI Association’s 2022 Innovation Awards for artistic installations. He’s a keyboard player, composer, sound designer, and video content creator who currently performs live with Todd Rundgren’s solo band. The internet largely knows GLASYS for his viral MIDI art and chiptune music.
We spoke with Gil to learn more about how he makes music. I’ll share that interview with him below. First, let’s have a quick review of his newly released chiptune album.
MIDI Art that Tugs on my Heartchips
The latest record from GLASYS, Tugging On My Heartchips, debuted January 2023 and captures the nostalgia of early 8-bit game music perfectly, with classic sound patches that transport the listener back in time. The arrangements are true to the genre and some of the songs even have easter eggs to find.
Gil created MIDI art to inspire multiple songs on the album, elevating the album’s conceptual value into uncharted meta-musical territory. He even created music video animations of the MIDI notes in post production. On track two, The MIDI Skull Song, you can almost hear the swashbuckling pirates in search of buried treasure. Take a listen here:
The MIDI Gargoyle Song features an even more complex drawing, with chromatic lines to put any pianist’s hands in a pretzel. Once the picture is finished, Gil’s gargoyle comes to life in a funny animation and dances to the finished song. It’s the first time I’ve seen someone create animations from MIDI notes in the piano roll!
Heartchips delivers all the bubbly synths and 8-bit percussion you could want from a chiptune album. But with Gil, there’s more to the music than aesthetic bravado. Where other artists lean on retro sounds to make mid-grade music sound more interesting, GLASYS has mastered the composing and arrangement skills needed to evoke the spirit of early 90s games.
It can take several listens to focus on each of the album’s sonic elements. The mix and panning are impeccable. Gil rolls off some of the harsh overtones in the instrument’s waveform, to make it easier on our ears. But there’s something special happening in the arrangement, that we discussed in more detail during our interview.
Drawing from a classic 8-Bit technique
The playful acoustics of Heartchips mask Gil’s complex harmonic and rhythmic ideas like a coating of sugar.
Gil gives each instrument a clear sense of purpose and identity, bringing them together in a song that tells a story without words. To accomplish this, he uses techniques from early game music, back when composers had only 5 instruments channels to use.
In the 1980s and 90s, as portable gaming consoles became popular, there was a limit to the number of notes a microchip could store and play at once. Chords had to be hocketed, or broken up into separate notes, so that the other instrument channels could be used for lead melody, accompaniment and percussion.
As a result, the classic 8-bit composers avoided sustained chords unless the entire song was focused on that one instrument. Every instrument took on an almost melodic quality.
While Heartchips doesn’t limit itself to five instrument channels per song, it does align with the idea that harmony and chord progressions should be outlined rather than merely sustained as a chord.
When GLASYS outlines a chord as an arpeggio in the bass, you’ll often hear two or three countermelodies in the middle and upper registers. Each expresses a unique idea, completely different from the others, yet somehow working perfectly with them. That’s the magic of his art.
There are a few moments on the album when chords are sustained for a measure at a time, like on the tracks No School Today or Back to Reality. These instances where chords are used acquire an almost dramatic effect because it disrupts your expectations as a listener.
Overall, I found Tugging on my Heartchips to be a fun listening experience with lots of replay value.
What’s up with GLASYS in 2023?
In February 2023, GLASYS branched out from MIDI piano roll drawings to audio spectrograms. This new medium grants him the ability to draw images with more than MIDI blocks.
A spectrogram is a kind of 2D image. It’s a visual map of the sound waves in an audio file. It reads left to right, just like a piano roll. The X axis represents time and the Y axis represents frequency.
Some other artists (Aphex Twin, Dizasterpeace) have hidden images in spectrograms before, but those previous efforts only generated white noise. GLASYS has defied everyone’s expectations with spectrogram art created from his own voice and keyboards.
Here’s one of his latest videos, humming and whistling accompaniment to a piano arrangement in order to create a dragon. It may be the first time in history that something like this has been performed and recorded:
An Interview with GLASYS (Gil Assayas)
I’ve really enjoyed the boundary-defying MIDI art that comes from GLASYS, so I reached out on behalf of the MIDI Association to ask a few questions and learn more. Here’s that conversation.
E: You’ve released an album in January called Tugging On My Heartchips. Can you talk about what inspired you to write these songs and share any challenges that came up while creating it?
G: Sure. Game boy was a big part of my childhood. It was the only console we had, because in Israel it was more expensive and harder to get a hold of other systems.
The first games I had were Links Awakening, Donkey Kong, Battletoads, and Castlevania. I loved the music and what these composers could achieve with 4 tracks, using pulse wave and noise. Somehow they could still create these gorgeous melodies.
My experience growing up with those games was the main inspiration for this album. I never really explored these sounds in previous albums. I always went more for analog synths.
E: Your first GLASYS EP, The Pressure, came out in 2016 but your Youtube channel goes back almost a decade. Can you tell me a bit about the history of GLASYS?
G: When I first got started, I was playing in a band in Israel and every so often I would write a solo work that didn’t fit the band’s sound. So I created the GLASYS channel to record those ideas occasionally. After moving to the United States, I had a lot more time to focus on my own music and that’s when things started picking up.
E: Can you tell me more about your mixing process? Do you write, record, and mix everything yourself?
G: Yes, I write everything myself and record most of it in my home studio. Nowadays I mix everything myself, though in the past I’ve worked with some great mixing engineers such as Tony Lash (Dandy Warhols, Elliot Smith).
E: I think the playful tone of Heartchips will carry most listeners away. It’s easy to overlook the difficulty of creating a chiptune album like this, not to mention all the video work you do on social media to promote it. You’ve nailed the timbre of your instruments and compositional style.
G: Yeah, mixing chiptune can be trickier than it seems because of all the high end harmonic content. None of the waveforms are filtered and everything has overtones coming through. I found that a little bit of saturation on the square waves, pulse waves, and a little bitcrushing can smooth out the edges a bit. EQ can take out some of the harsh highs, and you can do some sidechaining. These are things you can’t do on a gameboy or NES.
E: How much of your time is spent composing versus mixing and designing your instruments?
G: Mixing takes a lot longer. Composition is the easy part. The heard part is making something cool enough to want to share. I can be a bit of a perfectionist. So I’ll do a mix, try to improve it, rinse and repeat ten revisions until I’m happy with it. That’s one of the reasons it can be better to do the mix myself, haha.
E: Before this interview, we were talking about aphantasia where people can’t visualize images but they can still dream in images. Do you ever dream in music?
G: Dreams are such an emotional experience. When you get a musical idea in your dreams, more often than not you forget it when you wake up. But when you do remember it, it’s very surreal. Actually, my first song ever was based on a purple hippo I saw in my dream. I was 5 years old, heard the melody, figured it out and wrote it down with my dad.
E: What inspired you to get into MIDI art?
G: Well, there were a couple of things. Back in 2017, an artist by the name of Savant created some amazing MIDI art – I believe he was the first to do it in a way that sounds musical. He inspired other artists to create MIDI art, such as Andrew Huang who created his famous MIDI Unicorn (which I performed live in one of my videos).
There was another piece in particular that blew me away, this Harry Potter logo MIDI art that uses themes from Harry Potter, masterfully created by composer Hana Shin. I don’t particularly care for Harry Potter, but I just found the concept and execution really inspiring and I thought it would be awesome to perform something like that live. In 2021, Jacob Collier did a few videos where he spelled out words in real time, which proved that it’s possible and motivated me to finally give it a shot.
My idea was to build on the MIDI art concept and draw things that were meaningful to me, such as video game logos and characters – and do it live, so I needed to write them in a way that would be possible to play with two hands. I actually just wanted to do it once or twice but it was the audience who motivated me to keep going. It got such a huge response, I’ve ended up doing nearly fifty of them. I’m now focusing on other things, but I might get back to MIDI art in the future
E: Do you have any advice for MIDI composers who struggle coming up with new ideas?
G: Sure, I do get writers block sometimes. As far as advice goes… I know how it goes where you keep rewriting something you’ve already created before. Everyone has their subconscious biases, things that they tend to go to without thinking. So even though they’re trying to do something new, they end up repeating themselves. It can be a struggle for sure.
If you find yourself sitting in front of your daw not knowing what to do, then don’t sit in front of your daw. Go outside and take a guitar with you and start jamming. Sometimes a change of environment, breaking the habit and getting out of the rut doing the same thing over and over can really help you.
Listen to something entirely different, then new ideas will come. A lot of the problem comes from listening to the same stuff or only listening to one genre of music. So everything you write starts to sounds like them.
Listen to music outside of the genres you like. For example, if you never listen to Cuban music, listen to it for a week. Some of it will creep into your subconscious, you might end up writing some indie rock song with cuban elements that’s awesome and would sound entirely new.
E: Are there any organizational tricks that you use to manage the sheer volume of musical ideas you come up with?
G: Yeah I used to have a lot of little ideas and save them in different folders, but it was too difficult to get back to things that I had written a year ago. Time goes by, you forget about how you felt when you wrote that thing, you feel detached from it.
If I decide to do something, I work on just one or two tracks until I’m done with them. I don’t record every idea I have either. I have to feel motivated enough to do something with it.
E: Do you have perfect pitch? Can you hear music in your head before playing it?
G: Definitely, yeah I can hear music in my head. I do have perfect pitch but it has declined a little bit as I get older.
E: What can we expect from GLASYS in 2023?
G: Lots of new music and videos – I’ve got many exciting ideas that I’m looking forward to sharing!
To learn more about Gil’s musical background, check out interviews with him here, here, and here. You can also visit the GLASYS website or check out his Youtube channel.
If you enjoyed this artist spotlight and want to read more about innovative musicians, software, and culture in 2023, check out the AudioCipher blog. We’ve recently covered Holly Herndon’s AI music podcast Interdependence, shared a new Japanese AI music plugin called Neutone, and promoted an 80-musician Songcamp project that created over 20,000 music NFTs in just six weeks. AudioCipher is a MIDI plugin that turns words into music within your DAW.
On May 28 at 10 am Pacific, 1 PM Eastern and 6 PM in the UK, LJ Rich will host the 2022 MIDI Innovation Awards
This year we are incredibly lucky to have LJ Rich hosting the MIDI Innovation Awards (MIA) show which will feature the 15 finalists from the 5 categories interacting with our international panel of judges.
World-renowned performer LJ Rich presents on the International Technology show BBC Click. She’s also a NASA Datanaut and host of the United Nations ITU #AIForGood Summit.
While filming with Click, LJ’s interviewed founders, hackers, and artists across the globe, meeting everyone from Stevie Wonder to Steve Wozniak. Since reading music at Oxford, LJ’s predicted consumer tech trends for over a decade for the BBC, with particular interest in AI, Music and the human/computer interface.
Meet our international panel of judges
We have an amazing panel of judges with incredibly diverse backgrounds, but they all share one thing – a passion for innovation and for MIDI. Here are some details of each of the seven 2022 MIA judges.
Craig Anderton
CRAIG ANDERTON is an internationally recognized authority on technology and music. He has toured, played Carnegie Hall, mastered hundreds of tracks, and been involved with dozens of major label releases as either a player, producer, or engineer. He’s also written over 30 books (including the seminal Home Recording for Musicians) and thousands of articles, as well as co-founded Electronic Musician magazine.
Known for his ability to de-mystify complex subjects, Craig has given seminars on technology and the arts in 38 states, 10 countries, and 3 languages.
Michele Darling
Michele Darling is an accomplished sound designer, composer, recording engineer, and educator, who fell in love with electronic music and sound creation at an early age. She worked for 10 years as part of an Emmy award winning interactive production team at Sesame Workshop in NYC.
Also throughout her career, she has worked on a wide range of media from national television shows to video games, from online and mobile platforms to electronic toys and music software for clients such as 4Kids Entertainment, HBO Family, The Learning Channel, Toca Boca, Hasbro, Morton Subotnick, The Criterion Collection, iZotope, and more. Michele worked as a member of the Ableton sound design team for Live 10, creating sound presets for the well-known software for multi-genre music producers worldwide.
Currently, Michele is the Assistant Chair of the Electronic Production and Design Department at Berklee College of Music in Boston.
John Kao
From John Kao’s website”
“The Economist tagged me with the nicknames “Mr. Creativity” and a “Serial Innovator.” Eclectic is how I would describe my experience, from teaching at Harvard Business School and the MIT Media Lab, to producing feature films and theater, starting high tech ventures and even sharing the bandstand with Frank Zappa and the original Mothers of Invention. I’ve explored what leaders can learn from jazz musicians in my book Jamming and what it takes for a country to innovate in my book Innovation Nation. And my greatest pleasure is working with leaders of all kinds who are on the hot seat to deliver some form of meaningful innovation agenda.”
Helen Leigh
Helen Leigh is an author, education writer, and maker with a focus on creative use of new technologies. She has written playful technology education materials for National Geographic and Intel Education, and has developed a Design, Coding, and Electronics Course for the Royal Court of Oman.
Moldover
“A musician at heart, inventor born of curiosity, and innovator by necessity, I believe the world calls him the ‘Godfather of Controllerism’ for damned good reasons.” – John Tackett, Crowd Wire
History only notes a handful of artists who successfully pushed the limits – both with their music and the design of their musical instruments. What Bach was to the keyboard and Hendrix was to the guitar, Moldover is to the controller. Disillusioned with “press play DJs”, Moldover fans eagerly welcome electronic music’s return to virtuosity, improvisation, and emotional authenticity. Dig deeper into Moldover’s world and you’ll uncover a subversive cultural icon who is jolting new life into physical media with “Playable Packaging”, sparking beautiful collaborations with his custom “Jamboxes”, and drawing wave after wave of followers with an open-source approach to sharing his methods and madness.
Dr. Kate Stone
From Kate Stone’s website:
“I describe myself as a creative scientist because we all fit in more than one box. I studied electronics and physics, these give my work structure and discipline, however my true skill is creativity. Creatively using whatever I find around me to solve any problem I encounter. My grandmother told me to ‘cut your coat from the cloth at hand’.
I founded and run a company called Novalia, we create interactive posters and other everyday objects that embody the magic of interactivity and connectivity. Posters that talk, books that turn in to pianos and walls that play music. I am Chair of the Executive board of the MIDI Association and sit on the Editors Code of Practice Committee to help keep an eye on what the UK press determine to be acceptable.”
Yuri Suzuki
Yuri Suzuki is an experience and sound designer who works at the intersection of installation, interaction and product design.
His work encompasses sound, music, installations, product design, art direction, education and contemporary art for renowned clients ranging from corporations to musicians to start ups. Projects include a bespoke musical instrument for will.i.am, techno DJ legend Jeff Mills and the AR Music Kit – a music based augmented reality android app turning paper into instruments for Google. He recently has done work for Roland designing the https://808303.studio/.
He was also instrumental in the design in the design of new MIDI logo.
Check out over 100 entrants and then vote for your favorites
There are five distinct categories (listed below) for the 2022 MIDI Innovation Awards.
From May 1 to May 14, you will be able to select three entrants from each category to be the finalists who will participate in the May 28 MIDI Innovation Awards show on MIDI.org.
When voting, you do not have to vote in all categories, but any category you vote in you must select three entrants.
Clicking on the links below shows you all the entrants for that particular category.
On May 15, three finalists will be selected from each category by 50% weighting of the public vote and the judges vote.
Commercial Software-22 Entries
Fluid Chords from Pitch Innovations
Pictured above is this year’s entry from last year’s winner, Pitch Innovations.
It’s clear that one of the trends in MIDI Innovation is more precise control over pitch and tuning.
In the commercial software area, there are a lot of entrants that focus on pitch and pitch control via MIDI Polyphonic Expression.
Entonal Studio is an audio application and plugin that gives musicians the ability to use and create alternative tunings in their music, in any environment.
Infinitone Dynamic Micro-Tuning plugin empowers musicians with Freedom of Pitch, through opening access to the full harmonic spectrum, a.k.a. the “notes between the notes”.
GeoShred, an award-winning, fluidly expressive musical instrument with a performance surface that uses MIDI/MPE to control expressive physics-based models of musical instruments.
But there are entries in other categories that support this trend as well.
If there is one major trend in Commercial Hardware, it seems to be portability.
Piano de Voyage (pictured above) was one of the first MIDI products to have a modular design that allowed greater portability. It is a modular, 88 full-size keys portable piano keyboard.
The Vboard 49 is a portable foldable MIDI keyboard.
The Vboard 25 is a folding MIDI keyboard with standard key width, pads, knobs, and a wealth of features.
POPUPIANO SMART PORTABLE KEYBOARD + POPUMUSIC APP is also a product with a modular design. It was designed into two parts. The right keyboard focuses on melody, while the left chords pad focuses on chords & rhythm. Besides, you can replace the left chords pad via a magnetic extended keyboard, and make PopuPiano a complete E-keyboard.
The POCKETPIANO is “the First Portable, Professional Piano that fits into your Backpack”.
But there are also some Commercial Hardware products that really push the envelope in innovation.
Oddball -Create music by simply bouncing, catching and spinning a ball
PTZOPTICS MIDI CAMERA CONTROL
PTZOptics is adding configurable MIDI control to their award-winning PTZ cameras. Set and call presets, plus operate pan, tilt, and zoom from any MIDI device.
Erae Touch is a Polyphonic Expressive MIDI Controller.
It is born out of a desire to combine both sensitivity and versatility in a seamless object.
Count-Me-In allows the audience of a musical event to use their mobile phones and become part of the show!
It’s pretty clear that one of the major trends in MIDI Innovation is collaboration.
Count-Me-In pictured above is just one example.
DAWn Audio allows artists anywhere in the world to work together live, even if they’re using different DAWs.
THE DAW COLLABORATION FRAMEWORK (DCF) is Browser-based middleware that interfaces with shared Cubase projects via virtual MIDI ports, establishing online collaboration with real-time videoconferencing and synchronised audio and MIDI track mixing.
Another trend we see all over the 2022 MIDI Innovation Awards is creative uses of Web MIDI.
Here are a few.
VOGUM is a web application with extensive MIDI controller support for music teachers, learners and performers.
MIDI PROXY-Use a simple MIDI keyboard with pitch-bend to emulate a controller with faders and buttons. And do it from the Web!
WEBMIDI.js is a free and open source JavaScript library that makes it easy for any website to interact with a visitor’s MIDI devices.
ProtoZOA is a flexible prototyping tool for MIDI 2.0.
Open source firmware provides MIDI 2.0 interfaces and functions for developers to use in their own hardware and software products.
Okay, we may be a little biased here, but if there is one Non-Commercial/Prototype Hardware entry that we think everyone should at least be aware of it’s this one.
Why?
Because the MIDI Association is just about to ship over 50 of these ProtoZOA MIDI 2.0 prototyping tools to MIDI Association members around the world.
AmeNote developed a USB MIDI 2.0 Device, designed specifically to jump-start prototyping and validation of UMP functions and fuel the MIDI 2.0 revolution by encourage speedier adoption of MIDI 2.0 by:
Providing an affordable, flexible prototyping platform to enable software and hardware developers to start testing and prototyping MIDI 2.0 UMP.
Providing a testing platform which connects via the USB MIDI 2.0 drivers recently released by Apple and Google and a test tool for Microsoft as they create Windows drivers.
Providing USB MIDI 2.0 source code that other hardware developers can use under a no-charge permissive license.
But there were also plenty of other interesting entries.
Super MIDI Pak turns your Super Nintendo into a MIDI synthesizer!
The Meta Glove for Augmented Art is a low cost MIDI controller glove that allows musicians and artists to augment their digital expressivity resulting in high impact, high publicity and social media attention for them and their sponsors.
And of course, the POSITRONIC RECURSION STUDIO is a fractal synthesizer from the future. Recurse your MIDI signals, your CV’s or your grandma’s quantum brownies. Innumerable novel HD fractals at your fingertips.
Tapis Magique is a knitted interactive carpet that generates 3D sensor data based on body locations and gestures and drives an immersive sonic environment in real-time.
Respoken is an interactive light and sound installation that creates an experience from the user´s voice. A stage for self-expression manifesting the spirit in light and sound.
The MIDI Innovation awards give a platform to MIDI innovation. This enables winners to accelerate their product ideas through connections to the industry, as well as increase their visibility among musicians and the NAMM community of trade professionals. The MIDI Innovation Awards rewards products, prototypes, installations or concepts that are thought-provoking and inspire new, creative use cases.
The founding partners of the event (The MIDI Association, Music Hackspace and NAMM) are committed to continuing with MIDI Innovation Awards and have laid out a plan for 2022.
Check out the highlights from the 2021 MIDI Innovation Awards
Plans for the MIDI Innovation Awards 2022
Jean-Baptiste Thiebaut, MIDI Association Exec Board member and CEO of Music Hackspace came up with the idea for the MIDI Innovation Awards in December of 2020 and amazingly put together the entire MIDI Innovation Awards 2021 event in a little over a month.
In 2022, we are planning in advance and have more time. The MIDI Innovation Awards activity this year will be focused on MIDI.org.
We will start submissions for entrants to the 2022 MIDI Innovation awards in March.
We will hold a number of MIDI Innovation Award events during May Is MIDI Month 2022.
We plan to announce the MIDI Innovation Award winners at the June NAMM show.
If you are interested in submitting a MIDI Innovation project for 2022, please check the box for entrants/submissions below.
If you are interested in viewing or voting for the MIDI Innovation Awards 2022, please check the viewing and voting box below.
THE MIDI ASSOCIATION, a global community of people who work, play and create with MIDI and the central repository of information about anything related to MIDI.
KnittedKeyboard is a recent project coming out from the Responsive Environments Group at the MIT Media Lab. This instrument provides new interactions and tactile experiences for musical expressions, and it can be easily worn, folded, rolled up, and packed in our luggage like a pair of socks or a scarf. The project was initially motivated by discussions with Lyle Mays, a late composer and jazz pianist in the Pat Metheny Group, who wished a rollable fabric keyboard for composing and performing music on the road.
Credit: Irmandy Wicaksono
The KnittedKeyboard leverages digital machine knitting of functional (electrically-conductive and thermoplastic) and non-functional (polyester) fibers to develop a seamless and customized, 5-octave piano-patterned musical textile. The individual and combinations of the keys could simultaneously sense touch, as well as continuous proximity, stretch, and pressure. It ultimately combines both discrete controls from the conventional keystrokes and expressive continuous controls from the non-contact, theremin-inspired proximity sensors (by waving and hovering on the air), as well as physical interactions enabled by the knitted fabric sensors (e.g. squeezing, pulling, stretching, and twisting). The KnittedKaybord enables performers to experience intimate, organic tactile experience as they explore the seamless texture and materiality of the electronic textile.
The sensing mechanism is based on capacitive and piezo-resistive sensing. Every key acts as an electrode and is sequentially charged and discharged. This creates an electromagnetic field that can be disrupted by hand’s approach, enabling us to detect not only contact touch, but also non-contact proxemic gesture such as hovering or waving on the air, contact touch, as well as to calculate strike velocity. The piezo-resistive layers underneath can measure pressure and stretch exerted on the knitted keyboard. All of the sensor data is converted to musical instrument digital interface (MIDI) messages by a central microprocessor, which will correspond to certain timbral, dynamic, and temporal variations (filter resonance, frequency, glide, reverb, amp, distortion, et cetera), as well as pitch-bend. Audio sequencing and generation software such as Ableton Live and Max/MSP map these MIDI messages to their corresponding channels, controls, notes, and effects.
Credit: Irmandy Wicaksono
“Fabric of Time and Space”, as demonstrated in below video, is a contemporary musical piece exclusively written for KnittedKeyboard to demonstrate and illustrate the multi-dimensional expressiveness of the instrument. The piece is a metaphor for the expanding and contracting nature of the universe and this is represented musically by the glissandi of the melody as well as the interplay between major and minor chords. The metaphorical perturbations of space-time were expressed by the interaction between the performer and the fabric. The musical translation of these expressions were used to shape the envelope of the sound. The underlining technology would enable further exploration of soft and malleable gestural musical interfaces that leverage the unique mechanical structures of the materials, as well as the intrinsic electrical properties of the knitted sensors. For further information about this project, please access its main page.
We hosted our final May Is MIDI Month 2021 webinar on May 29 with a focus on Innovation.
There were four presenters covering different aspects of innovation around Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Machine Learning and Gamification
A3E Deep Dive™: AI & Artificial Creativity
Paul Sitar, President- A3E: The Future of Music + Entertainment Technology™
Paul Sitar explained the A3E Deep Dive into AI and Artificial Creativity.
They have assembled a group of AI & Artificial Creativity Think Tank Luminaries to help to do in depth research on these topics.
Here is the list of people currently involved.
1. Jack Joseph Puig (Multiple GRAMMY Award-Winning Producer/Engineer & Vice President Creative Innovation Waves Consumer)
2. Drew Silverstein (CEO/Co-Founder of Amper/Shutterstock)
3. Maya Ackerman (CEO/Co-founder WaveAI | Professor of AI | Woman of Influence 2020)
4. Daniel Rowland (Oscar-winning, Grammy-nom Engineer/Producer & Head of Strategy & Partnerships at LANDR Audio
5. Kevin Doucette (Composer, Inventor, Engineer and Technology Futurist, Intel Corporation collaborator)
6. Tom Austin (CEO – The Analyst Syndicate)
7. Marc-Jean Jot (VP of Research, Chief Scientist at iZotope)
They have also launched a broader survey on AI and Artificial Creativity.
You can take the survey until June 7, 2021 at the link below.
Taking the survey will also make sure you receive a copy of the survey results.
AR Pianist combines MIDI and AI to create virtual piano performances in your home
Craig Knudsen- Yamaha Consultant/Production Manager for the Piano Guys
Fayez Salka, M.D Medical Doctor, Musician, Software Developer and 3D Artist
Jon Schmidt of the Piano Guys poses next to his AR Pianist avatar at the Apple Store
Craig Knudsen, Yamaha Consultant and Production Manager for The Piano Guys and Fayez Salka, M.D Medical Doctor, Musician, Software Developer and 3D Artist discussed VR Pianist.
The full article on VR Pianist can be found at the link below.
Three years ago, while on tour with my band, Ritual Howls, I encountered a problem. After five grueling hours of sitting in a van on our way to the next gig, I had an idea for a drum beat but no way to capture
Aviv Ben Yehuda -CEO of Big Ear Games explained how gamification can be used to create more music makers. Big Ear Games is affiliated with the Lang Lang Institute which is supported by MIDI Association member, Steinway and Big Ear Games uses MIDI Association member Native Instruments technology inside of their game for sounds. Big Ear just announced MIDI support in the app.
Join Solo, our wannabe musician, to demystify the mystery of how music works and level up your inner musician. Play music puzzles, collect instruments and make music.
Three years ago, while on tour with my band, Ritual Howls, I encountered a problem. After five grueling hours of sitting in a van on our way to the next gig, I had an idea for a drum beat but no way to capture it. All my gear was surgically packed away and out of reach. How could I capture my idea and turn it into workable music?
Typically when inspiration for new music strikes, I open a voice recorder app and record myself beatboxing a beat or mumbling a melody. Once I have access to a computer, I listen back to the recording and try to recreate it by moving MIDI notes into just the right place. While this method would help preserve my idea, it didn’t provide a real-time solution.
Being a musician and product designer, I began researching the marketplace for applications or plugins that could translate my beatboxing into usable MIDI notes. I experimented with a couple of products with audio-to-midi functionality, but nothing worked the way I envisioned. Some plugins even required special microphones to work effectively. I needed something that could work in any setting and with any microphone, like the one on my laptop.
I also tried DAW tools that convert audio into MIDI notes, but it didn’t give me the instant gratification of actually playing music. Further, without perfectly separated audio, it created outputs that didn’t resemble my idea. At this point, I knew there was an opportunity and began to ideate a practical solution.
My Voice as an Instrument
After an exhaustive survey of the current marketplace, I started researching artificial intelligence in audio processing. To translate my voice into workable MIDI notes, it was clear that I needed to develop an algorithm with enough smarts to differentiate various types of drum sounds.
As a product designer, I could envision the look and feel of the experience but needed to find AI experts to develop the architecture for my idea. So I assembled a team of experienced digital signal processing engineers to build a complete machine learning neural network to accomplish this end. We call this technology, Bace.
Bace prototype showing an accurate detection of a drum kick sound.
For several months we trained Bace’s neural network. We collected sample data from men, women, children, and adults of different races and nationalities to offer the most comprehensive drum sound classifications. To account for variations of the same drum sounds between individuals, Bace has built-in training mechanics so any user can improve or retrain the model with their own sample data. These mechanics provide better results while adding a personal dimension to the technology by empowering users to define their experience.
While in our training phase, we also wanted to leverage vocal frequencies beyond drum classification for more involved melodic ideas. To achieve this, we integrated pitch detection into Bace’s algorithm. Pitch detection allows users to process and map their voices to a piano roll.
The Future of Music Technology
In building Bace, I’ve realized that technology can complicate the most straightforward solutions. As product designers and developers, we’ve all seen applications with unnecessarily complex interfaces, special hardware, and elaborate design for design’s sake. While novel and sophisticated, these complicated systems can take a toll on the creative process. Controlling drum sounds with my voice was such a natural idea; I could intuitively recognize its abilities and limitations as an artist.
I see the future of music-making as a way of removing complexity and empowering intuition. Bace was born from my inherent desire to capture a drum beat with my voice and translate it into real music at the moment of inspiration. By making music technology more intuitive, we will not only unleash creativity from experienced creators but provide anyone an opportunity to express themselves in new ways. That self-expression is what makes music unique, and it is our job as technologists to foster rather than complicate it.
Whether you are a beginner or advanced we invite you to explore our unique workshops, which range from live coding sound to creating dynamic drum patterns, plus much more….
All sessions will be led by women artists, creators, producers and educators, within a safe and inviting online space.
Here, at Music Hackspace we champion and celebrate women who are active within the music technology field, and hope to support more women (and those who are not often represented including those who identify as non-binary) in learning music technology.
We ask everyone in our community to challenge the status quo in music technology, to create more equal, representative and inclusive space for everyone to create, engage and enjoy.
Find out more about our events and the workshop leaders below.
And spread the word:
#LearnMusicTech #ChooseToChallenge #IWD2021Enter your quote here…
by MusicHackspace
Music Hackspace who pioneered The MIDI Innovation Awards announces International Women’s Day line up
Chagall is an Amsterdam-based singer, producer and performer known for her use of the MiMU Gloves to control music & reactive visuals. With performances at South by Southwest, Ableton Loop, TEDx and many more Chagall is one of the most experienced users of the technology. She is also the UX designer for MiMU’s Glover & Gliss.
Melody is an artist, creative technologist, and educator based in Brooklyn, NYC. Her work ranges from live coding performance, generative sound installations, multisensory performance, and more. She currently teaches at Hunter College and Harvestworks and is part of Cycling 74’s Max Certified Trainer Program
Purvi is a London based web developer with years of experience in music technology & ux research. She currently works as a Frontend Engineer at Potato, an award-winning digital product studio that works with the likes of Google, PepsiCo, Mozilla, the BBC and NatWest. She has co-produced KALA, an album that explores human emotions through the design of everyday sounds.
Mel is a London based music producer, vocalist and educator. She spends most of her time teaching people how to make music with Ableton Live and Push. When she’s not doing any of the above, she makes educational content and helps music teachers and schools integrate technology into their classrooms. She is particularly interested in training and supporting female and non-binary people to succeed in the music world.
Anna is a London based producer, engineer, vocalist and educator. Anna is a certified trainer for Ableton.
Anna is currently working as a university lecturer in London, teaching music production, creating educational content and working on her next releases as ANNA DISCLAIM.
The MIDI Association, Music Hackspace, and NAMM held the first MIDI Innovation Awards online. The event showcased the Top 10 entries, as innovators from nine countries competed for a share of $20,000 worth of prizes in a fast-paced, livestreamed show, which also featured live and recorded performances. The show’s climax was announcing the three Grand Prize winners as decided by an expert panel of judges, as well as the winner of the popular vote.
The number of entries, the high standards they represented, and the sheer number of votes exceeded even our most optimistic expectations. Innovation in MIDI is thriving.
by Craig Anderton, President of The MIDI Association
The awards realized our shared dream: give makers and innovators around the world an opportunity to connect with the NAMM community despite the pandemic, spotlight their work to the public, and celebrate the spirit of creativity.”
by MusicHackspace.com and MIDI Innovations Award founder Jean-Baptiste Thiebaut
The judges awarded 1st place to Krishna Chetan from India for his entry Fluid Pitch, which also won the popular vote. Noted technologist and judge Dr. Kate Stone stated “This novel plug-in re-imagines pitch bending, in a way that enhances and simplifies how keyboard players react with MIDI instruments.” Krishna won over $12,500 in prizes, including a booth at the 2022 NAMM show, 2-year corporate membership in the MIDI Association, consulting from MK2 Audio and MIDI2Marketing, and a full Max 8 license.
Khrisna has worked for A R Rahman. Mr Rhaman’s work on Slumdog Millionaire (2008) earned him Best Original Score and Best Original Song at the 81st Academy Awards. In 2009, he was named by Time Magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential people. When A R covered Fluid Pitch on his weekly show it got over 150,000 views. He calls it out as the very first MIDI plugin from India.
2nd place went to Kevin Chang from North Carolina, USA for his entry Sonoclast Plastic Pitch Pro. Judge and YouTube sensationShawn Wasabi said “Plastic Pitch Pro’s innovative approach to microtonality makes formerly obscure tuning techniques easy to use and understand.” Kevin’s prize package, worth over $3,000, includes hardware from Expert Sleepers, a 1-year corporate membership in the MIDI Association, consulting from MK2 Audio and MIDI2Marketing, and a full Max 8 license.
Leigh Davies from Wales, UK won 3rd place for his entry Playces. Judge Helen Leigh, creative technologist said : “This art installation, made from corrugated cardboard and electronics, offers sonic exploration opportunities for children of all ages—and enthralled the judges with its creative use of MIDI and technology.” Watch Leigh’s 3-minute pitch.
The livestream was recorded, and is now available on the Music Hackspace YouTube channel.
Preparations will be underway soon for the 2022 event.
Fluid pitch is an innovative next-generation Pitch bend system, which is not only free of existing limitations but a Revolutionary Leap Forward in Music expressions for all Musicians Fluid pitch introduces the World’s First Scale-Locked-Pitch-Bend System powered by Midi to MPE upscale engine, which gives the power of MPE to any standard Midi keyboard. Now musicians no longer have to think which scale or where they are using the pitch bend wheel, the fear of landing on a wrong note using the pitch bend wheel is a thing of past, Fluid pitch always takes you to the right note. Fluid pitch is one of those tools you always wish you had but never knew it was possible.
Micro tune individual notes on your midi device and Master Arabic makams and Indian Ragas with a click. Maybe even create a whole new scale
Key Features
Scale Locked Pitch Bend System (SLPB)
Fluid pitch Introduces world’s first scale locked pitch bend (SLPB) system which can lock your keyboard’s pitch bend wheel to any scale you want, giving you access to Fluid pitch bending
Realtime access to different pitch bend ranges
You can choose any range for your pitch bend wheel and change it in real time while performing.
MPE Upscale Technology
Upgrade your standard MIDI keyboard into an MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression) device and access MPE Synths without MPE hardware.
Polyphonic Pitch Bending
Introduce chord bending into your music powered by MPE Upscale Technology.
Microtuning
With Fluid Pitch, you can now tune any note in the scale up to 100 cents up or down giving you access to a whole new world of microtonal scales, melodies and harmonies. Access a new world of micro tuned scales in Indian ragas and Middle Eastern maqam’s.
System Requirements
Operating Systems:
Windows 10 (64-bit).
OS X 10.9 and above.
Digital Audio Workstation that supports AU or VST. See DAW compatibility down below for more information.MIDI keyboard with a pitch bend.
Fluid Pitch enables listeners to flow through their music with the world’s first MIDI to MPE Upscale Plugin. Pick a key, set a scale, and leverage our scale-locked pitch-bending system to effortlessly create new melodies in minutes.
Guthman Musical Instrument Design CompetitionMay 11, 2019 at 7PM Pacific Time All three winners of the 2019 Guthman Musiclal Design Competition were MIDI Controllers. Check out Geoshred,AirSticks and The Glide as well as other unique MIDI instr
This year because of the CoVid situation the competition is being done remotely and you get to vote on who the winners are. There is still a panel of judges and one of them is the godfather of MIDI , Dave Smith.
Legendary instrument designer and Grammy-winner Dave Smith
There are also not only a number of MIDI controllers among the finalists, but even a number of MIDI Association corporate members.
Here is some information and links to the 2021 Guthman Musical Instrument Competition Finalists page.
Orba by Artiphon
Orba is a $99 portable synth, looper, and wireless MPE MIDI controller. We designed it to be played with intuitive techniques that are inviting for kids, hobbyists, and pros alike. Orba has ten core gestures: Tap, Press, Spin, Radiate, Tilt, Shake, Slide, Vibrato, Move, and Bump. Orba builds on Artiphon’s framework of the multi-instrument: a single instrument that can be played as many.
The Sylphyo by Aodyo Instruments
The Sylphyo is an electronic wind instrument that reproduces the feeling of an acoustic wind instrument. Like them, it is played by blowing into a mouthpiece and selecting notes using keys on the front of the instrument. However, unlike other wind instruments, the Sylphyo is also sensitive to your movements, as well as the way you touch it, offering novel expressive possibilities.
du-touch-s by Dualo
The Sylphyo is an electronic wind instrument that reproduces the feeling of an acoustic wind instrument. Like them, it is played by blowing into a mouthpiece and selecting notes using keys on the front of the instrument. However, unlike other wind instruments, the Sylphyo is also sensitive to your movements, as well as the way you touch it, offering novel expressive possibilities.
ELECTROMAGNETIC PIANO by Monica Lim
This is an attachment to an acoustic piano that uses magnets to resonate the piano strings. It allows the strings to sustain indefinitely, providing an alternative to the way acoustic pianos have been played and sound for centuries. The piano can also be played in the normal manner, allowing a rich mixture of percussive and sustained texture. Each string has a corresponding magnet tuned to its specific frequency, giving an ethereal, organ-like sound. The midi-triggered magnets come in a portable, easy to set-up format that can be used on any grand piano.
The MIDIS 2.0 is a product line of four different MIDI instruments. The MIDIS 2.0 are created to make digital music with human passion and intuition. It is our aim to bring that human touch back to digital music productions and give users the feeling that they are playing an instrument instead of a VST plugin with their mouse and keyboard.
The Striso board
The Striso board is an expressive instrument which combines multidimensionally sensitive buttons with an innovative note layout that helps understand the structures in music. The buttons capture each subtle finger movement, which allows for levels of musical expression previously only known to acoustic instruments. Additionally, accents and sound effects can be added by shaking and moving the instrument as a whole.
To see all the 2021 Guthman Musical Instrument Competition Finalists and vote, click on the image below.
I created the Plastic Pitch Plus (PPP) to experiment with microtonality. My primary design goal was to create a physical interface that gives immediate and independent control of pitches in a scale. One way of doing microtonality involves generating lists of frequencies or ratios. In contrast, I wanted something that would naturally engage my ear and provide an intuitive way to experiment with pitches.
Here are some technical details. The PPP provides two microtonal scale modes.
1) A twelve-tone scale mode in which the twelve knobs are used to tune up or down each of the twelve notes in a scale.
2) An equal divisions per octave mode in which the keys of a MIDI keyboard are remapped to an integer number of equal divisions per octave between 5 and 53.
The two scale modes are implemented in two ways.
1) Using MIDI pitch bend. This is somewhat of a MIDI hack intended to support microtonality with any MIDI keyboard. In short, each key is mapped to a microtonal pitch as specified by the knobs. The PPP listens for incoming MIDI notes and sends out MIDI pitch bends and notes that correspond to the microtonal pitches. To support polyphonic playing, the outbound pitch bends and notes are carefully distributed to multiple MIDI channels so that each note can have its own pitch bend value.
2) Using the MIDI Tuning Specification. This is my first time playing with this relatively new specification. (It works great!) The PPP acts as a controller–no MIDI input is required. When the knobs are turned, corresponding SysEx messages are sent out to retune the synthesizer’s internal tuning table.
See my website for more information and how to buy one.
We got several entrees for suggested content from the December 2017 MIDI Association newsletter. One was for an article on CTRLCap from Edwin Joassart. We did a little more research and decided to do an article not just on CNTRLCap, but on the developers behind it -Herrmutt Lobby.
Herrmutt Lobby has created not just music, but hardware and apps to allow people to interact with music. After all, their mission is Empowering Real-Time Electronic Music.
They have four major projects-
Playground-Music At Your Fingertips
BEATSURFING-The Organic MIDI Controller Builder
Le U (20syl)-The Interactive Skateboarding Ramp
CTRLCap, the cap you squeeze to control FX
Founded in 2003, Herrmutt Lobby is a collective of musicians, handymen, and programmers. Since 1997, the individual members of the group have released music on various labels – DUB, Studio !K7, Vlek, Eat Concrete, Thin Consolation, Catune – and across genres.
Alongside music, they’ve also devised and built various softwares, controllers, and apps that help musicians perform live with the freedom to express at the moment’s inspiration/instinct.
Their ever-changing musical universe grows through encounters with musicians from diverse horizons, most recently the Belgian jazz player Stéphane Mercier and UK rapper Lord Rao.
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by Herrmutt Lobby Website
CNTRLCAP-The cap you squeeze to control FX
Ever tried to add FX while scratching without breaking your flow? With both hands busy controlling the fader and the record, it’s pretty much mission impossible… Unless you own a CTRLCap.
With its cutting edge technology, CTRLCAP adds an expressive touch to your fingertips!
This Application lets you to draw a 3-dimensional controller which you can use, like any other, by tapping. But Beatsurfing allows more: you design your own paths until they suit you, follow routes, take turns and cuts with your fingers and collide with objects along the way, triggering melody, beats, effects . Movement is what it’s all about.
It can control any MIDI-enabled device (Software, Hardware, or even selected iPad apps), features a very intuitive in-app editing system and integrates seamlessly in any existing Studio or Live setup. Objects Behaviours can be set to link objects together and multiply the available commands on the surface of the iPad.
LE U – Interactive Skateboarding Ramp by 20syl
Skateboard culture and electronic music, those are the two mail components of 20syl’s artistic construction. He has practiced these disciplines for twenty years or so and has never stopped building bridges between them. Today, along with La Région des Pays de la Loire and les salles de musiques actuelles(places dedicated to modern music VIP, Stereolux, Chabada, Fuzz’Yon, 6par4, Oasis), he presents a project which could be the achievement of this crossbreed: a Sound Ramp, a “U” turned into a sensitive and visual surface allowing the skater to perform music that the artist has composed.
We want to thank Edwin Joassart from Herrmutt Lobby for reaching out to us and hopefully you enjoyed this quick tour of the many Herrmutt Lobby MIDI projects. MIDI is often at the heart of these kinds of innovative projects.
With the boom in open-source electronics platform like Arduino and the growth of 3-D printers, it’s become easier and easier to create your own MIDI controller. We wanted to introduce you to some of the people and companies who helped create the DIY MIDI revolution.
Moldover- The Godfather of Controllerism
Moldover is the acknowledged godfather of controllerism. He has been a long time supporter of The MIDI Association and we featured him as a MIDI artist in 2016. He was one of the first people to develop his own DIY MIDI controller.
Shawn Wasabi has 574,651 subscribers and 54,314,415 views on his Youtube channel. He started combining multiple 16 button MIDI Fighters together and combining them with game controllers. Eventually he convinced DJ TechTools to make him a 64 button version of the MIDI Fighter with Sanwa arcade buttons.
Livid Instruments has been at the forefront of MIDI controller experimentation since 2004. They have a number of manufactured products.
minim- mobile MIDI controller
Guitar Wing MIDI controller
Ds1 MIDI controller
But Livid also makes some great components for DIY projects like the Brain V2.
Easily create your own MIDI controller with Brain v2. Brain V2 contains the Brain with a connected Bus Board for simple connectivity. Connect up to 128 buttons, 192 LEDs, and 64 analog controls. Components are easily connected with ribbons cables and we’ve created the Omni Board to allow dozens of layouts with a single circuit board. Brain v2 supports faders, rotary potentiometers, arcade buttons, rubber buttons, LEDs, RGB LEDs, LED rings, encoders, velocity sensitive pads, accelerometers, and more.
by Livid
Links to MIDI.org resources for DIY MIDI projects so you can DO IT YOURSELF!
IntroductionThe Arduino UNO is a popular open-source microcontroller that, in many respects, is a perfect complement to the extensible nature of the Music Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) protocol. Microcontroller platforms such as Arduino, Teensy
Instructables is a site which hosts DIY projects and is a platform for people to share what they make through words, photos, video and files. We have gone through the many MIDI DIY projects  and picked our some of
Companies and products listed here do not imply any recommendation or endorsement by the MIDI Manufacturers Association. MIDI Processing, Programming, and Do It Yourself (DIY) Components These are just examples of such products — we make n
