Music China wrapped up on Sunday, October 13, but we wanted to capture our impressions of the show while they were still fresh.
Wednesday, October 9 was set up day and we had a great booth that was constructed by the Music China (Shanghai Intex) team.
The focus of the booth was a four sided structure with glass walls, wooden desks on the outside covered with MIDI branding and a good sized room on the inside where MIDI Association members could hold meetings.
Each of the four walls had a large TV screen, an Elgato StreamDeck and a GMKtec Mini PC N97 (a neat little box that is a complete Windows computer in a tiny package).
After the computer was programmed with automated Powerpoint slides, and a Elgato StreamDeck Profile, you could take away the mouse and keyboard and the whole interface for selecting videos was done by the StreamDeck.
The kids from Shanghai Conservatory loved this idea. You can see an example below of the presentations and that all the slides were translated into Chinese.
In the very first booth picture above, you will also notice several young Chinese wearing MIDI T shirts.
Music China arranged for 16 students from Shanghai Conservatory of Music (4 each day) to come and work as volunteer Brand Ambassadors. We also had Brand Ambassadors for the non-Chinese members of The MIDI Zone like Audio Modeling and Amenote. We decided to reuse some of the T shirts from NAMM and so all of our MIDI Association booth team had MIDI T shirts so visitors would know who to talk to.
We cannot tell you how amazing these young students were. They all spoke English well and really knew music production and MIDI, but even more important they were passionate and helpful to everyone, both The MIDI Association team members and Chinese visitors alike.
Music China Opening Ceremony
The MIDI Association helped put together the music for the opening ceremony for Music China.
Sennheiser supported Brian Hardgroove to come to Music China so with the help of Yitian Zhao, MIDI Association Exec Board Member and Vice President of the Chinese Musical Instrument Association, we connected Brian with some of the best musicians in China and they worked together on a global collaboration between musicians from different countries, who share the universal language of music.
Three Masters : One World
Brian Hardgroove is a record producer, bassist, drummer, and member of the legendary band Public Enemy. His most cherished work is the production of two of China’s premier punk rock bands Demerit and Brain Failure.
Bian Liunian is a 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. He is also a judge for The MIDI Innovation Awards.
Kong Hongwei (Golden Buddha) is celebrated as China’s most influential and inspiring jazz musician.
Together they performed three songs live and they also worked together on a recording of one of Brian’s newest songs “Can You Hear Me” which will be released soon.
MIDI 2.0 Experience Zone
The Montage was connected to Cubase and running MIDI 2.0 on the latest developer release of the Microsoft Open Source driver funded by AMEI, the MIDI Japanese organization.
There was also an excellent movie by Ujie-san showing off the power of MIDI 2.0 hi resolution.
The Korg Keystage showed off the power of Property Exchange’s bi-directional communication and that some parts of MIDI 2.0 can even be implemented on 5 PIN!
MIDI Zone booths and Music X Stage
The MIDI Association booth was the hub of Hall N. Our booth was right next to the Music X Stage where we were abel to do many presentations over the course of 4 days.
As you can clearly see, The MIDI Association had a lot going on at Music China and we have tons more to share in the next few days.
We were inspired by the energy and passion for digital music making we saw at Music China and are already looking forward to next year.