Tag: NAMM 2025

The MIDI Association and its members will provide updates on the latest developments in the major operating systems.

Microsoft announced updates to both MIDI and Audio at the Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit 2024 including better APIs which support MIDI, including MIDI 2.0 and full support for low-latency, high-channel-count audio, using standards already accepted by the industry. 

Apple, Google and Linux are all continuing their MIDI 2.0 updates to support new MIDI Association specifications.

If you are a developer of MIDI products, this is a presentation you won’t want to to miss. 

The MIDI Association member companies that develop plugin formats – Apple (Audio Units), Avid (AAX), Bitwig (CLAP) and Steinberg (VST) are working together to  develop open-source software that will enable plugin developers to quickly and easily interface with external MIDI gear without the need for any in depth knowledge of MIDI 2.0 or MIDI-CI.  Another MIDI Association member supporting this effort is JUCE – the most widely used framework for audio application and plug-in development.

The MIDI Association DAW working group is creating open source software that will look at MIDI 2.0 messages from external devices, extract the information the plugin needs to support Profiles like the Orchestral Articulation, MPE and Piano profiles and translate those MIDI messages into the native plug formats that plugins already understand.

By utilizing this open source software, plugin companies can start supporting MIDI 2.0 external devices with minimal development costs. 

Before Super Booth in May of 2024, The MIDI Association hosted the first meeting of the DAW working group at the Native Instruments office in Berlin, where the companies agreed to work together to develop open-source software available under a permissive MIT license to bridge the gap between external MIDI Devices, Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs), and plugins. That cooperative project is ongoing in the MIDI Association’s DAW Working Group.

The DAW Working Group is also working on a DAW Control Profile which would supersede proprietary control protocols like Mackie Control and Logic control with a true industry standard for controlling DAWs via external hardware and software.

The MIDI Association will report on the weekly meetings of the DAW Working Group at Music China 2024, ADC 2024, and NAMM Show 2025.

At NAMM 2024, we showed off a working prototype of the MIDI 2.0 Piano Profile connecting a Roland A-88MKII controller keyboard to Synthogy’s Ivory plugin via Apple Logic running in standalone mode.

This year we focused on two other important parts of the Piano Profile- DAW Plugin support and implementation guidelines with accompanying Audio and MIDI files.

The MIDI Association member companies that develop plugin formats – Apple (Audio Units), Avid (AAX), Bitwig (CLAP) and Steinberg (VST) are creating open source software to help plugins handle MIDI 2.0 without requiring a plugin company to have either a SysEx ID or even in depth knowledge of MIDI. 2.0. 

The MIDI Association DAW working group is creating open source software that will look at MIDI 2.0 messages from external devices, extract the information the plugin needs to support Profiles like the Orchestral Articulation, MPE and Piano profiles and translate those MIDI messages into the native plug formats that plugins already understand.

AMEI (the Japanese MIDI Standards body) has also worked to create audio samples and MIDI files for use in testing and validating that a device accurately supports the velocity and pedal curves of the Piano profile. These will be included along with an implementation guideline in the final Profile specification. 

Mike Kent- Amenote, Chair of MIDI 2.0 WG/MIDI Association Executive Board

Dave Starkey- Chair Piano Profile WG, MIDI Association Technical Standards Board

Gary Girouard- Music Technology at Steinway & Sons

Francisco J. Rodriguez- Software Manager at Young Chang R&D Institute (Kurzweil)

Kohtaro Ilimura- KAWAI Musical Instruments Technology Planning Group – UX Design

The MIDI Association has made significant progress this year in developing some Profiles focused on electronic drums and drum machines. 

The Default Drum Map Profile  defines a MIDI-CI Profile for a default mapping of specific drums to specific Note Numbers. The note map used in this Profile was established by many products in the 1980s as a commonly used set of note assignments for drum sounds and that was later standardized in General MIDI.

Many drum machines, grooveboxes, keyboard workstations, portable keyboards, digital pianos, and software synthesizers (many of which do NOT support the full GM specification) have drum kits that utilize this drum kit mapping because of the vast quantity of MIDI data available that will play properly with these drum maps. 

Electronic Drums are one of the most successful categories of MIDI instruments.

Most electronic drums from different manufacturers share a common set of features (standard MIDI messages including velocity, pan,etc.) as well as more drum specific features (choking of cymbals, positional sensing of cymbals and drums, etc). However, the MIDI messages used to control these features have not been standardized and mainly rely on manufacturer specific SysEx. A MIDI-CI Profile would define far greater interoperability, unifying the industry behind a common set of MIDI messages.

Steve Fisher- Director – Drums Product Development Medeli

Ben Israel- Research and Content Design Manager -Yamaha

Mike Kent- Chair of MIDI 2.0 WG/MIDI Association Executive Board.Drum Profile  Chair Co Founder Amenote, 

Mike Snyder -Innovation Manager, Electronic Instruments at Avedis Zildjian Company

Ikuo Kakehashi- Founder of BAC Audio  a team of master electronic instrument engineers who worked on  Zildjian’s new  ALCHEM-E series electronic drum kits,

For many years starting even before the formal  foundation of The MIDI Association in 1985, The MIDI Association would hold annual meetings at NAMM.  Since 2021, we have had those internal meetings during December to elect our new Executive Board and Technical Standards Boards.  

Please join us as we introduce the new MIDI Association Executive and Technical Standards Boards, review the previous year’s progress and take a look at what we want to accomplish in 2025.

After some quick presentations, members of The MIDI Association will be available for questions from the press, developers and people who create music and art with MIDI.

Meet all the musical instrument, software and app innovators at NAMM! Everyone gets the mic in this networking session. Give your 30-second introduction, connect faces to names around the room, then break to network one on one. Leave with connections to collaborators, customers, allies, and friends.

The DAW Working Group is working on a DAW Control Profile which would supersede proprietary control protocols like Mackie Control and Logic Control with a true industry standard for controlling DAWs via external hardware and software.

With MIDI 2.0 support already beginning to appear in Digital Audio Workstations, plugin developers are benefitting from the work being done by the MIDI Association member companies that develop those plugin formats – Apple (Audio Units), Avid (AAX), Bitwig (CLAP) and Steinberg (VST).

Mike Kent- Amenote, Chair of MIDI 2.0 WG/MIDI Association Executive Board

Andrew Mee- Yamaha, Chair of Developer Support WG/MIDI Association Technical Standards Board

Dice Naito- FSK Audio

The MIDI Association will present John Bowen, Katsuhiko “Karl” Hirano, Tadao Kikumoto, Tetsuo Nishimoto, Chris Meyer, Jeff Rona and Brian Vincik with MIDI Association Lifetime Achievement awards for their contributions to MIDI from 1983 to 1990.

John Bowen- John Bowen was a product specialist and sound designer at Sequential Circuits during the early days of the synthesizer boom of the late 1970s. John worked with Sequential founder Dave Smith and then with Karl Hirano and Dave at the Dave Smith Division of Yamaha and at Korg R&D San Jose. Brian Vincik and John were in charge of the dissemination of the MIDI specification around the world in the early chaotic days of MIDI before The MIDI Association was formed in 1985.

Katsuhiko “Karl” Hirano ( 平野 勝彦 Hirano Katsuhiko)- Karl worked for both Yamaha and Korg. At Yamaha he worked on the DX7 (one of the very first products to implement MIDI) and headed up communications between the Japanese MIDI organization and The MIDI Association in MIDI’s early years. He worked in San Jose with Yamaha’s Dave Smith division and then moved with Dave Smith to Korg when Korg R&D was established. Hirano-san passed away in 2019. 

Tadao Kikumoto (菊本忠男, Kikumoto Tadao) was Roland’s senior managing director and head of its R&D center. He designed the TB-303 bass synthesizer and the TR-909 drum machine. He was also the chief engineer of the Roland TR-808 drum machine.  He made suggestions for the early MIDI 1.0 spec that included adding Tempo, Start, and Stop messages.

Chris Meyer was the first chair of the MIDI Association’s Technical Standard Board and worked at Sequential Circuits, Digidesign, Marion Systems (Tom Oberheim), and Roland R&D U.S. His work as the first TSB chair led to many important developments in MIDI including MIDI Time Code and the Sample Dump Standard. Today he runs the website, Facebook page, and YouTube channel LEARNING MODULAR, where he teaches others how to master modular synthesis.

Tetsuo Nishimoto (西元 哲夫, Nishimoto, Tetsuo) worked in the LM Design at Nippon Gakki Co. (Yamaha).  He drafted the initial responses to the Universal Synthesizer Interface proposal from Dave Smith that eventually became MIDI. He also helped create the very first Yamaha synths including the legendary GS1 and the DX7 taking Yamaha on a path from home organs to synthesizers.

Jeff Rona is an American composer for film. He was a member of Hans Zimmer’s MediaVentures. His credits include Sharkwater, Traffic, God of War III, Phantom and Veeram. Jeff Rona was the founder and past president of MMA, the MIDI Manufacturers Association (DBA The MIDI Association). Jeff has also been a judge in The MIDI Innovation Awards for several years. 

Brian Vincik- Brian formed the first MIDI user group called the International MIDI Association (IMA)  in 1983 which was the sole source for the MIDI specification 1.0 (outside of Japan) in those early years in MIDI’s development. Brian was an engineer at Hewlett Packard and saw right away the potential that MIDI could have on the computer industry. The IMA was responsible for distributing the MIDI specification for several years during MIDI’s formative years. 

The Network MIDI 2.0 (UDP) Transport Specification defines a way to connect home studios or performance venues via Ethernet and wireless LAN on a local area network using MIDI 1.0 and MIDI 2.0 UMP packets. 

The advantages of using a network for MIDI are:

Overall advantages: 

• UDP can be sent over both Ethernet cables and wireless networks.
• Logical connection setup (Session Management)
  • The user has full control over which device is able to send/receive MIDI with which other device (or application)
  • The connection topology can be changed in software without having to move physical cables.
  • Many MIDI streams (sessions) can be configured on the same cable
  • Simple security mechanisms available in Network MIDI 2.0 help prevent unauthorized access
• Peer to peer connection is possible without the need to route data through a computer.

Ethernet Advantages

• Long distance
  • Ethernet cables can transmit data up to 100 meters without any signal loss or degradation.
• Low latency
  • Typical latency on Ethernet is below 1ms
• High bandwidth
  • 100MBit/s or 1GBit/s bandwidth on Ethernet
  • One cable is enough for many logical connections
• Auto-Discovery
  • Can select devices to connect by name
• Ground isolation
  • Physical connections are electrically isolated, reducing the chances of electrical grounding noise issues.
• Off-the-shelf parts and infrastructure
  • Cables, routers, switches, and components are readily available and cost effective
  • Many transports for audio already use Ethernet. Some of those are open standards (i.e. AES67) and some are proprietary. Being able to run MIDI 2.0 as a control protocol over the same cables that run audio can greatly expand the use of MIDI 2.0.

Panelists: 

Florian Bomers – Chair  of the Network Working Group / President and founder of Bome Software which has developed and released MIDI and audio software for Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and Linux. The BomeBox™: a versatile USB, MIDI, and Ethernet connector and processor.

Pete Brown- MIDI Association Executive Board Chair/ Microsoft Software Engineer

Andrew Mee-Chair of the MIDI 2.0 Developer Support working group, Yamaha designated rep  and developer of the MIDI Workbench

Mike Kent- Chair of The MIDI 2.0 Working Group/Co-Founder/Chief Strategy Officer of AmeNote Inc.

Nan Tang (artist name tamiX) who runs Midifan, the largest Music Production website in China will interview Hotone, Medeli, MIDI Plus  Robkoo and Synido about the latest developments in MIDI technology in China.

Nan Tang (artist name tamiX)- Moderator

 Nan Tang (artist name tamiX) is a Buchla modular synthesizer player, visual artist, photo idol, skateboard coach, founder of Midifan, the largest Music Production website in China.

Lancy Cheng – MEDELI – Senior Vice President of MEDELI Brand Development, Product Planning, China Sales

Tom Liu Director of Products at Hotone Audio, 

Tom leads the design and development of innovative and interesting solutions for electronic musical instruments. Heading up a new MIDI 2.0 digital effects Profiles working group

Oscar Xie- CEO & Founder of Robkoo, Previously worked at Alibaba and WeChat.

Robkoo was founded by geeks, musicians, technology enthusiasts and designers with an ambitious mission while staying practical. We’re determined to create more futuristic products in digital arts while keeping them easy to use.

Marco Zheng, CEO and Founder of Synido

Marco has spearheaded the brand’s mission to empower content creators with high-quality audio interfaces and MIDI equipment, reflecting the energetic spirit of the younger generation and enhancing their online presence.

The Special Interest Group on Music Accessibility allows artists, researchers, and others in the music production community to interact directly with MIDI Association companies and provides a forum for discussions surrounding music accessibility and MIDI.

We will review the “Inclusive Design within Audio Products: What, Why, How?” workshop from this year’s Audio Developer Conference. Curated by Jay Pocknell, Music Support Officer at RNIB and founder of Sound Without Sight, this covered the principles of music accessibility and shared examples of accessible products already on the market.

Haim Kairy of Arcana Instruments will moderate the panel and talk about his journey in developing the Arcana Strum after being inspired by a young girl with accessibility challenges and how it led him to his work with Bettermaker.

Lele Parravinci and Simone Capitani from Audio Modeling will discuss the UniMIDIhub, the 2024 MIDI Innovation Award winner in the non-commercial software category and their vision for the future of music accessibility.

Jason Barnes and Matt Bankston talk about their work to enable musicians with disabilities to continue to create and perform music via their nonprofit Cybernetic Sound.

Jason Barnes’ journey is one of resilience and inspiration. After losing his right hand and forearm in an accident in 2012, he turned his adversity into an opportunity. With a passion for music that remained undiminished, Jason worked on developing prosthetic devices that enabled him to continue playing drums.

Matt Bankston, a multi-instrument musician and producer, whose journey is marked by overcoming the challenges of severe hemophilia, reflects a deep understanding of the struggles faced by musicians with disabilities.

The Bettermaker, a trailblazer in professional audio technology, proudly announces a groundbreaking accessibility feature designed to empower blind and physically impaired music producers. This innovation enables seamless control of Bettermaker hardware and plugins through voice commands, built with cutting edge open source AI software , complemented by real-time voice feedback for precise parameter adjustments.

The MIDI Association believes that music should be accessible to everyone.

For several years now the Audio & Music Technology program at Riverside City College has helped The MIDI Association by providing students with the opportunity to attend the NAMM show and staff The MIDI Association booth.  This year, at the request of the students, we are stepping up our game.

A few weeks prior to the NAMM Show, MIDI Association members donated multiple MIDI instruments and devices to Riverside City College.  With the help of student Music Industry Club leaders and Professor Jennifer Amaya, students were assigned to learn these instruments and come up with various ways to perform on them – as soloists, in small ensembles, and in a large ensemble format.

Special thanks to Artiphon, Caedence, Jamstik, Playtime Engineering, Robkoo and others for their donations to the all-MIDI jam.

Come see what this group of talented young music production students have been inspired to create with MIDI.