MIDI 2.0 question

[bscenefilms]

1.0 - We have IN/OUT/THRU.  We daisy chain using THRU.  2.0 is a bidirectional connection so I presume will we have a single connection for IN/OUT.  But how will daisy chaining take place?

[olavsu1]

I think that, if in one case there are three midi jacks behind the synthesizer, then in the second case there are two midi jacks. And the connection works like high-end sound cards, where 10 or more units work as one.

[David Nahmani]

I suppose MIDI 2.0 devices will use USB for MIDI connection, so either use a USB hub, or if the device has two USB ports, then what @olavsu1 suggested. 

[bscenefilms]

Thanks gents.  We live in interesting times 🙂. I remember setting up the Chroma with the Chroma sequencer on the Apple 2 and how excited we were about the potential.  Then along came MIDI and it was off to the races 🙂

[David Nahmani]

Yes. Then again I remember everyone talking about MIDI 2.0 at a NAMM show back in... 2010? Something like that. Like it was going to be there the next year or two. Fast forward 13 years later and it's still nowhere near our studios. So I'm not holding my breath. 

[bscenefilms]

1.0 was announced what - a year before Dave Smith did his demo at NAMM? The adoption rate was pretty fast too - I think that demo was in 83.  I suspect the delay we are seeing with 2.0 has a lot to do with the fact that 1.0 still meets the needs of most producers.  When 1.0 came out, there was little in the way of alternatives.

[MikeRobinson]

How very quickly (or so, koff koff, it now seems ...) we went from "the only connection between the studio and the control room is a microphone jack, so we'll use that," to "a wireless router" and "USB-C."  But I find it very interesting that MIDI, originally invented for microphone cables and 8-bit microprocessors which could barely get out of their own way, still survives with very few changes.  Those engineering designers did a damned good job of defining a simple, flexible protocol that still works.

Edited April 19, 2023 by MikeRobinson

[bscenefilms]

3 hours ago, MikeRobinson said:

How very quickly (or so, koff koff, it now seems ...) we went from "the only connection between the studio and the control room is a microphone jack, so we'll use that," to "a wireless router" and "USB-C."  But I find it very interesting that MIDI, originally invented for microphone cables and 8-bit microprocessors which could barely get out of their own way, still survives with very few changes.  Those engineering designers did a damned good job of defining a simple, flexible protocol that still works.

Dave Smith was a certifiable genius.  40 years on and this technology is still used EVERYWHERE.  Talk about foresight in design!

[des99]

4 hours ago, MikeRobinson said:

Those engineering designers did a damned good job of defining a simple, flexible protocol that still works.

Yes, but not to be overlooked was that it was *cheap to implement*. This meant device makers would be much more open to incorporating those features onto their devices, which massively speed up interest and adoption.

If the protocol had been a lot more expensive to implement, MIDI as we know it might not have caught on in the way it did, and while some kind of digital communications protocol was probably inevitable somewhere in history, it might have happened much later, be less standardised, and have been replaced with newer things much like other computer-based protocols (SCSI, etc) did.

It really was a unique confluence of people, events, forward-thinking and timing that MIDI worked out as it did - one of the few remaining digital protocols still actively in use today.

There are plenty of articles about MIDI in the mu:zines archive, including people talking about a next generation of MIDI just a few years after the first version was released. If they were told that MIDI as they knew it then would more or less be exactly the same and be used actively for the same purpose some *forty years down the line*, they'd have not believed it!

Edited April 19, 2023 by des99