- New Companies Join MMA - - PG Music Forums

MMA is the MIDI Manufacturers Association. I hope forum users will find this news interesting since MIDI is such an important component of music production, Band-in-a-Box and RealBand or PowerTracks Pro.

The MIDI Manufacturers Association is in the planning stage of updating the MIDI specification. As word of the update spreads several companies are joining the association so they can participate in updating the standard. I copied the text below from a the MMA newsletter. You can join the MMA for free or sign up for the newsletter at +++ the association's website +++

Quote:

The MIDI Manufacturers Association (MMA) announced that Ableton, Aodyo, Audio Modeling, Art and Logic, Melodics, Mind Music Labs, Native Instruments, OnSong, RnD64, and TouchKeys have joined the MMA to collaborate with other hardware and software developers on extending the power of MIDI technology. The planned update to the MIDI specification will support new levels of musical expression and make electronic instruments easier to configure and use.

Standardised in 1983, MIDI 1.0 has adapted over the years to support evolving operating systems and data transmission protocols.

This new initiative updates MIDI with auto-configuration, new DAW/Web integrations, extended resolution, increased expressiveness, and tighter timing -- all while maintaining a high priority on backward compatibility. This major update of MIDI will support the development of a new generation of interconnected devices, and preserve the relevance of existing MIDI 1.0 devices.

“Our goal is to assemble a diverse group of companies of different sizes and business models and help them come to consensus on how to make their products interoperable using MIDI technology,” explained Tom White, President of the MMA.

It will be interesting to see what changes in the MIDI specification, and how it is implemented.

And how it overlaps with Music XML, which showed great promise but has flawed implementation.

I hope the new MIDI standard at least includes chord info and symbols.

There are a lot of interesting changes that are being discussed . Two way communication between the computer and the MIDI instruments, a jump from 16 channels to 256, and the possibility of a slew of new op codes.

KeithS is so right. There is already a lot of new activity in progress with MIDI standards. Some of you may remember the MIDI Association announced two specifications back in January, 2018.

One example is the +++ MIDI Capability Inquiry (MIDI CI) +++. MIDI CI enable devices to automatically inquire and set features that improve compatibility and simplify configuration.