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MIDI, a standard for digital music since 1981, has been updated to MIDI 2.0. New MIDI 2.0 is not dependent on any particular hardware implementation such as USB or Ethernet. Some of the main goals of the new protocol are to provide higher resolution, more channels, and improved performance and expressiveness. Another change is a move from a byte stream to data packets.
MIDI 2.0 is designed to "deliver an unprecedented level of nuanced musical and artistic expressiveness," and leans on three key design decisions to do so. Firstly its new 32-bit resolution makes for smoother, continuous, analogue feel - if you want that. Controllers will be easy to use and there will be more of them. Lastly major timing advances are present in the standard.
Also at the MIDI Association's press release, Details about MIDI 2.0™, MIDI-CI, Profiles and Property Exchange.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday January 31 2020, @11:00PM (8 children)
Analog synths are just novelty/collector items now.
Most are built for the road. And it's nice when the equipment is ready to run when you flip the switch.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday January 31 2020, @11:07PM (4 children)
And try playing piano music on a laptop's QWERTY keyboard.
There is nothing more offputting than seeing a live electronic music performer sitting there stuck to only a single laptop with no keyboard controller or percussion pads or anything. That's okay for DJ's or anything designed to be background music, not the stage show itself. And people who spend their gigs typing and clicking on only a single laptop don't deserve to be called "performers."
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday February 01 2020, @02:05AM
And try playing piano music on a laptop's QWERTY keyboard.
I can only picture that as a form of dystopia. Sounds totally bizarre that people pay to sit and watch that. On the other hand, I hear people pay to watch people play video games, but at least that has betting potential.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Saturday February 01 2020, @05:21AM (2 children)
Do you know that the piano keyboard was the model that QWERTY built upon, when 19th century inventors were experimenting with keyboard layouts for typewriters? That's why the keys of the QWERTY keyboard do not line up in neat columns.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday February 01 2020, @09:21AM (1 child)
Are you sure? Because I'd say it would be significantly harder to make keys line up in vertical columns in a mechanical typewriter. The horizontal order of keys just reflects the horizontal order of the typebars. Therefore I'd say the non-vertical arrangement of the keys is simply because of the technical implications of the typewriter mechanics.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Saturday February 01 2020, @04:33PM
Pianos have somewhat the same mechanical issues. Of course, in the piano, the hammers each strike their own individual matching strings and never jam against each other, while the typewriter hammers on one small spot. But the main concern was to invoke the familiar. The keyboard of the Hall Braillewriter of 1892 is nearly identical to that of a piano. An early design was to have only 2 rows of keys, again just like a piano.
Internal mechanics have not been a design consideration ever since the advent of electronics. I keep wondering when a better arrangement of piano keys will become popular. One fairly common difficulty with piano keyboards is the "octave stretch". That's especially hard for children, with their small hands. I had to strain to do it when I had piano lessons as a kid. Perhaps at a minimum, a curved keyboard, so that the front of the piano key is narrower than the back? Or maybe, we'll pass on the whole issue because direct mental control will make the use of hands a quaint archaic way to play music.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @11:09PM (2 children)
"Acid" is digital now. Maybe in studio they find use for production use. All the more stupid to pack analog gears for road gigs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 01 2020, @02:09AM (1 child)
Oh christ! You sound like some euro-trash techno weenie with the black skinny jeans and emo hair!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 01 2020, @06:09AM
Too fat for skinny jeans. Not got much hair left. Still love me the tb303 grinding bassline.