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: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 01 2020, @12:16AM
MIDI is, at best, half-duplex. To have two-way communication, you actually have to have two different MIDI devices in the same physical device and devices may not be able to be 100% sure they are the same physical device. In addition, only one message can be on the wire at a time. Together, you end up with a half-duplex type situation. This limitation exists regardless of your hardware transport or the extensions in use. By explicitly allowing bidirectional communication, you don't have to do the two device hack and go full-duplex. They also lift the restriction on one recipient per message and byte stream situation. Coupled with the jitter resolution they added, timing problems could be a thing of the past with proper latency measurements. And some of those latency measurements can be more easily enabled thanks to the bidirectional nature of MIDI 2.0.