An update to a 37-year-old digital protocol could profoundly change the way music sounds

https://qz.com/1788828/how-will-midi-2-0-change-music/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

January 30, 2020
By Dan Kopf

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Though MIDI has done an exceptional job of digitizing music for the last 37 years, it hasn’t been perfect. MIDI quantizes music, meaning it forces music components into a particular value. In MIDI 1.0, all data was in 7-bit values. That means musical qualities were quantized on a scale of 0 to 127. Features like volume, pitch, and how much of the sound should come out of the right or left speaker are all measured on this scale, with 128 possible points. This is not a lot of resolution. For some really sophisticated listeners, they can clearly hear the steps between points.

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In early January 2020, the MIDI Manufacturers Association, the nonprofit organization that manages MIDI, announced the release of MIDI 2.0. The new protocol involved years of work from the organization’s volunteers, and getting companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, and all of the major music manufacturers on board.

There are a few major changes in the new version. The biggest development is the expansion from 7-bit values to 32-bit values. Mike Kent, one of the technical leaders in creating MIDI 2.0, says this is like going from the resolution of a 1980s television to the high-def televisions of today. It means that instead of 128 steps for features like volume, there will now be billions. An area where producers think this might be particularly helpful is allowing for subtle “pitch bend” (see the video below) and controlling how much bass and treble are emphasized in every note.

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Also, with more memory, there are simply many more possible features that MIDI 2.0 can try to emulate. More memory should also reduce the chance of the timing between playing a MIDI instrument and digital recording to be slightly off. This should mean music played on MIDI 2.0 instruments will feel more analog, and make it possible for non-keyboard instruments to work better with MIDI.

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The fact that MIDI 2.0 is bidirectional has two major effects. First, it means that it is backwards compatible, and won’t make the billions of MIDI 1.0 devices already out in the world obsolete. Second, MIDI 2.0 devices will be able to communicate with each other about how features should be digitized, making life a lot easier on music makers, because they don’t have to address this later on.

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Adam Neely points out that most of the effects won’t be heard for years, or perhaps decades. The amount of choice MIDI 2.0 allows may now seem superfluous, but he thinks it’s hard to know what music will sound like 50 years from now. The recent MIDI update could allow people to build musical worlds we can’t yet imagine.