The MIDI Manufacturers Association (MMA) and the Japanese MIDI association AMEI have been working behind the scenes on the next gen MIDO protocols and have announced that they have finalised the core features and name for the next generation MIDI protocol: MIDI 2.0.

Prototyping Next

Member companies are currently working together to develop prototypes based on a jointly developed, feature-complete, draft specification. The is a members-only ‘plugfest’ planned for NAM 2019 to test compatibility between some early MIDI 2.0 prototypes. Participating companies include Ableton/Cycling '74, Art+Logic, Bome Software, Google, imitone, Native Instruments, Roland, ROLI, Steinberg, TouchKeys, and Yamaha.

Having established the core features of MIDI 2.0 the 2 associations will be continuing to work with their member companies to to undertake the prototyping phase as well as the development of a MIDI 2.0 logo and self-certification program for MMA and AMEI member companies.

The MIDI 2.0 initiative will update MIDI with auto-configuration, new DAW/web integrations, extended resolution, increased expressiveness, and tighter timing, all whilst maintaining a high priority on backward compatibility. This major update of MIDI has been designed to pave the way for a new generation of advanced interconnected MIDI devices, while still preserving interoperability with the millions of existing MIDI 1.0 devices. One of the core goals of the MIDI 2.0 initiative is to also enhance the MIDI 1.0 feature set whenever possible.

Is The MIDI 2.0 Spec Available?

During the prototyping phase, the proposed MIDI 2.0 specification will only be available to MMA and AMEI members, as the prototyping process may trigger minor enhancements to the specification. Once a final specification is adopted, it will join the current MIDI specifications as a free download on the MIDI org website.

Everyone Should Be Involved

The MIDI Association encourage all companies that develop MIDI products to join the MMA to participate in the future development of the specification, and to keep abreast of other developments in MIDI technology.

It is interesting to see that neither Avid or PreSonus are listed as members on the MIDI Association list of members, whereas other DAW manufacturers like Ableton, Mark of the Unicorn, Make Music and Steinberg are members.