Why Is MIDI Still Important: MIDI in the Modern Age of Computing
MIDI is a funny thing. It’s a relic of a time long gone – a time when computers as we know them were non-existent. Yet at 30+ years of age, the Musical Instrument Digital Interface protocol is still commonplace and a staple of electronic music rigs and recording studios around the world.
In the age of modern computing – with our high speed internet, terabyte hard drives and thunderbolt cables, why the hell do we still run to the shop to pick up a DIN cable? Why is MIDI still important in the modern age of computing?
A Brief History
MIDI came about as a fix to a problem in the world of early synthesizers and electronic musical instruments. Prior its inception, early synths could only interact via CV (control voltage). CV is still around today, though it’s quite an esoteric control system used by the deepest diving synth heads, often to control vintage synthesizers. Back then, CV control was an unregulated protocol that varied from manufacturer to manufacturer.
Developed by Dave Smith – yes, that Dave Smith; founder of Sequential Circuits and Dave Smith Instruments – MIDI originally came about as a universal protocol to allow any electronic instruments to communicate and work together.
A Very Long Life
Do a little research on MIDI and you will find haters from all over complaining that it is crude, dated, restrictive and on the cusp of becoming obsolete.
They are all correct.
Despite being dated and relatively restrictive, MIDI is still the most common way to link hardware instruments together – with or without a computer.
Any synthesizer, sequencer, or drum machine worth its salt has MIDI implementation. I use it to link all of my gear – standalone or with my laptop. Even USB gear without DIN connections use MIDI to communicate with DAWs.
Drum pad controllers? Yes.
Akai’s APC Ableton Live controller? Yea.
That cheap Alesis keyboard you found at the pawn shop? Yup…
What seems to have happened is that MIDI worked much better – and in more situations – than originally intended. Once the industry accepted it as the standard for cross-device communication, the industry settled. In the time since, it seems the industry had difficulty settling on a replacement protocol that kept pace with the rapid improvement of computing capabilities. Manufacturers created new devices and continued to use MIDI because everything else up to then was already using it – and nobody wanted to make a new device that was incompatible with all other devices on the market.
The Days are Numbered: Enter OSC
MIDI, for all its usefulness and versatility, is indeed becoming obsolete. The only thing keeping it alive is the fact that it is the industry standard. However, there is a new option available. It’s much less commonplace at the moment, but given some years it may catch steam and push MIDI into the history books.
This new protocol is OSC (Open Sound Control). It was developed at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies as a replacement for the dated MIDI protocol. Without getting too technical, OSC operates at a much higher resolution than MIDI, and is capable of much more than music. According to opensoundcontrol.org, the applications of OSC transcend musical performance and reach into the realms of web interfaces, robotics and virtual reality.
Now that sounds like the MIDI of the future… but can I sync my Roland TR-8 to my Korg Electribe 2 with it?
-AudioMunk
Looking for more information on implementing MIDI in your home studio? Check out this previously posted article:
Taming the Beast: MIDI Routing Devices
