It took 37 years and maybe it won't even be released this year but it's definitely coming. Roland's new A88 controller keyboard is stated by Roland as Midi 2.0 ready so hoping on a sooner than later release.
Here you go mates:
https://www.midi.org/articles-old/details-about-midi-2-0-midi-ci-profiles-and-property-exchange

 

Nice! i dont even had midi 1 and the 2 is already coming, things works fast

 

great news! looking forward to higher resolution mostly.

 

Fast? It's only taken 40 years

 

I think it's a pet rock that's going to take a decade to sort out exactly why anybody would need all this complexity.

 

MIDI Blind Test parties coming soon as well....
Midi 1 vs Midi 2...

 

MIDI 2.0 reeks of fallacious new technology memes. There’s ‘more equals better’ and ‘build it and they will come’. But the poisonous one is the random gibberish fallacy. Random gibberish contains a vast number of possible sentences, of which, sensible sentences are a subset. Therefore, talking random gibberish is better than talking sense.

It’s going to take generations of sequencer software to perfect the myriad combinations of complexity all the profiles, message exchanges and configuration options MIDI 2.0 lards into hardware, firmware and software, and all for what reason? Because it might come in handy. MIDI 1.0 does what instrument control needs; MIDI 2.0 does what fantasists want.

 

My understanding is that Midi 2.0 will make me a better composer.

 

Your entire comment is so misguided it's not even funny. First of all, MIDI 1 isn't going anywhere, this is where the whole "backwards compatibility" business kicks in, so it's all opt-in.

You also very much gloss over the very real problems MIDI has as of now, we've had so much stuff tacked on to the protocol that wasn't designed to support it in the first place it's painful to deal with on the protocol level. Actually I'm not sure a MIDI parser that can handle all of it even exists, or if it's even possible. Certainly no MIDI library I've come across. So yes, a clean break is in order, and it's not like it's not been attempted previously, you have/had mLAN, OSC and what else? Having a solid, agreed upon standard is the way forward.

And for fantasists, they're like Roland, Korg, Yamaha, Steinberg or Ableton, amirite?

 

ROTFL. I can smell statements like "MIDI 1.0 sounds so much warmer, more analog feelz, lush, if processed through platinum cables"

 

Luckily MIDI isn't controlled by Apple otherwise we'd all be fucked with compatibility issues when MIDI 2 arrives.

 

I'm not against improvements. But Midi 1 is that deeply integrated into hard- and software I think it will take ages to integrate Midi 2 this deep.

So, ATM the 100% backwards compatibility is the most important feature I can imagine from V2. Otherwise it'll make a real mess.

Even the MPE extension isn't used much (only by Seaboard at the moment?) and is quite complicated to handle from a DAW.

So for me, pesonally, I don't see many advantages in Midi 2 (higher resolution may be) but a lot more complex environment with the chance of a big heap of problems I may need to care about if not properly implemented by every vendor in the chain.

 

Last edited: Jan 17, 2020

only with the newest win10/catalina OS and midi2 rent to never own vst apps...

 

and this in todays customers main beta testers times...helau helau

 

...

Pick one.

MIDI is a clearly defined protocol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIDI#Technical_specifications; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIDI_1.0. Do you mean stuff like GM/GX extensions? CC#?

 

So we can rename it to MIDI2ALL

 

Keep MIDI 1.0 as is, evolve using 2.0. Keep electrical connectivity same.

I've got the protocol docs, thank you very much.

MPE, NRPN, MTC, MMC etc. are all pretty much tacked on on top of the original protocol, and proper timestamping is at the mercy of the implementers. Yeah, let's just Sysex the shit out of everything, that'll do the trick.

Maybe I'm the fantasist, wishing for something a bit more than basic noteon/offs and 2^7 CC numbers.

*edit* If I may make a computer analogy, MIDI is kind of like the HTTP of music electronics, a simple, well defined protocol designed for one simple thing that gets everything added on top of it, most of it which it is not suited for.

It's ubiquitous, but mostly for the wrong reasons.

 

well, considering that 40 years ago there was no kind of midi, and the earth is 4,543bi years old I guess it's very fast :v

 

You mean like ... them 5-pin DINs (that no one even used since the last century)? "Backward compatibility" doesn't mean "keep the same cables & stick them into similar holes." To be backward-compatible, MIDI2 hardware will have to speak fluent MIDI1 & expand on it (or "tack on" some stuff to the protocol, as you put it).

 

Well, if you can't use DINs then would it be backwards compatible?

You do understand that regardless of transport we can keep the protocols separate, or rather encapsulate it if need to be. Bit like a CAT6 ethernet cable can carry all kinds of packets or a web server can serve both HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2.0.

But this pedantry is going nowhere. I've really nothing further to add.