HD-MIDI™ Working Group Forms

MIDI Industry Investigates Major Update to MIDI Protocol

October 5, 2005

A proposal for High-Definition MIDI protocol (HD-MIDI™) is now being discussed by members of the MIDI Manufacturers Association (MMA), the industry non-profit organization that is responsible for maintaining and extending MIDI. This major update to MIDI would provide greater resolution in data values, increase the number of MIDI Channels, and support the creation of entirely new kinds of MIDI messages.

"MIDI has worked fantastically for over 20 years, but with today's computers and microprocessors we can do much more than MIDI was originally designed to do", said Tom White, MMA President and CEO. "But more important is that we are going to make these improvements without abandoning all of the great hardware and software that already exists."

The new high-definition messages are expected to coexist with MIDI 1.0 messages, allowing software and hardware devices to use whatever combination of message types makes the most sense for the application and the transport (MIDI-DIN, USB, IEEE-1394, etc.). Though intended primarily to allow higher-resolution versions of existing MIDI messages, the extension mechanism that has been proposed for HD-MIDI can also be used to create entirely new messages previously unavailable in MIDI.

An introduction to the HD-MIDI concept will be made by MMA Technical Standards Board members at AES on Saturday, October 8, from 10am-11am in AES Standards Meeting Room 2, and again at NAMM in January 2006. Any manufacturer or software developer interested in being involved in the development of HD-MIDI can attend these presentations to learn more about the MMA standards process.

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