Hi everyone, hope this find you well. What do you think about these news?
What is the point of a MIDI 2.0 standard if each DAW will convert it to its own plugin format?
Since the JUCE team seems to be part of the conversation, may I ask what are the plans for JUCE? Is it going to convert this plugin specific data back to a yet another kind of structure that is somehow shared by each plugin format?
VST3 does not use MIDI directly, it is converted to Steinberg note events.
One of the main points of MIDI 2.0 is its higher resolution, messages offer smoother more detailed control. VST3 anticipated this and has had 32 bit resolution on note events and continuous controllers from the start, this allows plugins to experience a seamless upgrade to a higher resolution, with no effort or changes from the plugin developer.
Another advantage of MIDI 2.0 is better support for per-note controllers, and VST3 already supports that too via “note expressions”.
Audio Units support MIDI 2.0 directly for some time already. So that’s even better.
I’m concerned about the translation between Steinberg note events and MIDI 2.0 not being lossless (which in practice would mean breaking compatibility with MIDI 2.0).
If the plugins had direct access to MIDI 2.0, this wouldn’t happen, so in my view this doesn’t guarantee full compatibility with MIDI 2.0 and enables DAW makers as gate keepers of what parts of MIDI 2.0 will be implemented in the software realm. This sounds a recipe for disaster to me, considering what has happened with VST3 and MIDI 1.1.
That’s what I would have expected for all plugin formats…
If the plugins had direct access to MIDI 2.0
yep, reuk proposed an extension to VST3 to provide that.
Let’s hope that DAW vendors see the benefits of implementing it. I tried it in my software, took only about 1 hours work to support it.
