So MIDI is no longer a dirty word around here?!?

[MoltenVoltage]

I haven't checked in in a few years and lo and behold, MIDI projects are popping up left and right.

I was wondering when you all were going to see the light.  Anyway, glad it's finally happening, even if you aren't using my chips.   

The more MIDI the merrier...

.:. Bill

[mth5044]

Never had anything against it, but I also don't know much about it. I don't see how it could fit into my rig, so it's easy to not really give t a second thought. Do you'd like to enlighten me, I'll listen.

[aron]

What? I made my living programming with MIDI!

[R.G.]

MIDI's OK if you need that kind of thing. I had to learn communications protocols pretty much for every new project in my former life. It's another communications protocol, with its own frames, data, and special cases. It was "invented" as a perver... er, enhancement  of high speed RS232. I remember hacking a serial interface card to talk MIDI not long after the IBM Personal Computer came out.

I have big doubts whether your typical guitarist can deal with MIDI, or will go learn MIDI well enough to make it useful.

Of course, your typical guitarist is now much more familiar with computers, at least feeling the outside covering, than they once were. Maybe.

The biggiest issue with MIDI or any other computer protocol is the user interface, and particularly the need for a user interface. MIDI requires some way to communicate with a computer to talk about the data stream. In my mind, that's the biggest drawback. You have to learn something other than twisting the knobs and flipping the switches.

Maybe new-school guitarists will be OK with it.

[MoltenVoltage]

I have big doubts whether your typical guitarist can deal with MIDI, or will go learn MIDI well enough to make it useful.

Of course, your typical guitarist is now much more familiar with computers, at least feeling the outside covering, than they once were. Maybe.

The biggiest issue with MIDI or any other computer protocol is the user interface, and particularly the need for a user interface. MIDI requires some way to communicate with a computer to talk about the data stream. In my mind, that's the biggest drawback. You have to learn something other than twisting the knobs and flipping the switches.

Historically I agree that was the problem, but that's only because engineers made MIDI gear rather than musicians, so the typical interfaces were fairly obtuse and the manuals were more like homework.

Apple figured out how to make computers that don't require any sort of scientific background and have a very small learning curve, and the same is being done with the better MIDI gear.

[R.G.]

I'm a non-partisan on the topic. I did my first MIDI parser back in the 90s, and have tried - and turned down - a few proposed interfaces for MIDI on pedals.  If it can be cased up in a layer of "Do what I meant", great.

In a way, it helps with marketing. Not as many people can program uCs as can solder pots.   

[anotherjim]

Depends what you want to do.

Tempo sync is probably the most common ask, but unless we already have a uC in the box, I think installing midi only for clock is a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Before midi, we had a simple pulse, although (of course) manufacturers differed on how to do it. If we used similar, there already are products to convert these older pulse clocks to midi clock and vice-versa if you must have midi clock - but if we only wanted to sync between a few of our own devices, pulse over a mono screened cable with mini-jack connectors is what I'd use. The so called "S trigger" favoured by Moog (all that entails is an open-collector BJT in the master "sinking" a pull-up on the input at the slave) is probably the best way to do it. Even if we have a uC in the box, for something like a wave-table LFO, a simple pulse clock would be the easiest way to give it external sync.

Another reason (and perhaps a better one) for midi  is to enable parameter automation, saving and recall. Problem is that there aren't many projects that include controls that are cheap and easy to "wrap" midi control around. That said, we've seen, after saying for the last 20 years that it would never again be viable, a return of good old analogue synthesisers from some major brands in the keyboard world. Not only that, but they've managed to wrap it with digital parameter control and midi at a price that isn't prohibitive. Recently I've been pondering just how I might do it in a stompbox. It's a question of how complex the FX is before it becomes worthwhile. I think I can set a Big Muff how I want faster than I can say "Parameter recall".

[R.G.]

For an example, when I designed the Time Bandit for Visual Sound (which is now "Truetone") we considered MIDI inputs for programming.

It wasn't much extra hardware, just doing the MIDI parser and a link into the already existing tap timing programming. 

We rejected MIDI on the basis of it adding more cost in the form of connectors and size on the decidedly small enclosure, adding complexity for most users in the form of having to ignore that MIDI stuff, and added not much function because the Time Bandit reads click tracks directly as audio signals and turns those into taps intelligently, following the tempo of the clicks and tapping a few times but not persistently when the tempo changes.

A MIDI to tap signal box is simple; see the thread on the Arduino based MIDI tapper. However, unless the player already has the user interface in the form of a laptop or some such which employs MIDI, and the skill set for using MIDI, it's a huge set of prerequisites to need for any one additional function on a pedalboard.

Another example. I keep redesigning the programmable footswitcher I've been working on since about 2003. I once spent some time designing a MIDI input for it. I backed that out when some thought led me to the idea that all it was doing was inserting another layer of required thinking between a guitarist and his sound. The ability to stomp a switch and have the sound automagically transform to something you have experienced and expect is pretty simple. The ability to set that up by just messing about with the footswitches and telling them to "remember this combination" is also simple, so that's what I did.

A MIDI application on a laptop or phone with either a bluetooth or cable link to the footpedal setup would let you case up the programming in a simple user interface, but playing a dim, smoky country bar behind chicken wire makes the laptop user interface harder to use. 

[armdnrdy]

And then there is another important issue....

Where do you put the laptop where you could access it? On top of your amp?

If you did that...where would you put your beer? It looks like midi would upset the whole apple cart! 

[R.G.]

And then the obvious question: where do you put the >apple cart<?   

[aron]

>Where do you put the laptop where you could access it? On top of your amp?

No, you guys are thinking incorrectly :-)

unrealBook on the iPad with bluetooth MIDI interface.
You dial up your song, everything's there and your pedals or parameters switch instantly.

[R.G.]

Yep, familiar with that. It's true that as gadgets get smaller and smarter, some day everyone will have one. Smartphones and tablets are close. It might even be reasonable at some point to mentally think of a tablet as part of the pedalboard. But it's still a user interface gadget for the pedals.

It's a great, sliding continuum. At one point are discrete knobs and switches, at the other are graphic or text interface devices that prefilter the needs of the pedalboard and communicate to the pedals. None of this is very tough, but there are steps in there, where you have to go to different user interfaces. The menus and scrolling wheels of the rackmount FX era comes to mind.

Then there's the issue of what to do with all the hardware of the past. It's very hard to automate a vintage fuzz face, for example. It's possible, of course, with something like an external button pusher/knob turner that eats data stream on one end and messes with the pedal at the other.  But again, the onus is on the player to know and prepare for how to make those changes. Entirely possible, entirely feasible if the player puts in the effort.

[Ice-9]

Yeah, programming a whole set so that every effect is turned on/off and playback of each backing track is good. that is if your a solo or duo playing to backing tracks. When your drummer or other band member decides to play a song coz that's the way the crowd goes is another matter.

Midi itself on the other hand is pretty good, just don't allow your iPhone or other device to control your whole music life.

[PRR]

I do not even have a smart-phone, but I been reading about the iPad.

Its smell-corrector understands many words, also where you may be inserting a friend's name, or numbers, or jargon. Even makes letter-tap areas bigger according to what it thinks your next letter will be. Yes, it is impurfect, but we must follow Progress.

Why can't the box recognize, from the opening notes, what *song* you are playing, and switch itself to the fuzz/reverb/EQ settings which you like?

It should also recognize when you are low on beer and flag the bartender.

[Ice-9]

I do not even have a smart-phone, but I been reading about the iPad.

Its smell-corrector understands many words, also where you may be inserting a friend's name, or numbers, or jargon. Even makes letter-tap areas bigger according to what it thinks your next letter will be. Yes, it is impurfect, but we must follow Progress.

Why can't the box recognize, from the opening notes, what *song* you are playing, and switch itself to the fuzz/reverb/EQ settings which you like?

It should also recognize when you are low on beer and flag the bartender.

And when your too pissed to play , insert the correct notes, or if your feeling cheeky make the bass player play in the wrong key, ohh wait a minute he does that already. 

[trixdropd]

I like MIDI, always have. I'm still studying it.

[aron]

> It should also recognize when you are low on beer and flag the bartender.

Don't worry about that, they are already trying to stop any beer from coming our way.

[karbomusic]

Where do you put the laptop where you could access it? On top of your amp?

Guitar players are essentially cavemen in 2015 from a technology perspective. I'm one of them but it is purely a simplicity vs complexity thing. I'm a complexity/techno/debugging/computer nut in my day job and at gigs I just want to play the guitar while making funny faces to escape the other 98% of my life with typically minimal tech.

However, the idea that musicians and the like don't know where to set the tablet/laptop is a really, really archaic idea by now since stages these days there are computers and laptops all over the place performing a myriad of musical tasks. Many of the kids I hang out with in my DAW forums use them exclusively the same way we use pedal boards, not to mention the rest of them use a tablet or laptop to replace the majority of the PA system, synthesizers, and even amps (amp SIMS).

As far as MIDI, it's typically just an extra layer for me to deal with (see above). There was a time many years ago (when I was a "pro"), I used MIDI to control stuff on stage, then I went back to pedals because all the MIDI was doing was changing presets on a device which contained all my sounds, being a single device it sort of stained everything with a similar character. I later found I much more enjoyed the separation of separately designed and built pedals which do not share circuitry with each other and MIDI mostly became obsolete for me personally.

[anotherjim]

Yeh, I used to have everything that could be midi'd up connected so anything could control anything, but I don't bother anymore.
I don't even use midi tracks in my DAW because I'm certain the timing is crap - and gets worse the more I work on it. DAW audio editing is so powerful, might as well just record the audio in the first place.

The other thing I've lost patience with is patch management - giving it a name, remembering what that name meant some months later -  might as well dial the sound up again myself. I think the thing I really find a royal PITA is the way most digital gear can't even remember the last settings you had anyway and come right back the same as before I last used it - default to prog A01 when the thing has flash memory is totally stupid! The one piece of gear I have that pleases me in this regard is my Nord Electro keyboard. It has 4 "live" patch memories which automatically save your changes. No need to save&name. Those patches will come right back the same as I last used it.

[nickbungus]

Being in a covers band without keyboards I've always wanted something like this going into a midi sound module:

http://jamorigin.com/products/midi-guitar/

But until the accuracy is there, and the Jam Origin isn't too bad but not good enough, I couldn't possibly see any other application where I would need midi