Tonight on GeekNights, we talk about MIDI. The Musical Instrument Digital Interface, which is still in use today. In the news, Donkey Kong ‘94 is re-released on Switch, Youtube adds translated dubbing, and Ontario (rightly) taxes Americans using their energy.
The Book Club book, which I’ll make an official post about when I get a chance:
Your activism for tonight’s episode is to find whatever local politician or organization near you is helping immigrants. Especially those who are undocumented. This is an area that is likely to be a flashpoint, and the people who do this work are smart and well-organized. Connect with them and lend a hand.
e.g.,
Here’s the link to the egg monopoly article by Corey Doctorow that I think Scott was referencing. It’s monopolies all the way down, one major consolidated egg producer, two chicken breeders with a sweetheart deal, and potential smaller competitors mostly shut out. There’s a link to a really long paper laying out similar problems in other agricultural sectors; fertilizer, seeds, pesticide, and of course, DRM locked John Deere tractors and equipment.
I live in the northeast where we are fortunate to have some smaller farms around. I signed up for a vegetables CSA this summer - I’m looking forward to fresh veggies once a week.
https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/10/demand-and-supply/#keep-cal-maine-and-carry-on
If you’re lucky enough to own some land you can at least get your own chickens in the backyard.
I think Rym might have got MIDI and DMX mixed up when talking about MIDI being the standard for controlling lights. Though I believe you can also use MIDI as a go between the audio being played and the lighting console for on the beat timing? I’m not super familiar with that part though so if someone knows more I’d be keen to hear about it.
I have never worked with a stage lighting system, but I do know that there is a MIDI extension called MIDI Show Control that can do it. I don’t know how it compares in popularity to DMX or any other protocols I don’t know about. I did a search on the web, and there are systems that can get MIDI talking to DMX, if someone wants to do that for some reason.
The point is that MIDI is just a control protocol. Fundamentally it isn’t much different than something like USB HID. There is a thing a person wants to control with inputs. The input device the human is touching needs to speak a language that the device they are controlling can understand.
The problem of using a standard protocol for this is that the protocol might not fit the use case so well. There’s no reason you couldn’t get a humanoid robot, have it follow MIDI instructions, and control it with a piano keyboard. The upside is that when you follow a standard protocol, all sorts of wild things become possible as so many different unrelated devices become able to control, or be controlled, by each other.
Imagine if every device you owned spoke MIDI. You could drive a car with a digital saxophone, no hardware modifications required. This is silly, but if you get the right combinations, things get a lot less silly.
Imagine if all the controls in a car spoke MIDI to the car. Now you go to the race track and after you do a few laps, you have a MIDI file that represent a precise recording of all the driver’s inputs. But what if your game console also used MIDI for game controllers? Now you can play Gran Turismo like a player piano using a recording of your own real world drive.
Or you could just play your drive through a synthesizer to make random music.
MIDI can directly control lights and stage effects. But it’s not as commonly used as other protocols or mechanisms these days.
Part of the reason for the MIDI show is that I been playing around with some MIDI biz lately for fun. I have no intention of actually going deep into music composition. I just got a very small amount of stuff to make a beep boop now and then.
Sometimes when you are making software, or making videos, you need some music or sound effects. It sucks to rely on other people. It sucks to hope you can find exactly what you want on the web with a free license to avoid copyright. Even with meager music skills, poking out a beep boop can sometimes be faster and easier.
One thing I got is the Keith McMillen K-Board-C.
It’s just a USB-C MIDI controller. Really tiny. Incapable of producing sound. If you connect it to your computer, it instantly works perfectly with every MIDI software I tried. It even works with sites that implement Web MIDI API like https://midi.city/. Heck, I plugged it into my iPad and it worked with Duolingo piano lessons with zero configuration.
I also got the very fun Roland S-1 Tweak synth.
It’s a surprising amount of synthesizer in a small package at a very reasonable price. If you twiddle these knobs it makes a lot of really satisfying and ear-pleasing sounds. It has MIDI input via TRS or USB. Wouldn’t it just make so much sense if I could connect the K-Board directly to the S-1 and start playing it? It sure would be a lot nicer than using the little rubber keys on the S-1 itself.
Of course I wouldn’t be making this post if it worked perfectly. Why doesn’t it work? The only reason is that the K-Board does not have a battery. It can’t power itself. The S-1 can take MIDI in over USB, and it has its own internal battery, but it doesn’t send power out over USB-C.
Theoretically this could be fixed if I had a battery with two USB-C ports and data pass-through. As far as I can tell, no such device exists. It should be possible, but I’m not the one to design it. Even if someone did make it, I am no confident that there would be demand for it.
So what is the answer? Well, you can plug both devices into the same computer and tell the computer to route the MIDI. That’s great, but kinda ruins the whole portability factor, even with a laptop. There must be a smaller way.
Today, I found the other way.
This company is basically the only one I could find making these kinds of devices at a reasonable price. Also, I e-mailed them asking a question and they answered almost immediately. That’s a very good sign.
Anyway, theoretically if I combine this little guy with a USB charging battery, I should be able to beep boop just about anywhere. Even in the middle of the woods. Of course I also need a cable to go from 5-pin MIDI to TRS, but that’s not a big problem.