> Even MIDI 2.0 after decades is mostly just increased resolution
The biggest change is that 2.0 is duplex which allows devices to discover each other on the same MIDI network. No more in/out/thru, it's all just one USB (or ethernet, or wireless) connection from a device to every other device. It also allows property exchange, which means devices can exchange semantic information about their configuration and parameters with each other.
On top of that, individual voices can now carry pitch and control information, while devices can exchange tuning information. That's a big deal for microtonal and non-western music.
It would be hard to undersell how monumental MIDI 2.0 is as a change from MIDI 1.0, but somehow the MMA manages to do it by making it out to be "32 bit!" (which ironically, it isn't - you don't get 32 bits of resolution in your CCs with MIDI 2.0).
Where MIDI 1 can more or less express the pitch and dynamics/timbre changes within a single piece of western music, MIDI 2.0 can express almost everything you do within a DAW these days, short of actual audio i/o.
Ah my bad (also not sure which document you're looking at, its in M2-104). I think I was confusing it with note on/off which only has 16 bits for velocity.
The biggest change is that 2.0 is duplex which allows devices to discover each other on the same MIDI network. No more in/out/thru, it's all just one USB (or ethernet, or wireless) connection from a device to every other device. It also allows property exchange, which means devices can exchange semantic information about their configuration and parameters with each other.
On top of that, individual voices can now carry pitch and control information, while devices can exchange tuning information. That's a big deal for microtonal and non-western music.
It would be hard to undersell how monumental MIDI 2.0 is as a change from MIDI 1.0, but somehow the MMA manages to do it by making it out to be "32 bit!" (which ironically, it isn't - you don't get 32 bits of resolution in your CCs with MIDI 2.0).
Where MIDI 1 can more or less express the pitch and dynamics/timbre changes within a single piece of western music, MIDI 2.0 can express almost everything you do within a DAW these days, short of actual audio i/o.