Microsoft is significantly strengthening the capabilities of Windows 11 in the field of music and audio creation. The operating system now finally natively supports the MIDI 2.0 protocol. This is also an important response from the Windows camp at the system level since the official release of MIDI 2.0 in 2020.

MIDI, as a core protocol that has been widely used by musicians to interconnect electronic instruments and devices since 1983, has only had relatively limited support on Windows in the past. Now, with the newly built Windows MIDI Services stack, Microsoft has not only modernized and redone MIDI 1.0 support, but also officially introduced MIDI 2.0 into the system, showing a renewed emphasis on the music creation ecosystem.

MIDI 2.0 brings a number of key improvements compared to the previous generation protocol, including two-way communication, automatic device discovery and protocol configuration, unrestricted data transmission speed, high-resolution controller for high-precision control, per-note articulation, self-describing devices, etc. These features jointly point to a more delicate and intelligent music creation experience. However, considering that a large number of existing devices and software still rely on MIDI 1.0, Microsoft has placed special emphasis on backward compatibility in this update, so MIDI 1.0 has been refactored and modernized in the new stack to ensure that old devices and new protocols can coexist smoothly in the same system.

The new Windows MIDI Services stack has been integrated as a native component of Windows 11 and was first unveiled in Canary 27788 preview build, which started rolling out a few weeks ago, giving test users early access to this infrastructure upgrade. On this basis, Windows' MIDI infrastructure also adds "multi-client" support, allowing multiple applications to access the same MIDI port or device at the same time. This means that users no longer need to rely on proprietary drivers provided by various manufacturers to achieve the need for multiple applications to use the same MIDI device in parallel.

At the level of details, Microsoft has also improved the traditional MIDI 1.0 user experience, such as port naming that is easier to identify and manage, and the introduction of more metadata for each endpoint to facilitate users to accurately locate and configure devices in complex environments. These configuration items will be centrally managed through a dedicated MIDI settings application, which Microsoft said will be available as an optional download to provide musicians and audio practitioners with a more intuitive control entry.

In addition to updates to the underlying protocols and stacks, Microsoft also listed a series of enhancements for creators, including: flexible serialization of software tools through built-in loopback and inter-application MIDI connections; automatic MIDI 2.0 conversion and scaling mechanisms so that any device can work with any application; more compact and precise message timing control through timestamps and scheduled messages; use of the new MIDI 1.0 and MIDI 2.0 USB Class drivers make new devices plug-and-play, as well as tools and MIDI scripting functions for developers and advanced users to further expand creation and development scenarios.

Microsoft emphasizes that this generation of MIDI stack is built on the principle of "development in an open environment", allowing the community to directly participate in the feedback and improvement process. To this end, the company has opened a dedicated public code repository on GitHub and established a Discord server to focus community discussions, collaboration and problem feedback. This has also laid the foundation for open collaboration for the continued evolution of Windows in the fields of music production and professional audio in the future.

learn more:

https://github.com/microsoft/midi