Re: What can we expect in the near future?

Hey TJ!

This group is also working on Web MIDI API [1], alongside with the Web
Audio API [2].

The Web MIDI API is a very simplistic approach, as opposed to the bloated
Java MIDI API. There's no notion of a sequencer, etc. as these are usually
best left as userland libraries (as you said), because we can't hope to
make a MIDI sequencer API that covers all the possible use cases in the
best possible way, nor does the browser API land enjoy the benefits of
userland libraries' quick fixability.

Cheers,
Jussi

[1] https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/audio/raw-file/tip/midi/specification.html
[2] https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/audio/raw-file/tip/webaudio/specification.html

On Mon, Jun 25, 2012 at 11:43 PM, TJ <zoomclub@gmail.com> wrote:

> We are coming from Java, which was just barely okay for sound. There was
> the Java Sound API sequencer which was horrible and we ended up writing our
> own. All we needed was to create MIDI messages on the fly while iterating
> over a custom score structure not all the baggage of the Java sequencer. I
> see that some JS libraries like mudcube-midi-js are still using the nearly
> useless Java sequencer, to bad.
>
> Having our own sequencer (the model itself) we are most interested in
> operations to create the full set of MIDI messages. How far along is the
> new standard on this aspect? We can roll our own library for this plus
> there are a few JS libraries for this type of thing in the wild but we
> prefer to use a standard package if possible.
>
> To us, external MIDI device support for recording and playback is a
> completely separate option but what is available for IO here so far, that
> does not reply on Java?
>
> Audio signal processing seems to be the focus, will the outcome be a
> streamlined MIDI to synth to mixer using effects toolkit? It seems this is
> the area that lacks the most, some good synth options that can load a full
> set of alternative timbres. What can we expect as far as synths and
> soundfonts go? Right now, it looks like each HTML5 or mobile app is doing
> its own basic sine wave type generator. Therefore, that old Java stuff is
> remaining relevant.
>
> We are just catching up with the many excellent things going on in the
> HTML5 arena, hoping to learn more, cheers!
>
>