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Comment by jacquesm

6 years ago

Seconded, web midi is a big showstopper for Mozilla and should have more priority than the various bells and whistles that Mozilla does seem to prioritize but that ultimately are not part of a browser.

Not being able to use Midi from FireFox means that for a whole raft of possible applications Chrome is the only option, which is a real pity.

Please, please, pretty please, give web midi a higher priority.

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jacquesm

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codemonkey-zeta  6 years ago

The use of the phrase "bells and whistles" seems pretty ironic here.

  • colecut  6 years ago

    When you think of the web as a platform to be used for audio applications, it seems like a reasonable feature

    • qppo  6 years ago

      The thing is that "the web" doesn't make sense as a platform for audio applications when to build upon it you need to throw away realtime safe subroutines.

      Realtime audio rendering is a soft realtime problem. If the web audio APIs don't have methods for guaranteeing deadlines for rendering audio, it's only possible to build toy audio applications.

      I'm aware of things like bandlab and such. They're still toys and too limited for serious work, where the money is.

TremendousJudge  6 years ago

Curious, what applications need web midi?

  • Uninen  6 years ago

    Most music-related applications wanting to offer generic hardware support and hackability. Midi is an amazing standard. It allows you to hook up a synthesizer from the early 80s to your 2020 laptop (via a midi-capable audio interface) and control almost anything in your modern DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). And if your Web browser has support for it, control a software synth or any application as well.

    In addition to just musical instruments, a huge number of different hardware still use midi. I'm personally interested in DJ-world where things like DJ- and light-controllers use midi and therefore are very easily remappable and very hackable (if the sw is built correctly).

    I've wanted to build some DJ-related sw myself that would work via browser but the fact that currently only Chrome supports the standard has so far kept me off it. I'd very much like to see Firefox supporting Web midi.

    • TremendousJudge  6 years ago

      Right, I understand what MIDI is for, but usually music software has these real-time requirements on performance and the browser runs javascript, so... What are the applications for web midi? People aren't mixing their music on the browser nowadays, right?

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