Comment by 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?
Just to throw out an example from a friend's company: online piano lessons. MIDI input in the browser makes it possible for them to tell if you played the correct notes on your keyboard.
I haven't seen significant problems from javascript being too slow on things that use web MIDI. Here is a web based "piano karaoke" app that runs quite well in browsers that support MIDI (and since it syncs with YouTube videos, it really kind of has to run in a browser vs native)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV6rdmdZnkA
Get in touch if you want to beta test it and let me know if you think it is fast enough on your set up, etc. Hoping to put it on "Show HN" soon. rjbrown at gmail More about it at https://pianop.ly/portfolio/
If it was WebMIDI that actually transmitted -MIDI streams- (instead of just shoving them, with limited options, at some flaccid GM soundfile) that'd be really cool. Then you could choose your own MIDI playback engine (application, external hardware, ... ).
In an environment that interprets -all- the codes, MIDI's almost unlimited. Hollywood's used it for a long time. It's very undemanding so people could -certainly- mix their music on the (right) browser. And, if people could add javascript routines to it? Ay-yay.
You could have a whole DAW in the browser. There are already some web based synths