... and in other news related to MIDI 2.0. Looks like specs have cleared another hurdle of "official-ness".

At the Annual Meeting of the MIDI Manufacturers Association during Winter NAMM 2020, MMA members in attendance unanimously completed the adoption of the core MIDI 2.0 specifications including five core documents.

MIDI Capability Inquiry (Update)
Specification for Universal MIDI Packet (UMP) Format and MIDI 2.0 Protocol
Common Rules for MIDI CI Profiles
Common Rules for MIDI-CI Property Exchange
Property Exchange Foundational Resources and Basic Resources

At the annual meeting afternoon session, there were demonstrations by Korg, Roland and Yamaha of prototype MIDI 2.0 devices sending and receiving MIDI 2.0 protocol messages.

Perhaps Roland was trying to "jump the gun" by releasing a product based on draft documents (which is pretty common in most industries - not jumping the gun necessarily - but getting early products out based on draft documents) in order to gain the glory/press of first to the race. Even the MIDI association's announce of the above adoption news listed only Roland's A-88MKII controller as a keyboard form-factor device. It's the only keyboard product mentioned (and only product with a picture) in the announce.

Now that documents have been adopted - we'll start to see more movement beyond Roland's offering. Hopefully Yamaha can join the party soon and - even better - with existing product customers currently own. Namely Montage / MODX as a personal bias since I own one of those.