Yamaha and Roland Agree to Cooperate On MIDI
Data CompatibilityBoth Pledge to Achieve Further Popularization
of the MIDI Standard January 24, 2001Two leaders in the field of musical instruments and sound equipment, Yamaha
Corporation and Roland Corporation, have agreed to improve the compatibility of
Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) data, an international
standard governing the external control of synthesizers and other electronic musical
instruments equipped with tone generators.
The agreement, signed on January 15, 2001, is expected to greatly assist the
further popularization of the MIDI standard and to foster the creation and reproduction
of enhanced music data.
Three-point agreement:
Yamaha and Roland have agreed on the following three points.
- Both companies will actively support the GM2 Format established
in 1998.
- Both companies will offer open access to Yamaha's XG Format
and Roland's GS Format.
- Both companies will develop hardware and software products to support all
three formats, i.e. GM2, XG and GS.
"By combining our efforts and actively supporting the GM2, XG and GS Formats,
we are committed to offering better compatibility and much wider availability
of MIDI content to elevate the usage and benefit of MIDI," said Yamaha Corporation
President Shuji Ito.
"Both Roland and Yamaha have pledged to actively seek the endorsement
of other companies to ensure that GM2 becomes the global standard," added
Roland Corporation President Katsuyoshi Dan.
MIDI Penetration
General MIDI (GM) was established in 1991 by Japan's
Association of Musical Electronics Industry (AMEI) and the MIDI Manufacturers
Association (MMA) as the global standard. Greatly increased compatibility of music
data was quickly accepted by users and software vendors, and led to the rapid
expansion and penetration of GM-compatible hardware and MIDI contents.
Though vendors and users welcomed the defining of the global standard, the
GM format only specified the minimum number of available instrument sounds, simultaneous
note polyphony and so on. The need soon emerged to expand the format so it could
be applied to a wide diversity of musical genres and be used to create data displaying
a richer range of musical expression. Accordingly, both Yamaha and Roland moved
to develop their own proprietary formats, XG and GS respectively, and each company
endeavored to popularize its respective format to enable more advanced musical
expression.
To the delight of end-users these advances resulted in the creation of an
ever-increasing variety of richly expressive musical output in both XG and GS
formats. The accumulation of musical data based on these tone generation formats
is also an invaluable asset for the musical instrument industry.
MIDI was adopted not only for musical instruments, but also in a wide diversity
of other musical applications, including music production and playback in PCs,
and the playback of background music for Internet web sites. Further, MIDI holds
promise for use in ever more applications, setting the stage for dramatic growth
in its use in areas outside the musical instrument field. For example, the compactness
of MIDI data (which requires much less memory capacity than even the currently
popular MP3 format) and its interactive controllability are applicable to network-based
karaoke and future cellular phone ring melodies.
The existence of two different formats, XG and GS, has however created inconveniences
for the MIDI instrument industry and for software vendors and users alike. And
this state of affairs was further complicated in 1998 when GM went through an
upgrade to GM2: GM2 is compatible with neither the XG nor the GS format, so its
inception created yet another format and increased the total in use to three.
Cooperation provides the solution
Yamaha and Roland began exchanging views in November, 2000 on how to remedy
this situation to improve convenience for users and contribute to the industry's
growth. They discussed the possible standardization of formats through the development
of a new, shared format, but this would have necessitated sacrificing continuity
and compatibility with the existing formats, and would also have wasted the mass
of musical data produced to date.
Such matters were taken into account as discussions proceeded. The solution
eventually arrived at was that both companies would actively support the GM2 format
as the global standard while at the same time allowing open access to their respective
XG and GS Formats in order to develop hardware and content for both formats.
Should Yamaha and Roland be successful in winning the endorsement of other
companies to support this agreement, both are convinced that their arrangement
will result in greater convenience for other industries opting to use the MIDI
standard as well as the MIDI instrument industry, and ultimately for vendors and
end users alike. Previously, XG data and GS data could only be played back exclusively
on instruments, devices, and software compatible with the respective formats;
but thanks to this cooperative effort by Yamaha and Roland, the vast music data
assets already available in them will soon be accessible to all regardless of
differences in data format and playback platform.
Notes:
- MIDI (Musical Instruments Digital Interface) data -- MIDI
is an international standard governing the external control of synthesizers and
other electronic musical instruments. MIDI data, often referred to as Standard
MIDI File or SMF, is music data that describes music performance information as
digital data.
- GM2 -- GM2 is an international standard of a tone generation
format, set by the AMEI and MMA, designed to achieve greater musical expressiveness
and hardware and software compatibility. An enhancement of the previous GM (General
MIDI) standard, it defines detailed operational specifications for voice editing
and creating effects not covered by its forerunner, as well as expanding the number
of available tones. GM2-compatible tone generators are capable of correctly playing
back all music data identified with the GM or the GM2 mark. To differentiate the
two, the older GM-which does not include the additional definitions provided by
GM2-is now being called "GM1."
- XG Format -- XG is a tone generation format advocated
by Yamaha for electronic instruments. XG is upward compatible with GM and it provides
more voices, editing capabilities, three effect processors and other functionalities
to enhance the musical expressiveness of MIDI data.
- GS Format -- GS is a tone generation format created by
Roland that builds on GM and is designed to make richer musical expressiveness
possible and to enhance compatibility by standardizing in detail expanded functions
such as voice editing and effects, as well as providing additional tone.
- GM (General MIDI) -- GM is an international standard of
a tone generation format which was accepted as "Recommended Practice"
of MIDI by AMEI and MMA. GM is a set of common rules for tone generators to ensure
the ability to reproduce musical performances on different GM compatible devices.
For more information, visit their web site at www.yamaha.com. |
