[sdiy] MIDI over Ethernet (was Microchip DSP kit $60 > AVR32)

[Richard Wentk]

On 22 Mar 2008, at 15:13, Tom Wiltshire wrote:

>
> On 22 Mar 2008, at 15:00, Jim Patchell wrote:
>
>> The new XMega AVR is also looking very promising.  It will have  
>> the ability to do a lot of things in hardware ( DMA, Event  
>> Routing) that will help a lot in increasing the amount of work the  
>> processor can do...plus the 32MIPs processing speed.
>>
>> There are other free tools available for the AVR such as  
>> Ethernut.  It is a combination RTOS/TCP-IP Stack that works really  
>> nice.  I am in the process of writing a server (running on Windoz)  
>> and client (running on an Ethernut board) that will do MIDI over  
>> Ethernet.
>
> Sounds interesting, Jim, but I've got to ask "Why?"
> I thought everyone was moving from 'traditional' MIDI via the old  
> DIN plugs to MIDI over USB? What's the advantage of ethernet as a  
> connection, particularly if it's non-standard?

31.25k MIDI over DIN is pretty damn slow. MIDI over Ethernet wouldn't  
be, and would allow things like multiple channels of poly AT.

Also longer cable runs and easier patching with hubs.

The killer app would be MIDI *and* audio over Ethernet. There are  
commercial products which do this, but they're not cheap. And since  
Gigabit Ethernet has plenty of spare bandwidth, you could potentially  
run hundreds of channels of MIDI and tens of channels of 24/96 audio  
over a single cable.

Once 10GB fiber arrives, that's going to turn into hundreds of  
channels of 24/96 audio, using the same protocols.

There are obvious applications for a digital modular - perhaps even a  
patchable one.

Richard