Microsoft's first major update to MIDI in more than 40 years is finally here

Windows MIDI Services, the complete rewrite of MIDI on Windows, is the Redmond-based tech giant’s first significant update for this technology since its inception in 1983. With the release of the Preview Build 27788 to the Canary Channel for Windows 11, Microsoft finally made the Windows MIDI Services available as a public preview.

With it, musicians, producers, and composers can access dozens of capabilities to make music more straightforward and faster in every situation. Features include increased speed and fidelity, better control of instruments, modern bi-directional conversations and negotiations between instruments, better USB timing, and more.

The Redmond-based tech giant says that the new Windows MIDI Services comes with MIDI 2.0, and it’s capable of backward compatibility, meaning you’ll have access to MIDI 1.0. It’s fully compatible with all 64-bit operating systems on all supported processors, including Arm64. This is important because the new Copilot+ PC systems are mainly ARM-based, and dozens of DAWs were recently announced to work on them.

Besides various features Windows MIDI Services has, Microsoft’s MIDI 2.0 also includes a new USB MIDI 2.0 Class Driver, which allows users to assign the driver to USB MIDI 1.0 devices for better transfers. This means you can still use old equipment to produce music.

There are also the Windows MIDI Services App SDK and Tools, which will keep the new MIDI 2.0 system working correctly. It also includes a desktop application for managing endpoints, networks of MIDI 2.0 connections, and more.

You can read more about it on the official blog post for the Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27788 to the Canary Channel. The Redmond-based tech giant has also created a Discord channel for those interested in joining, and if you want to keep up with the list of known issues for this new tool, you can do so here.

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