Foojay Podcast #54: Music and MIDI with Java and Kotlin

MIDI is a universal standard for communicating between musical instruments and computers.

Within OpenJDK, there is a whole Java package dedicated to MIDI communication and data handling. Is it up to date? Are there better approaches now? And what can we do with music, Java, and Kotlin?

Let’s find out…

Video

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Guests

Atsushi Eno

• https://atsushieno.github.io/
• @[email protected]
• @[email protected]

Geert Bevin

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/gbevin/
• https://gbevin.com/cv/
• https://www.uwyn.com/
• https://www.gbevin.com/

Content

00:00 Introduction of the topic and guests

04:27 What is MIDI?

Learn more about MIDI and the javax.sound implementation in OpenJDK:
https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/sound/overview-MIDI.html
https://docs.oracle.com/en/java/javase/21/docs/api/java.desktop/javax/sound/midi/package-summary.html
https://github.com/openjdk/jdk/tree/master/src/java.desktop/share/classes/javax/sound/midi
https://www.baeldung.com/java-packages-vs-javax

09:53 MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE)
https://roli.com/mpe
https://midi.org/midi-polyphonic-expression-mpe-specification-adopted
https://midi.org/insights

11:23 Instruments require real-time systems

15:18 Why Atsushi used Kotlin for ktmidi
https://github.com/atsushieno/ktmidi
https://github.com/jazz-soft/JZZ
https://github.com/thestk/rtmidi

Applications created with ktmidi: https://github.com/atsushieno/ktmidi/discussions/14
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.androidaudioplugin.resident_midi_keyboard&pli=1

23:31 Using ktmidi with JavaFX and the benefits of Kotlin
https://melodymatrix.rocks

25:00 Geert sticks to Java and loves the 6-month releases

27:24 Apps created by Geert for various Apple devices
https://uwyn.com/midiwrist-unleashed

31:11 Atsushi uses MIDI to develop audio plugins

32:34 Geert found back his love for Java and created Rife2 and BLD
https://rife2.com
https://rife2.com/bld
https://software.moogmusic.com/store

Erik Thauvin https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethauvin/

43:13 How things just happen and finding a good open-source approach
https://codewithrockstar.com
https://webtechie.be/post/2024-06-18-jfxinaction-christopher-schnick
https://www.jdeploy.com

50:46 Conclusions