The MIDI Association (TMA), a free community for MIDI users, has announced the second annual May is MIDI Month membership and donation drive.
The organization describes the membership drive as ‘a celebration of MIDI for the entire MIDI community’.
Funds raised will be used to improve TMA member services and develop interactive content to explain new MIDI specifications like the upcoming MIDI 2.0 protocol.
- Platinum Sponsors Ableton, IK Multimedia, Native Instruments, Roland, ROLI, Sweetwater, and Yamaha have committed to matching up to $2000 in individual TMA member donations in May.
- Gold Sponsors, including Analog Devices, Art & Logic, Bome, Moog Music, Melodics, and Keith McMillan Instruments, have committed to matching up to $1000 in TMA member donations.
- Media Sponsors donate free coverage and public service announcements about TMA events like May is MIDI Month.
The MIDI Association member musicians and artists are being asked to donate directly to the May Is MIDI Month goal of $2000 in individual donations. Matching donations from sponsors will multiply that to $22,000.
Oh please, most of these companies make profits in the millions and have no need to rattle the cup. What a bunch of cheapskates.
The MMA is a non-profit trade association So while businesses themselves may be profitable that is separate to the MMA. So the work seen on the midi.org site, which is done by the TMA, is often done by volunteers.
One way of making sure donations aren’t going in the toilet is determining whether the market is behind you. 10x matching funds for community standards is better than the few big corporations getting together and deciding standards for us, whether we like it or not. Your voice is meaningless unless you have some skin in the game.
“most of these companies make profits in the millions”
What planet do you hail from?
The organization is a non-profit, and is supported by its members.
I would be surprised if more than a fraction of the members have profits, let alone sales, in the millions.
It’s interesting to me that in the MMA, anybody can join and have the same vote as Yamaha or Korg.
The May Is MIDI Month sponsor companies are giving extra money to support MIDI.
All of the 63 MIDI Manufacturer Association (MMA) companies pay an annual membership fee (based on revenue so bigger companies pay more money) to be MIDI Manufacturer Association members. Annual membership fees range from $500 to $20,000.
Each MMA member has one vote. So a small one person company has the same voting power as any of the larger companies. It is a very egalitarian arrangement. In fact, it is very unique in the world of business where typically size equates to power.
MMA member companies then volunteer their engineers to work on new MIDI specifications. So MMA companies actually pay money to do more work!
The corporate sponsors of May Is MIDI Month are contributing extra money on top of their member fees to help underwrite the costs of improving the technical aspects of https://www.midi.org/. All the work to develop articles and updates on that site is done by volunteers. So all of the money raised goes to hard costs to keep the website operational and improve the content on the site to help people get the most out of MIDI.
The MIDI Association (which is run by the MMA) is the free to join global community of people who work, play and create with MIDI. There are over 20,000 members from 114 countries. In a recent survey about MIDI on the MIDI.org site, one MIDI Association member said:
“MIDI is without a doubt an example of what happens when competing companies work together for common good. In no other industry before or since have we seen something so noble;
So if you’d like to complain about corporations that are cheapskates perhaps you should look at the hundreds of companies who make MIDI products, but don’t support MIDI in anyway. This includes many companies whose only products are MIDI controllers or software.
> “hundreds of companies who make MIDI products, but don’t support MIDI in anyway”
Is this an official statement from a MIDI Association representative? Asking since the post identifies itself as being authored by “The MIDI Association”, so I assume it is an official statement from them. Please clarify.
Hi,
I am happy to clarify.
I have been on the Executive Board of the MIDI Manufacturers Association (MMA) for over 20 years and was one of the founders of The MIDI Association (TMA) , the free to join global community of people who work, play and create with MIDI. The MIDI Association now has over 20,000 members in 114 countries.
I work for Yamaha now and I used to work for Korg. Both of those companies have supported MIDI by being members of both AMEI (the Japanese MIDI organization) and the MIDI Manufacturers Association since the very beginning of MIDI.
One of the great (and frankly amazing) things about MIDI is that it is completely free. You can download the specs on https://www.midi.org/. It’s great that anyone can experiment and create their Arduino MIDI devices.
However the position that large well known companies who make and sell lots of MIDI products should support MIDI and MIDI standards organizations does not seem like a radical idea.