[jdietrich]

Your comment doesn't make any sense to me. The 5-pin DIN plug was specifically chosen for MIDI because it's a rugged, reliable connector suitable for use in professional environments. If you think that MIDI 2.0 should only use USB and that USB cables aren't suitable for use on stage, then you're saying that nobody should use MIDI on stage. That strikes me as profoundly silly.

MIDI is the lingua franca of music equipment. It controls mixing consoles and effects units, it synchronises music to lighting, it provides timecode and controls recorders. You might not use that stuff, but it's an essential part of the spec that is used every day by professional musicians and engineers.

[icebraining]

that USB cables aren't suitable for use on stage

I think they're saying one should use rugged USB cables for live performance, rather than a typical consumer-grade cable.

[TheRealPomax]

I do not think MIDI should only use USB, but I absolutely want the option to stop using MIDI cables. As for ruggedness, that's a reversed argument. If MIDI over USB-C is a thing, and the industry embraces it, you get rugged enough cables and connectors to work on stage and on the set. There is, right now, without MIDI2 even being done, literally no reason for anyone to make rugged USB-C cables. So saying "there are no rugged USB cables, MIDI has proven itself" is a matter of course.

If MIDI2 can work with USB-C in a way that devices can be linked, instantly, because the USB-C circuitry they use can speak just enough USB to verify the connection is between two MIDI devices, then I will be more than happy to give my MIDI cables away and never bother with them again.

And yeah of course a stage or studio setup will still need them for the foreseeable future, it's not like decades of midi instruments vanish overnight. But you'll also start seeing USB cables thrown into the mix, and eventually you might not see MIDI cables at all in 20, 30 years.

It has to start somewhere.