Yamaha and Roland Agree to Cooperate to Improve MIDI Data Compatibility; Both Pledge to Achieve Further Popularization of the MIDI Standard.

Business Editors

HAMAMATSU CITY, Shizuoka--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 19, 2001

Two leaders in the field of musical instruments and sound equipment, Yamaha Corporation and Roland Corporation , have agreed to improve the compatibility of Musical Instruments Digital Interface (MIDI: Note 1) data, an international standard governing the external control of synthesizers and other electronic musical instruments equipped with tone generators.

The agreement, signed on January 15, 2001, is expected to greatly assist the further popularization of the MIDI standard and to foster the creation and reproduction of enhanced music data.

Yamaha Corporation, headquartered in Hamamatsu City in Shizuoka, is the world's largest manufacturer of musical instruments and a leader in digital audio. Roland Corporation, based in Kita-ku, Osaka, is an established name worldwide in electronic musical instruments.

Three-point agreement:

Yamaha and Roland have agreed on the following three points:

1) Both companies will actively support the GM2 Format established in 1998 (see Note 2).

2) Both companies will offer open access to Yamaha's XG Format (see Note 3) and Roland's GS Format (See Note 4).

3) Both companies will develop hardware and software products to support all three formats, i.e. GM2, XG and GS.

"By combining our efforts and actively supporting the GM2, XG and GS Formats, we are committed to offering better compatibility and much wider availability of MIDI content to elevate the usage and benefit of MIDI," said Yamaha Corporation President Shuji Ito. "Both Roland and Yamaha have pledged to actively seek the endorsement of other companies to ensure that GM2 becomes the global standard," added Roland Corporation President Katsuyoshi Dan.

MIDI Penetration

General MIDI (GM: Note 5) was established in 1991 by Japan's Association of Musical Electronics Industry (AMEI) and the MIDI Manufacturers Association (MMA) as the global standard. Greatly increased compatibility of music data was quickly accepted by users and software vendors, and led to the rapid expansion and penetration of GM-compatible hardware and MIDI contents.

Though vendors and users welcomed the defining of the global standard, the GM format only specified the minimum number of available instrument sounds, simultaneous note polyphony and so on. The need soon emerged to expand the format so it could be applied to a wide diversity of musical genres and be used to create data displaying a richer range of musical expression. Accordingly, both Yamaha and Roland moved to develop their own proprietary formats, XG and GS respectively, and each company endeavored to popularize its respective format to enable more advanced musical expression.

To the delight of end-users these advances resulted in the creation of an ever-increasing variety of richly expressive musical output in both XG and GS formats. The accumulation of musical data based on these tone generation formats is also an invaluable asset for the musical instrument industry.

The MIDI was adopted not only for musical instruments, but also in a wide diversity of other musical applications, including music production and playback in PCs, and the playback of background music for Internet web sites. Further, MIDI holds promise for use in ever more applications, setting the stage for dramatic growth in its use in areas outside the musical instrument field. For example, the compactness of MIDI data (which requires much less memory capacity than even the currently popular MP3 format) and its interactive controllability are applicable to network-based karaoke and future cellular phone ring melodies.

The existence of two different formats, XG and GS, has however created inconveniences for the MIDI instrument industry and for software vendors and users alike. And this state of affairs was further complicated in 1998 when GM went through an upgrade to GM2: GM2 is compatible with neither the XG nor the GS format, so its inception created yet another format and increased the total in use to three.

Cooperation provides the solution

Yamaha and Roland began exchanging views in November, 2000 on how to remedy this situation to improve convenience for users and contribute to the industry's growth. They discussed the possible standardization of formats through the development of a new, shared format, but this would have necessitated sacrificing continuity and compatibility with the existing formats, and would also have wasted the mass of musical data produced to date.

Such matters were taken into account as discussions proceeded. The solution eventually arrived at was that both companies would actively support the GM2 format as the global standard while at the same time allowing open access to their respective XG and GS Formats in order to develop hardware and content for both formats.

Should Yamaha and Roland be successful in winning the endorsement of other companies to support this agreement, both are convinced that their arrangement will result in greater convenience for other industries opting to use the MIDI standard as well as the MIDI instrument industry, and ultimately for vendors and end users alike.

Previously, XG data and GS data could only be played back exclusively on instruments, devices, and software compatible with the respective formats; but thanks to this cooperative effort by Yamaha and Roland, the vast music data assets already available in them will soon be accessible to all regardless of differences in data format and playback platform.

Notes:

1. MIDI (Musical Instruments Digital Interface) data

MIDI is an international standard governing the external control of synthesizers and other electronic musical instruments. MIDI data, often referred as Standard MIDI File or SMF, is music data that describes music performance information as digital data.

2. GM2

GM2 is an international standard of a tone generation format , set by the AMEI and MMA, designed to achieve greater musical expressiveness and hardware and software compatibility. An enhancement of the previous GM (General MIDI; see Note 5, below) standard, it defines detailed operational specifications for voice editing and creating effects not covered by its forerunner, as well as expanding the number of available tones. GM2-compatible tone generators are capable of correctly playing back all music data identified with the GM or the GM2 mark.

To differentiate the two, the older GM--which does not include the additional definitions provided by GM2--is now being called "GM1."

3. XG Format

XG is a tone generation format advocated by Yamaha for electronic instruments. XG is upward compatible with GM and it provides more voices, editing capabilities, three effect processors and other functionalities to enhance the musical expressiveness of MIDI data.

4. GS Format

GS is a tone generation format created by Roland that builds on GM and is designed to make richer musical expressiveness possible and to enhance compatibility by standardizing in detail expanded functions such as voice editing and effects, as well as providing additional tone.

5. GM (General MIDI)

GM is an international standard of a tone generation format which was accepted as "Recommended Practice" of MIDI by AMEI and MMA. GM is a set of common rules for tone generators to ensure the ability to reproduce musical performances on different GM compatible devices.