Use Stereo 3.5mm TRS minijack cables for MIDI?

Started by Elantric, August 26, 2015, 04:21:15 PM

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Elantric

Quote from: shawnb on December 27, 2017, 10:40:32 AM

Oh my...  I never noticed a 3.5mm MIDI jack before...  Is this a new standard?   Is it intended to support the full MIDI set of messages (PCs, CCs, sysex, etc.) or only a subset (PCs, hold)?

3.5 mm jacks for MIDI I/O have been around a while and gaining ground. Its used on products from Arturia, and  IK Multimedia)

It saves PCB space and the smaller hole in the chassis means easier to pass FCC emissions tests

TRS To MIDI Male Type A
(Boss, Akai Pro, IK Multimedia, Korg, Line 6, littleBits, Make Noise)

Pin 5-Tip (Current Sink)
Pin 4- Ring (Current Source)
Pin 2 – Sleeve (Shield)

TRS to MIDI Type B
(Arturia, Music1010, Novation)

Pin 5 – Ring (Current Sink)
Pin 4 – Tip (Current Source)
Pin 2 – Sleeve (Shield)



http://cdm.link/2015/08/used-stereo-minijack-cables-midi/


https://www.midi.org/articles/updated-how-to-make-your-own-3-5mm-mini-stereo-trs-to-midi-5-pin-din-cables


What do Arturia Beatstep, IK iRig MIDI, Novation Launchpad pro have in Common?

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2015/08/used-stereo-minijack-cables-midi/
AUG 26
2015
What if we used stereo minijack cables for MIDI?
BY PETER KIRN

"It was acceptable in the 80s..."
The standard MIDI DIN cable – that's the big honkin' connector you use on most of your MIDI gear – has become the bane of music hardware makers. The problem is, as gear has gotten smaller, the standard DIN connector hasn't. And that's a big problem, literally. To add a MIDI port to a device, you need to not only have enough clearance for the connector itself, but the whole around the port and the physical assembly that contains it. Speaking as a hardware maker, that takes up space you can't even see from the outside.
As a result, a lot of hardware that should have had MIDI in and out doesn't, to save room. Or it's forced to be thicker than it needs to be. Or it squeezes out other useful ports.
It doesn't have to be this way. S-Video could have become a replacement in the 90s, back when we used such things. (It has the same 5-pin arrangement, but smaller.)
Now, you may have noticed a lot of gear includes minijacks onboard. A stereo minijack (3.5mm "miniklinken") connector has three pins – and MIDI also has three pins. (Okay, it has five, but two are unused.) Look at the breakouts included in the box, and what you'll see is a standard 3-pin stereo minijack on one end, and then a horse-drawn buggy taped to a telegraph machine DIN connector on the other.
But here's where things get interesting. Imagine you have two pieces of gear, each with these minijack-to-DIN breakouts. And you want to connect them together. What would happen if you skipped the little DIN dongles and ran an ordinary stereo minijack cable between them?
Well, whether it worked or not would depend on how that minijack connector itself was wired. So, I asked a few manufacturers, off the record and unofficially, what they were doing. It wasn't hard to convince people to talk about it; anyone who has ever dealt with this problem dreams of ditching DIN.
It turns out most of them are using the same wiring – seen above.
Pin 1 – Tip
Pin 2 – Sleeve
Pin 3 – Ring
So long as you have two pieces of gear wired this way, you can connect them with a standard stereo minijack audio cable (that's a single stereo minijack at both ends). It's exactly the same as using a MIDI cable.
In this category:
IK Multimedia (iRIG MIDI – that's the diagram at top)
Novation (such as Launchpad Pro)
Arturia (such as BeatStep Pro)
See this discussion of the iRIG MIDI on Sound on Sound, from way back in 2011 (meaning it's time to do this, folks):
D.I.Y. MIDI/5-pin DIN to stereo mini Jack leads
http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/showflat.php?Number=950494

Unfortunately, one other key maker is an outlier. Korg, which uses minijacks on its SQ1 sequencer and new ElecTribes, swaps sleeve and ring, unless I've got the wrong information. As long as you're comfortable soldering your own cables, you could solve that, but it means there isn't an immediate de facto standard.
On the other hand, it's already pretty terrific that a lot of the stuff you'd immediately want to use hit at the same wiring at random. (No one, to my knowledge, has ever published something like this.)
So, rather than wait any longer, I think it makes sense to go public. Rather than wait for a standard, all you really need is for manufacturers to start using this same wiring. And by all means, don't eliminate MIDI from a product just because DIN won't fit. The "post PC" age is turning out to be more reliant on MIDI than the one before it, from iPads to all-hardware live rigs.
If nothing else, if you make DIY hardware, you can start doing this now. And you can plug your custom synth or whatever directly into a Launchpad Pro or BeatStep Pro (just to name two) and start playing it.
That's a pretty cool accidental standard. So maybe we should make it less accidental.
Comments welcome. And if you have hardware with minijacks, I didn't cover all of them. I'd love to hear what you're doing.


http://createdigitalmusic.com/2015/08/used-stereo-minijack-cables-midi/

Elantric

#1
Ive found myself in a few R&D pow -wow brain storm sessions, and I'm often asked:

Quote"Should we omit the 5 pin DIN MIDI I/O Jacks? They take up over 2 inches of precious panel space on the chassis to implement on our new product and drive up the cost !.

and I have been advising companies to employ 3.5mm TRS jacks for MIDI I/O for a couple years now.

Hopefully we will see increased use of alternate  / more robust cable connections for the fragile circular MIDI DIN plugs 

gumtown

Manufacturers would have to be sure to leave one of the I/O socket shield connections not connected on the board to retain isolation,
for that moment when a plug is inserted and the tip and ring pass through that shield contact point,
typically on the midi in port.
Free "GR-55 FloorBoard" editor software from https://sourceforge.net/projects/grfloorboard/

Elantric

#3
QuoteManufacturers would have to be sure to leave one of the I/O socket shield connections not connected on the board to retain isolation,
for that moment when a plug is inserted and the tip and ring pass through that shield contact point,
typically on the midi in port.

Correct! - its important not to create a new source for ground loop noise and hum  - which could occur if you employed a stock 3.5mm TRS cable and the cable shield connection was directly tied to ground at the "MIDI 3.5mm TRS Jack" on the  gear at each end.

mbenigni

Great stuff.  When I saw the 1/8" MIDI on the iRig Pro I thought, "Finally, someone has acknowledged the fact that MIDI is a serial digital protocol."  Wish that ugly DIN went away decades ago.

admin

http://cdm.link/2015/08/used-stereo-minijack-cables-midi/



What if we used stereo minijack cables for MIDI?
"It was acceptable in the 80s..."

The standard MIDI DIN cable – that's the big honkin' connector you use on most of your MIDI gear – has become the bane of music hardware makers. The problem is, as gear has gotten smaller, the standard DIN connector hasn't. And that's a big problem, literally. To add a MIDI port to a device, you need to not only have enough clearance for the connector itself, but the whole around the port and the physical assembly that contains it. Speaking as a hardware maker, that takes up space you can't even see from the outside.

As a result, a lot of hardware that should have had MIDI in and out doesn't, to save room. Or it's forced to be thicker than it needs to be. Or it squeezes out other useful ports.

To be clear, on devices that can fit a MIDI DIN, it still makes sense. It's a standard part, you've got the cables, you've got things to plug it into, and the connector is safe to use. But if it simply won't fit, something else is a must. And that's why other connectors are already shipping on gear. Imagine if they were all interoperable.

It doesn't have to be this way. S-Video could have become a replacement in the 90s, back when we used such things. (It's actually also a DIN connector, with a more-than-enough 4-pin arrangement, but it's smaller.)

Now, you may have noticed a lot of gear includes minijacks onboard. A stereo minijack (3.5mm "miniklinken") connector has three pins – and MIDI also has three pins. (Okay, it has five, but two are unused.) Look at the breakouts included in the box, and what you'll see is a standard 3-pin stereo minijack on one end, and then a horse-drawn buggy taped to a telegraph machine DIN connector on the other.

But here's where things get interesting. Imagine you have two pieces of gear, each with these minijack-to-DIN breakouts. And you want to connect them together. What would happen if you skipped the little DIN dongles and ran an ordinary stereo minijack cable between them?

Well, whether it worked or not would depend on how that minijack connector itself was wired. So, I asked a few manufacturers, off the record and unofficially, what they were doing. It wasn't hard to convince people to talk about it; anyone who has ever dealt with this problem dreams of ditching DIN.

It turns out most of them are using the same wiring – seen above.

Pin 1 – Tip
Pin 2 – Sleeve
Pin 3 – Ring

So long as you have two pieces of gear wired this way, you can connect them with a standard stereo minijack audio cable (that's a single stereo minijack at both ends). It's exactly the same as using a MIDI cable.

In this category:
IK Multimedia (iRIG MIDI – that's the diagram at top)
Novation (such as Launchpad Pro)
Arturia (such as BeatStep Pro)

See this discussion of the iRIG MIDI on Sound on Sound, from way back in 2011 (meaning it's time to do this, folks):
D.I.Y. MIDI/5-pin DIN to stereo mini Jack leads

Unfortunately, one other key maker is an outlier. Korg, which uses minijacks on its SQ1 sequencer and new ElecTribes, swaps sleeve and ring, unless I've got the wrong information. As long as you're comfortable soldering your own cables, you could solve that, but it means there isn't an immediate de facto standard.

On the other hand, it's already pretty terrific that a lot of the stuff you'd immediately want to use hit at the same wiring at random. (No one, to my knowledge, has ever published something like this.)

So, rather than wait any longer, I think it makes sense to go public. Rather than wait for a standard, all you really need is for manufacturers to start using this same wiring. And by all means, don't eliminate MIDI from a product just because DIN won't fit. The "post PC" age is turning out to be more reliant on MIDI than the one before it, from iPads to all-hardware live rigs.

If nothing else, if you make DIY hardware, you can start doing this now. And you can plug your custom synth or whatever directly into a Launchpad Pro or BeatStep Pro (just to name two) and start playing it.

That's a pretty cool accidental standard. So maybe we should make it less accidental.

Comments welcome. And if you have hardware with minijacks, I didn't cover all of them. I'd love to hear what you're doing.

chrish

#6
Sure that will work. But isn't this whole smaller is better thing just a marketing ploy? I tried a euro-rack modular synth and those mini trs jacks and plugs seem so fragile. I have two sets of headphones that have shorted mini trs plugs waiting for me to solder on new ones.


sixeight


admin




RK-MINIMIDI
€11.57
Plug this adapter to a 3.5mm mini jack stereo audio cable to get a DIN5 MIDI connector on one end. There's a switch on this adapter so you can match it to any mini-jack-MIDI device you connect, Korg, Arturia, Novation,...

Also – if you use this adapter on the RK-004 DIN5 out and set the RK-004's port to 'sync mode' you can drive multiple devices which run on sync. For example multiple Pocket Operators, Monotribes, ... see the small sample movie below.

In stock (can be backordered)

https://www.retrokits.com/shop/rk-minimidi/

admin

https://www.eurekasound.com/mm-trs
Eureka Sound Digitech JamSync to MIDI adapter
Connect your Digitech SDRUM to other MIDI devices!
1/8" (3.5mm) plug - to - MIDI 5-pin plug
Plugs into JAMSYNC OUT Jack on the SDRUM
(Connections: TRS tip to MIDI pin 5, TRS ring to MIDI pin 4, TRS sleeve to MIDI pin 2 - compliant with MIDI.org TRS-to-5 pin DIN specification)
Made in USA

https://www.midi.org/articles-old/trs-specification-adopted-and-released

admin

#11


Boss  BMIDI-5-35 TRS-MIDI Cable
(Used on Boss 200 Series Effects)
https://www.boss.info/global/products/bmidi-5-35/


TRS To MIDI Male Type A
(Boss, Akai Pro, IK Multimedia, Korg, Line 6, littleBits, Make Noise)

Pin 5-Tip (Current Sink)
Pin 4- Ring (Current Source)
Pin 2 – Sleeve (Shield)

Shakes

#12
I want to make this cable but confused. Am I looking at the front or back of the 5 pin midi connector? I'm going to use it for my Boss RC-5.

CodeSmart

#13
Quote from: Shakes on December 03, 2020, 09:02:26 PM
I want to make this cable but confused. Am I looking at the front or back of the 5 pin midi connector? I'm going to use it for my Boss RC-5.

https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/midi-tutorial/hardware--electronic-implementation



Below pic says "Mating face"

But I got more gear than I need...and I like it!

vtgearhead

There's a special place in Hades for folks who publish connection schemes without specifying which side of the connector is pictured.  My workshop 'cheat sheet' folder has examples of this from many vendors who should know better.  I mark them up myself to keep me honest.

Allomerus

Not only are TRS sockets smaller they are easier to mount. One small drill hole.

Intimo

There is presently a back order and long wait for the Boss BMIDI-5-35 1.5m MIDI to 3.5mm TRS Cable.

Thinking I'll solder up a couple to get me going.

Useful info:

https://minimidi.world

https://www.perfectcircuit.com/signal/midi-connectors
Pasquale -
IntimoMusic.com
Roland/Boss addict since '79

admin

#17
Quote from: Intimo on February 01, 2021, 05:23:20 PM
There is presently a back order and long wait for the Boss BMIDI-5-35 1.5m MIDI to 3.5mm TRS Cable.

Thinking I'll solder up a couple to get me going.

Useful info:

https://minimidi.world

https://www.perfectcircuit.com/signal/midi-connectors

Verify the Boss employs the same circuit

Be prepared to swap Tip & Ring on the 3.5mm TRS Plug.

This is the rumored pin out for Roland/Boss

TRS To MIDI Male Type A
(Boss, Akai Pro, IK Multimedia, Korg, Line 6, littleBits, Make Noise)

DIN Pin 5-Tip (Current Sink)
DIN Pin 4- Ring (Current Source)
DIN Pin 2 – Sleeve (Shield)

Intimo

Thank you for that clarification - why does midi always make my head hurt :)

Also just found these Type A

https://www.ctrl-mod.com/products/befaco-trs-to-midi-cable-type-a-5ft

Pasquale -
IntimoMusic.com
Roland/Boss addict since '79

vtgearhead

Quote from: admin on February 01, 2021, 05:31:13 PM
Verify the Boss employs the same circuit

Be prepared to swap Tip & Ring on the 3.5mm TRS Plug.

This is the rumored pin out for Roland/Boss

TRS To MIDI Male Type A
(Boss, Akai Pro, IK Multimedia, Korg, Line 6, littleBits, Make Noise)

DIN Pin 5-Tip (Current Sink)
DIN Pin 4- Ring (Current Source)
DIN Pin 2 – Sleeve (Shield)

Standards are great.  Everyone should have their own!