MIDI Support in <audio> Tag

[Sylvester Bullitt]

When will Chrome add MIDI to the formats supported by the <audio> tag? I am amazed that one of the most mature audio formats around is completely ignored.

For those who think MIDIs aren't used any more, check out sites like http://www.hymntime.com/tch. They have almost 10,000 MIDI's online. Chrome could really get leg up on its competitors by adding MIDI support. Plugins aren't the answer - just another failure point, and difficult to explain to too many users, especially those that don't speak English well.

And yes, I've communicated with the Web Audio API & Web MIDI API groups. They basically said to go pound sand.

[Chris Wilson]

Well, no, I didn't say "go pound sand" - I said Web MIDI is about enabling low-level access to MIDI devices, such that a Standard MIDI File player could be written on top of that API.

It would be nice to have Standard MIDI File playback in <audio>.  However, the entire pipeline to play SMFs is not necessarily "free", and it's not yet clear that there's enough value to increase the required footprint of a web user agent to fulfill that particular need.

For context - Apple *REMOVED* the built-in player for SMF after QuickTime 7, and no longer installs a default General-MIDI compatible synthesizer IIRC.  These are pieces that can be replaced, of course - but the first step is enabling the basic scenario (which Web MIDI does), and then proving a broader need in use cases.

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