Midinet protocol for delivering Digital Audio with Midi timestamps in standard Ethernet.
**What ?**
Midinet delivers digital audio with Midi timestamps in Ethernet with very low latencies directly between synthesizers without routers and hubs. Midinet digital audio packets include Midi JR timestamps for exact syncing between Midi note events and digital audio. The user can select both daisy chain and star topology with Ethernet cables.
In daisy-chain, you can connect tens of synthesizers with under 5 millisecond round-trip latency for Midi packets and digital audio. Midinet protocol is designed mainly for home synth setups. You can also listen to all synths from one synths output jack, without any analog mixers or cables. You can also calculate songs faster than real time (burst-mode with Midi timestamps). Synthesizers send complete tracks, like bass-lines, back to the computer in a few seconds. Synthesizers can create their own audio stream or mix their audio to existing stream.
Protocol latency test below with ethernet cables and packet forwarding.
**Why ?**
Altough there are similar protocols like Dante, Aes67, A2B, IEEE etc. those often require specialized hardware and lack features like faster-than-realtime audio, on-the-go mixing and Midi timestamps. Many also require an expensive license, while Midinet is free and open. Midinet protocol is designed mainly as a light-weight digital audio alternative for home synthesizers.
1. Modifies json parameters at synthesizers (Midi 2.0 PE, Http put/patch, ..) 2. Receives the sent digital audio packets.
Server runs on computers or synthesizers, so you could listen to all synths from single synths output port.
**Protocol and latency test**
Protocol and latency test used two 3Ghz x86-64 computers with i8256x network cards.
1. Computer A sent audio waveform packet with rdtsc-timestamp to Computer B 2. Computer B summed its own waveform to the audio packet and sent it back to Computer A 3. Computer A displayed the difference in rdtsc timestamp / 2 to get the per hop latency.
At 100mbps, latencies for Ethernet UDP packet with store/forward are following: