April 7, 2026
Knob drama and dad hacks
Three hundred synths, 3 hardware projects, and one app
300 synths logged, but the crowd’s yelling “Add mine!” as the app finally drops
TLDR: An open MIDI database hit 300 instruments and the team launched Condukt, a new performance app. The community cheered, griped about missing gear, joked about “buying a new iPad for the kid,” and dreamed up a tool to match settings between synths—proof this nerdy resource is becoming a movement.
The makers of MIDI Guide just crossed 300 instruments in their open database of MIDI “control codes” (the language gear uses to talk), and rolled out their long‑teased performance app, Condukt. The crowd? Absolutely buzzing—and bickering—about what’s missing, what’s next, and how far this could go.
One fan cheered the slick downloads and formats, while another discovered their own Alesis/Casio/Yamaha weren’t in the list and basically yelled “challenge accepted,” promising to dig up manuals and send data. That sparked the big mood: 300 is huge… but not enough, and the community’s itching to help. Meanwhile, a deep‑cut synth nerd pitched a wild dream feature—a cross‑synth translator that matches knob positions and envelope times from one machine to another. Imagine dialing “5/10 attack” on a Roland and getting the right milliseconds on a Novation. The thread lit up with “what ifs.”
Amid the excitement, the jokes flew: one commenter deadpanned they’ll “buy my son a new iPad” just to snag the old one for Condukt. Also getting love: the unsung hero status of MIDI itself—called one of the most stable standards ever—and the fact the dataset is open and already powering three hardware devices. Bonus cred for adding obscure gems like the RozzBox One V2.
Key Points
- •MIDI Guide’s open dataset of MIDI CC and NRPN mappings surpassed 300 instruments, with contributions from 52 people.
- •The dataset is licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0 and is used by at least three hardware devices.
- •A first-time contributor added a full reference for the RozzBox One V2 by L.L. Electronics.
- •Condukt, a performance MIDI controller and sequencer for iOS, iPad, and macOS, was released in 2026 and sparked the dataset’s creation.
- •An early Condukt beta on iPadOS 12 revealed practical hurdles (adapters, power, synth, and a CC/NRPN database), leading to the development of MIDI Guide.