mLan - the future of MIDI & Audio interfacing?

The 3 pin DIN serial cabling of MIDI has been around for 20 or so years, while other interfacings have come and gone. About two years ago there was rumblings of a newer, faster implementation for MIDI and Audio within the same cabling called - mLan.

I've been searching for news of products and emerging technology using mLan, most recently YAMAHA have instigated the mLan Alliance. You can check out http://www.Yamahasynth.com/pro/mlan/index.html for the latest. Boasting high speed audio and MIDI transfer based on the IEEE 1394 serial bus (Firewire) with 100 channels of digital audio data or up to 256 ports of MIDI data. It could also spell the end of latency and broaden the bandwidth for the applications we currently use.

Are you impressed / interested? I would like to see mLan products as soon as possible, would you?

I guess it's up to manufacturers to develop mLan products but they may need encouragement to do so. At the same time, more and more music studio practitioners need to be made aware of the mLan standard.

Perhaps product developers might like to comment on whether they have considered mLan for inclusion in future versions of products.

Please reply with your comments and ivestigate mLan for yourself and forward your feedback.

Thanks
John Wesley Barker
Music Producer, Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland
johnwesleybarker@madasafish.com