I’ve seen a bunch of comments recently about minijack/TRS MIDI that made me chuckle, including one that suggested that ‘real instruments don’t have TRS MIDI’. I’m no fan of minijack MIDI at all, but even I would suggest that this kind of statement is ludicrous.
Anyway, I decided to put together a video outlining why I don’t like TRS MIDI, and see who wants to fight me (I jest, mods, I jest). Whatdya think? Who hates TRS MIDI? Who loves it? What other solutions have I missed?
A point in favour. Using a headphone splitter to get midi to two different places in a pinch is nice.
Oh that’s a great one.
Does it? I thought that would just send it to one output with the whole tip/ring thing?
Absolutely agree, then there is an a variant and a b variant, who knows wtf the difference is (don’t try tell me, I don’t care). Even the Roland Boutiques have a real midi port, I can respect that. Complete trash spec.
Yeah it works. As long as the voltage remains high enough. I’ve split it two ways, i’m not sure you can split 3 or more ways. It’ll also depend on the source device.
I am Scottish, I am incapable of anything but hate and rage.
Headphone splitter rather than… a stereo to mono splitter cable. The former works as it splits the entirety of the stereo signal, whereas the latter will separate out the signals and not work.
You can even convert TRS A to B and vice versa by, using something like this:
and something like this:
https://teenage.engineering/store/slim-stereo-splitter-cable/
and then switch the L/R so that instead of going L->L and R->R you go L->R R->L
Ahhh, that makes more sense, I miss read it first time round
Thats what I had memory of doing in the past! Thanks
im using something similar to this splitter.
Its important that its Stereo.
what I also strive to live by
i honestly think TRS midi is great… very easy to split signals and what not… the cables are small and doesn´t take up too much room. granted i have a limited space which very easily gets cluttered so maybe those things are more important to me.
I’ll fight ya, couldnt give a shit about midi connections either way, do love a good scrap though.
Oh that’s actually such a smart way to approach it. I hadn’t even thought of a Y splitter.
I hate that there are two configurations to TRS. Besides that, I love it, because it takes up way less space. Even small DIN Cables waste way too much space in smaller cases. On top of that, DIN is taking up soo much space in devices. Gear could be so much thinner without DIN midi.
Besides that: Old MIDI sucks all together. It is sooo slow! Hardware setups would be so much tighter without that bottleneck of 31.25k 
TRS midi makes sense on smaller gear, and the ability to use standard stereo mini jack cables is quite handy.
The only problem IMHO is the dickhead manufacturers who still insist on not adhering to the recommended midi standard which is type A.
It is easy enough to convert from A to B, but only a dickhead manufacturer would give their customers the hassle of having to do so.
Dickheads.
Well, all my friends are minijacks
I love TRS midi. Saves space. Works fine. Wish everything had it.
Wether that works or not depends on the hardware. I’ve seen cases where it works and where it doesn’t.
Yes, nice when it works.