I just ordered a Roland MIDI 2.0 A88-MK2 keyboard controller. Sadly there are no MIDI 2.0 synthesizers (that I know of) yet. My salesman at Sweetwater says he’s getting some in next week!
It is damn time to go beyond 128 steps of velocity and controller data. Please get on this ASAP Steinberg. It would be a feather in your cap to be the first DAW with this. Not sure if third party MIDI 2.0 plugins would work in the current version of Cubase. I’m guessing not.
Part of the MIDI 2.0 protocol is to be full backwards compatible and even forwards compatible to a degree in the sense that it will also improve MIDI 1.0 existing specs.
Steinberg is part of the initial development prototyping so I’m guessing they already have working elements of MIDI 2.0 in an upcoming version Cubase 11 probably.
I’ve read in an article that there has been an unofficial C10 version that supports a large portion of midi2.0 already so I guess this will come with C11.
However I wonder if this will be of any benefit for existing VSTs. All parameters not explicitly exposed (so basically everything in Kontakt) will still use the old format if I’m not mistaken and thus be restricted to 128 levels. I haven’t read the VST sdk specs but they probably have to release a new one exposing midi2.0 messages.
It seems to be very little midi2.0 gear on the market. I have only seen Roland with one product. I think with real standardisation organisation that would have been classified as a disaster.