GoKawiil300 synths, 3 hardware projects, and one app
MIDI Guide, the open, "comprehensive" MIDI CC & NRPN dataset, has far outgrown its original purpose.
April 6, 2026
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Recently, I merged in the work of a first-time contributor, putting MIDI Guide's dataset over 300 instruments. The pull request was a complete reference for the (somewhat idiosyncratic, in my opinion) MIDI CC implementation of a synth I'd never heard of, the RozzBox One V2 by L.L. Electronics - yet another cool synth introduced to me by MIDI Guide's community.
Three hundred instruments! And from 52 contributors, too, almost all of them perfect strangers. And there are at least 3 real-life hardware devices using the dataset (it's CC-BY-SA 4.0, so feel free to use it in your project, too).
Just before adding the three hundredth definition, we released the app that was the genesis of MIDI Guide: Condukt, our performance MIDI controller and sequencer for iOS, iPad, and macOS. But how did an app released in 2026 produce a community project in 2019? Here's how a passion project that was backburnered for seven years spawned something useful, and then finally launched.
How it started
In early 2019, my cofounder and I awoke from a half-decade folie à deux in which we regrettably made Windows software. It was time to dust off our iPads and try to compete with the big dogs in the real App Store. And while considering what to build, we rediscovered the joy of purchasing, and even using, synthesizers.
It was a heady time to start a synth hoard: the #dawless tag promised productivity and happiness, even without a computer, and the OP-1 reissue was denounced as a toy for dilettantes at the hilariously-decadent price of US$1,299. Significantly, Eurorack was still contained in a lab, and had not yet been observed in metropolitan wastewater surveillance.
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