Someone go make a Kickstarter!
There's this kickstarted product that has a midi in (not out), but it's pretty pricey. It's open source and extremely versatile / hackable though.
Honorable mention: The Howton Owl which is cheaper and you can program it in C / C++, but it's audio only (no MIDI).
Edit: Actually it turns out the Owl can use its USB port as a MIDI port of some sort(s), and also there's a UART that can theoretically be used for MIDI but you'd have to work out how to do that yourself.
Those are some nice projects and I like that you can plug your instruments and microphone directly into the pedal. Now my requirements list for the ultimate controller pedal has grown. ;-)
Start with something like the Behringer FCB1010. Add some programmability and get rid of a few unnecessary cables similar to the mods that are available on http://www.fcb1010.eu. Switch to USB-MIDI and add two TRS combo jacks with so I can plug in my microphone and my guitar. The pedal should double as a audio interface, a MIDI controller, be powered over USB but be capable of powering my tablet over USB when hooked up to 9V.
As I write this I realize that what I'm looking for is pretty much a Guitarjack Stage https://www.sonomawireworks.com/guitarjackstage but with more footswitches, less knobs and two built-in expression pedals.
MIDI is dead.
The latency, is simply not musical. I have worked with midi since the early 90s. Its a low baud serial connection. Play 5 notes at once? Nope, its now a really fast appregio. Got a nicer keyboard that sends velocity, aftertouch and control commands? Even more quickly flooded.
The problem is, its such a widely implemented standard, and yet there are few, if any, out of the box midi-on-chip solutions that make sense.
If someone produced a new standard, focusing on latency, and somehow made a midi failover/compatibility mode. Midi2 if you will... that could be easily implemented by device makers. The whole world would get better music.
The latency, is simply not musical. I have worked with midi since the early 90s. Its a low baud serial connection. Play 5 notes at once? Nope, its now a really fast appregio."
I suspect that's wholly upon your equipment. I've got an old 486 with an AWE32 on it. Never once in my life have I encountered the problems you describe and my keyboard was a DIN5 connected Korg.
"Got a nicer keyboard that sends velocity, aftertouch and control commands? Even more quickly flooded."
Let me guess, you were using the game port on the back of your sound card instead of a sound card with a dedicated MIDI input/output?
http://opensoundcontrol.org/introduction-osc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Sound_Control
What you are describing would stop the entire music industry from functioning.
https://www.midi.org/articles/midi-polyphonic-expression-mpe
For example: https://www.roland.com/global/products/gc-1/
If you're a computer-based musician, an excellent option is Jam Origin's Midi Guitar 2. It's a pure software solution that accepts any guitar as an input. It works polyphonically, has low latency and tracks the notes with remarkable accuracy.
To go back even further, check ot the original, the VOX Guitar Organ. Lots of vids on youtube.
Do you know if anyone has attempted such a feat?
Am embedded electronics designer, for context.
Expensive, finicky. But it did convert to MIDI for sound purposes. Enough so that Fender even sold a model with the Roland pickup built in.
Source: 20+ years with guitar and way too nerdy with MIDI and stuff over the years
As digital pedals get better I'm sure we'll eventually be able to get away without a MIDI pickup, but I'd bet overtones inside some chords could really confuse a system which is effectively trying to decode frequencies in real time to identify the fundamental. However, with that said, Digitech is getting really close with this ability in their long-running Whammy pedals to transpose entire chords as well as individual notes.
I remember the same experience (in like 1989).
edit: found one - https://webaudiotech.com/2017/02/20/a-piano-sustain-pedal-to...
