As you might have read in other posts here, WIP (you : ) has decided that we will start implementing MIDI in/export and a new improved diskbrowser for the next version.
MIDI in/export will be done by Martinal, the new DiskOp by myself. If you have ideas or suggestions for these features, you may address them directly to the responsable developer.
Does this mean that it is no meaning for me to vote in the “Priority features”-poll on the WIP page? 
I just havn’t manage to get it done yet, but I would have voted for MIDI In/Export anyway so I guess it doesn’t matter anyway… 
Well, I can “see” two distinct midi import procedures:
one that actually imports midi programs, and instances midi instruments, and one a là mptracker, thusly converting midi instruments into wave samples.
I don’t know if can explain what I mean in my fractured english…
This makes no sense to me 
Midi files contain only note and controller data, which corresponds to the pattern notes and commands and envelopes in renoise. No samples or instruments are involved in midi files. (There are different kinds of formats for including sampledumps etc in special midi files or within sysEx messages, but that’s not what we’re talking about here).
Ok let me try again:
I am talking about import, not export.
Renoise features true, full midi. If I import a midi file, I expect to find, as instruments, N midi instruments and no samples.
Instead, some trackers with no real midi support, imports midi files so that the midi instruments are “downloaded” from the sound card and converted into samples. Just look at the way MPTracker works.
Why would this second option be useful? Basically because you can apply DSP filters only to sampled instruments.
well maybe it’s possible for General Midi Midifiles and those special Soundcards … but if somebody have no GM-soundcard with the download-feature !!! …
u can simple use a SoftwareCanavas or SoftXGsynth … as midi or VSTi instrument …
ok if an imported midi-song have bank and preset changes … this are settings that maybe sould imported as well …
and if u want to render a GM midi-file into a wave-file or a tracker format … there are maybe other special software for that (but why should this useful?)
i don’t see that this pseudo-rendering of midi-files is important for most people … don’t know … why??? Renoise have REAL midi/VSTi support!!!
u can apply DSP filters on VST-instruments as well! all u need?!
maybe in future Renoise can import SoundFonts or other sample-sound-formats … so long … use a softsampler as VSTi like Halion or Kontakt …
MPTracker does NOT convert midi notes/instruments or anything of this like to samples. What it does is that it allows a user to map every midi instrument into a sample - the user supplies the sample. Also, a sound card got no supply of downloadable samples to take the place of a midi instrument. YOU map the whole thing. There is nothing new here, and it is no different from how this will end up being implemented - users supplying mappings of whatever sample they want to use for the midi instrument.
Please note, that there is nothing called “converting” midi instrument to a sample.
Eww, I didn’t think this to be so difficult to understand… or to explain! 
… and I don’t know what could I add now. Just try MPTracker to understand what I mean. The tracker is cryptic and has unlimited weak spots, but this Midi import feature it has is very particular.
It’s the difference between saying “play midi instrument #23” or “play sample #1”, where sample #1 is actually midi instrument #23… saved to disk as a wave file. (pheew!)
I was one of the first people to use MPTracker and I know this tracker inside out.
What you state is exactly what I stated - You MAP samples into slots: these slots are the MIDI instruments. That is how you render MIDI to wave anyway ever since we had the first command line tool PMID ages ago.
So what is exactly the issue here 
Sample 1 is mapped to MIDI instrument 23 and it is YOU who has to come up with Sample 1. Not the sound card, not MPTracker, and certainly not the MIDI file.
I looked at mptracker’s page. Apparently, this tracker can load .dls files (never heard of them myself) which are banks of samples of midi sounds. Probably, what mptracker does is to automatically load a default GM (General Midi) sample bank. There is no way to “download” sounds from a soundcard in a general way. Some soundscards have samples stored in ROM or RAM on the card, inaccessible to programs, and others (like SBLive) use soundbanks on the HD. There is no standard for this.
And most important, “midi” is not the same as “General Midi”.
Midi is the protocol defining note and controller messages which are sent between different pieces of software and hardware and stored in midi files.
GM is a standard defining which patch number should be which instrument, ie patch 0 is a piano. Other midi synths have completely different sounds at the same patch number.
One suggestion for you then, is to use a vsti like steinbergs “universal soundbank” which is a GM compliant (see below) vsti. I’ll make midifile patchnumbers mappable to instruments so this will be easy.
MPTracker tracker allows you to map samples into MIDI slots. You open a MIDI file and you assign samples into the different instruments. If you want to, you can have your own General MIDI sample bank in place. Then you are free to do whatever you like with the MIDI file.
In a way, MPTracker can be looked upon as a nice way to render MIDI files into Waves.
.DLS files (Downloadable Samples) is a way to assure that a MIDI file plays the same on every computer. This is done by saving a DLS which is a bank of sampled instruments inside a MIDI file. The result is what is called an .RMI file. So an RMI file is a MIDI file + DLS file.
The sampled instruments play the MIDI patches. This is what the Microsoft Synth is all about: a DLS file in the c:\windows\system32\drivers directory.
So all in all, these all act the same way.
A DLS file is comparable in structure to an .SF2 file.
Please note that you can open DLS files and modify them etc… with AWave Studio. This maybe the only wave editor/converter that can fully handle DLS Level 2 files.
In a perfect world, an RNI renoise instrument file should be comparable to a single instrument inside a DLS level 2 file. This assures the most generalized and compatible instrument structure there is.
Perfect. Thanks for the clarifications. 
I will eagerly wait for midi import/export - however it’s done.