What Is MIDI?

MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) has had by far the most influence on music creation and performance. Simply put, MIDI allows a musician to connect one musical device to another for a variety of purposes. For instance, a drummer can connect a specialized drum pad via MIDI to a synthesizer module. When the pad is triggered by the drummer hitting it with a drum stick, the pad sends a MIDI signal to the module (or brain, as it is typically called) to play an assigned part. It can also trigger other events if the pad is connected to other MIDI-capable devices, such as lighting controllers, digital recorders , and computers. There are many technologies that a musician can take advantage of. MIDI is the glue that binds the music and the technology together.

By today's standards, MIDI is a relatively simple technology in terms of its use with computers and musical instruments. For each device there are MIDI in and MIDI out ports. In addition, a MIDI through port, used for chaining devices together, is also available on some hardware. Connecting a synthesizer to a computer is a simple matter of connecting the out port of each device to the in port of the other device, as illustrated in Figure 20-1 .

Figure 20-1. MIDI synthesizer connected to computer.

When recording, the synthesizer or MIDI controller (a special keyboard for generating only MIDI events ”it doesn't produce sound itself) generates the MIDI events and the computer records them using sequencing software. (More information on MIDI can be read at www.midi.org . There is also an excellent introduction to MIDI at the Jazz++ Web site, http://www.jazzware.com .) For playback, the computer will send the recorded MIDI events to a sound-generating device, such as a synthesizer module or synthesizer keyboard, or some other device.