MIDI

General points about MIDI

Acronym for Musical Instrument Digital Interface

Was made in 1983
It was made so that synthesisers and other equipment could communicate
efficiently
It was made standard by the AES (Audio Engineering Society)
Virtually all keyboards and synthesisers have MIDI built in
Uses a 5-pin DIN (Deutsches Institut fr Normung dont need to know this) connector

Three types of connection usage:

-MIDI In (input the MIDI signal into the device)
-MIDI Out (output of the MIDI signal to go to a different device)
-MIDI Thru (to daisy-chain, or link up, devices, diagram here)
Note on/off is when, for example, you press a key on a MIDI controller (like in the
MIDI suite), or a synthesiser connected via MIDI, and the note sounds through a different
device (like a computer), and this is known as the note being ON. When you release the
key, and the note stops sounding, this is known as note OFF. Also, there must be a
capability to also hold up to 128 different notes and velocities. This is known as Data 1
and 2.

Data 1 NOTE (Where Middle C = #60, as a standard, from values 1-128)

Data 2 VELOCITY (How fast you depress the key, and often linked to how loud
the note will sound)

Different types of MIDI message (remember these)

o
o
o
o

Notes on/off
-Whether the note is depressed or not
Controller
-E.G. CC 7 (is volume)
Pitch Bend
-Self-explanatory
Program Change (NOT ProgramME)
-Changing the Program/instrument/sound your using (like switching from a violin to a
piano)
Poly pressure (polyphonic aftertouch)
-When pressing the key harder after youve depressed it it,
vibrato/expression/volume can be programed in to intensify.
After touch (not always included)
-Same as above, but individual notes pressure cant be individually changed, or
it changes all of them at once.
System Exclusive
-A type of programing language specific to the device you are using that is NOT
standard of MIDI. All of the above specs are a STANDARD of MIDI, meaning all
machines with MIDI will have these parameters. System Exclusive (or SysEx) is the
only parameter that can be modified by the manufacturer so that the device has its
own data language.

Some more information on MIDI

Remember the fact that MIDI data can have 128 different values, or steps, like
velocity? Well some parameters can have more than this, and so things like pitch bend
can have a lot more values than this, in fact 128 times more values than 0-127.
So for a pitch bend to sound smooth, the 0-127 steps do not sound smooth
enough for a decent pitch bend. So, because of the way MIDI is built, the possible 128
values can be squared (meaning multiplied by itself) so that you can have 1282 (128 x
128) = 16,384 steps Which is a lot more than 128 values, so this means that these
values present a much more continuous, smoother pitch bend.

Controller Data
So for MIDI, you can use many parameters to properly create a realistic
sounding/musical set of timbres which can be fully edited and modulated (changed over
time). This is done through 16 different channels, i.e. you can have 16 different
instruments playing at exactly the same time with just 1 channel. This allows for bigbands, rock bands, orchestral pieces and a lot of pieces of music to be performed by just
1 channel of MIDI. (Remember MIDI has 16 channels)
These parameters include the following (which you should remember):
CC 1
CC 5
CC 7
CC 10
CC 11
CC 64
not 0-128)
CC 66
depressed)
CC 91
CC 92
CC 93

Modulation wheel (similar to vibrato)

Portamento time (time taken for one note to glide/slide to the other)
Volume
Pan (in the stereo field, i.e. left to right)
Expression
Sustain on/off (like the sustain pedal on a piano, and this value is either on or off,
Sostenuto Pedal (like on a piano, only sustains those notes that are being
Effects 1 (Reverb Level)
Effects 2 (Tremolo Level)
Effects 3 (Chorus Level)

Advantages and disadvantages of MIDI

The ability to connect different equipment together

Its a standard system used internationally
Its easily controllable for editing and changing things.
MIDI files are much more compact than digital audio files

MIDI cannot easily be used to play back spoken dialogue

MIDI data is device dependent (The MIDI sounds depend on the particular MIDI
device used for playback)
Instruments to
remember:
1-8
Piano
9-16
Chromatic
Percussion
17-24
Organ
25-32
Guitar
33-40
Bass
41-48
Strings

The standard also states that a General MIDI instruments

specifications must include:
o
o
o
o

a minimum of twenty-four notes available simultaneously (24 note

polyphony)
the use of all sixteen channels for multi-timbral, polyphonic
operation
the availability of at least sixteen different timbres, playing various
sounds.
a minimum of 128 pre-set program numbers (voices) with the first
128 corresponding to the GM voice list.

49-56
57-64

Ensembles
Brass

o
o
o

percussion parts on channel 10 have a minimum of 47 standard

sounds mapped to General MIDI agreed standard.
the ability to respond to the same set of MIDI controllers and the
ranges must be standard.
response to velocity, pitch-bend and aftertouch via MIDI.