Midi (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) plays a crucial role in today’s music production. Thus it is vital if you are an aspiring music producer that you get a understanding of midi description and its functions. It helps use mix music and makes it possible for one person to make the music of a whole band or orchestra.
First, here is a description of a pc midi interface functions and advantages:
• Compact – a single CD can hols thousands of songs and/or one single 3 ½” floppy disc can hold hours of music.
• Efficient – Pretty much any computer can handle MIDI.
• Powerful – Gives you the ability to command a whole orchestra.
• Versatile – A click of a button is all it takes to change key, tempo, instrument, etc.
• Intuitive – MIDI files are essentially an electronic version of a player piano roll for many instruments
• Portable Industry Standard – All MIDI instruments have the ability to talk to one another
With the help of MIDI in our lives, there are messages that should not be disregarded in knowing the.MID file. These messages also called “events” help in generating the sound that is needed to play the music created previously.
Here are some of the messages or events:
1. Control Change: registers when a controller — possibly a fader knob or a foot pedal — has been turned or pushed. The message from the control change comprises of the number designated to the controller and change’s value (0-127).
2. Polyphonic Key Pressure: when a key is pressed after the key “bottoms out” this message measures how hard it was pressed. Depending on your keyboard you can use this to add other effects such as vibrato to the note.
3. Note On: alerts when a note has been pushed or a key on a separate instrument (like a MIDI drum or flute) was just played. A message of “Note On” includes directions for what key was pushed and the key’s velocity or how hard the note was played.
4. Note Off: alerts that a note is done playing or in other words that a key has been released.
5. Pitch Wheel Change: alerts when a keyboard’s pitch wheel has bent the pitch of a note.
Take note that just like the television which has channels, MIDI has 16 channels (some say 1-16, others say it is from 0-15). Though there are 16 channels, and they are all different from each other, it could still be played individually. Again, just like the television which has different channels connected to one cable provider, channels can be viewed individually.
Also in a midi description there is also such a thing as the “midi- connections”. It is can be simply described as a daisy-chain which can be interpreted as something that is very long. It is interconnected with the three MIDI sockets – IN, OUT and THROUGH. All of which are responsible to the transmission of messages for the music to play.