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Category: MIDI 101
01/30/08
In today’s digital world, musicians have choices as to how they present their music in a live setting. The gamut can run from a 7 piece band playing all the parts to a one man show using backing tracks to complete the act.
Backing Tracks are great for smaller acts to sound like a full blown band or orchestra. In many clubs, you can find a guitar player playing and singing along to the tracks. These musicians have choices as to the format of those backing tracks.
Permalink01/16/08
By Usha Rani
In reality MIDI files are very petite since they use your sound card’s built-in instruments for crafting the sounds. The problem is that most sound cards don’t have any decent sounds to start with, plus no two sound cards sound alike and therefore the results are very erratic. MIDI files usually sound like they’re coming from one of those cheap Casio keyboards. Using MIDI for background music is very likely to make your site seem sloppy. Want to know how to do it anyway? Just add the line to your site and when the page gets loaded the file will be played robotically by the command named Auto Start. Although professional sound recording packages can be fairly costly, you can get your feet wet by trying out one of the obtainable shareware programs.
12/19/07
As a professional MIDI programmer, my job is to take a song and transform it into MIDI data. In short, you are taking all the parts: the chords, the notes, the drums, the dynamics, and reproducing them. As one example, a solo performer can now play and sing along with that MIDI file and can sound pretty close to the original artist’s recording.
By admin on Dec 19, 2007|66 views
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| In MIDI 101 | Send feedback »
Back in the 1970’s and ’80’s, pioneering home computing machines such as the Tandy Color Computer (COCO) had built-in sound. You could program simple tunes with the extended BASIC language. I remember coding Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture to amuse my four-year old son. But sound quality was horrible and musical complexity on a 4 K machine just couldn’t exist.
10/14/07
By admin on Oct 14, 2007|72 views
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| In MIDI 101 | Send feedback »
Why Would a Guitarist Want to Know about MIDI?
By Mike Furlong
Because there are MIDI guitars! And there are MIDI interface attachments for regular guitars. You can make totally new sounds, change your existing sounds, or add instrumentation you never thought possible before!
So let me give you the rundown!
02/10/05
To get the real power out of the MIDI protocol for composing and reproducing music, you need additional software. A MIDI file is simply a file of all the commands needed to play a certain sequence of music. A PC can store these and then transmit them to MIDI instruments. Alternatively, these can be transmitted to a PC sound card/speaker system, which will play them through MIDI Player software such as vanBasco’s Karaoke Player.
12/19/04
By admin on Dec 19, 2004|59 views
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| In MIDI 101 | Send feedback »
So what is this MIDI that started it all? MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. MIDI is a hardware/software combination.
The hardware is a MIDI cable. The MIDI cable looks like a 5-pin cable, but it is not an ordinary 5-pin cable. It is specially grounded and shielded for efficient data transmission, critical for music interpretation. It is an asynch serial x, with baud rate 31.25 kbaud. This is not a speed that can be created by the PC; hence, the PC controlling MIDI instruments must be fitted with a MIDI card. This sound card creates the special 31.25-baud rate. The interface is 10 bits - 1 start bit, 8 data bits, and 1 stop bit. These move at 320 microseconds per serial byte, in a current loop of 5 mA. The MIDI cable’s stated maximum length is 50 feet, but for optimal data transmission, 20 feet is the effective maximum. Most MIDI cables are 5 or 10 feet.
By admin on Dec 19, 2004|57 views
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| In MIDI 101 | Send feedback »
Here is a list of General MIDI Patches (sounds)
09/22/04
By admin on Sep 22, 2004|81 views
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| In MIDI 101 | Send feedback »
The following represents a master list of controller messages. Not all devices use all available controllers. Some devices may use certain controllers for proprietary use. Refer to your Device MIDI Implementation Chart to confirm the use or non use of the following Controllers.
08/10/03
By admin on Aug 10, 2003|52 views
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| In MIDI 101 | Send feedback »
Before we talk about what MIDI is, let’s talk about what MIDI is not.
- MIDI is not a word…it is an acronym for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. When you see it spelled as midi, or midifile, the author is either a bad typist, or really doesn’t understand what MIDI is.
- MIDI is not a recording. MIDI is a data stream…a chain of instructions sent to a particular device telling it to do something. It could tell the device (usually a synth, or sound card) to play a particular note, or to stop playing notes, etc.
- MIDI is not a sound recording. A MIDI contains no sounds. It tells the connected devices to play the sounds.
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