Midi (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) plays a crucial role in today’s music production. Therefore, it is vital if you are an aspiring music producer that you understand the midi description and its functions. It helps to mix music and makes it possible for one person to make the music for an entire band or orchestra.
First, here is a description of the functions and advantages of the midi interface of a PC:
• Compact – a single CD can hold thousands of songs and / or a single 3 ½ “floppy disk can hold hours of music.
• Efficient – Virtually any computer can handle MIDI.
• Powerful – It gives you the ability to conduct an entire orchestra.
• Versatile – One click of a button is all it takes to change the key, tempo, instrument, etc.
• Intuitive – MIDI files are essentially an electronic version of a piano roll for many instruments.
• Portable Industry Standard – All MIDI instruments have the ability to communicate with each other
With the help of MIDI in our lives, there are messages that should not be ignored when knowing the .MID file. These messages also called “events” help to generate the sound that is needed to reproduce the music created previously.
These are some of the messages or events:
1. Control change: records when a controller, possibly a dimmer knob or pedal, has been turned or pressed. The control change message included the number designated to the controller and the change 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 like vibrato to the note.
3. Note on: Alerts when a note has been pressed or a key on a separate instrument (such as a MIDI drum or flute) has just been played. A “Note On” message includes instructions for the key that was pressed and the velocity of the key or the force with which the note was played.
Four. Note disabled: warns that a note has finished playing or, in other words, that a key has been released.
5. Pitch Wheel Shift: alerts when a keyboard’s pitch wheel has doubled the pitch of a note.
Note that like TV that has channels, MIDI has 16 channels (some say 1-16, others say 0-15). Although there are 16 channels and they are all different from each other, it can still be played individually. Again, like television that has different channels connected to a cable provider, the channels can be viewed individually.
Also in a midi description there are also the “midi connections”. It can be simply described as a string of daisies that can be interpreted as something very long. It is interconnected with the three MIDI jacks: IN, OUT, and THROUGH. All of which are responsible for the transmission of messages for the music to play.