MIDI - It's not just an acronym from the 80's

by Jason Johnston Although it was developed in the 80's as a way for keyboards to talk to each other, MIDI is alive an well in today's home studio. In fact it is showing up everywhere from websites to cell phones. What is MIDI? MIDI is an acronym for "Music Instrument Digital Interface". It was developed in the 80's as a computer music language that electronic instruments could use to communicate to one another using a MIDI cable. Here's the KEY: MIDI only sends INFORMATION it does not send AUDIO. Basically computer instructions - Ones and Zeros, that's it. Today, USB devices still use MIDI instructions to tell the computer what to do. What can it do? MIDI is extremely flexible. With it you can: - Change tempo without affecting sound quality - Edit individual notes and sounds easily - Edit groups of notes (like transposing, shifting by a beat, etc) - Edit dynamic elements (velocity, hold, expression) - Quantize pushing the MIDI notes into time - Change sounds at the click of a button What can't it do? - It cannot be exported without first changing to a audio file - most sequencers will do this automatically for you at mixdown. - It (still) cannot replicate some sounds well (human voice, acoustic guitar) although it is getting closer Did you Know? Did you know that you can import MIDI files into most audio recording sequencers (Cubase, Sonar, Reason, etc.). All you need to do is search for a MIDI file to download in Google, download it (it should have .mid on the end) and import it into your application of choice. Next step is to assign MIDI instruments onto each track, and then you can have your own Karaoke night with the family to the latest Britney tune. And that reminds me: MIDI is a powerful tool in the hands of the Rebellion...so use it wisely...