Test Your MIDI Knowledge

Understanding MIDI: A Digital Language for Music Production

• MIDI is a digital communications language that allows electronic instruments, performance controllers, computers, and related devices to communicate with each other over a connected network.
• MIDI translates performance or control-related events into digital messages that can be transmitted to other MIDI devices to control sound generators and other performance parameters.
• MIDI data can be recorded into a hardware device or software program, where it can be edited and transmitted to electronic instruments or other devices to create music or control parameters.
• MIDI allows electronic musicians to create and develop a song or composition in a practical, flexible, affordable, and fun production environment.
• MIDI enables musicians to have complete control over a wide palette of sounds, their timbre, overall blend, and other real-time controls.
• MIDI can also be used to vary the performance and control parameters of electronic instruments, recording devices, control devices, and signal processors in the studio, on the road, or on the stage.
• Through the use of MIDI, it is possible for all electronic instruments and devices within a network to be addressed through the transmission of real-time performance and control-related MIDI data messages throughout a system to multiple instruments and devices through a single data line.
• A single data cable is capable of transmitting performance and control messages over 16 discrete channels, allowing electronic musicians to record, overdub, mix, and play back their performances in a working environment that resembles the multitrack recording process.
• MIDI surpasses the multitrack recording process by allowing a composition to be edited, controlled, altered, and called up with complete automation and repeatability.
• MIDI is not a language for communicating audio nor can it create sounds; it is a data protocol that communicates on/off triggering and a wide range of parameters to instruct an instrument or device to generate, reproduce, or control audio or production-related functions.
• The MIDI data path and the audio routing paths are entirely separate from each other, even if they digitally share the same transmission cable.
• MIDI data can be thought of as the dots on a player-piano roll; when an electronic instrument interprets the data, we begin to hear sound.