What happened to MIDI? Where did it go?
We used to be in love with MIDI. But you hardly hear of it these days. Has it gone away, or is it just keeping quiet?
Follow RecordProducer.com on Twitter...
MIDI was a revolution in music and audio. Before MIDI, which means before 1982, every musical instrument manufacturer had their own way of connecting their equipment together.
So you could connect Yamaha to Yamaha, Roland to Roland. But if you tried to connect Yamaha to Roland you would come unstuck.
Once MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) had taken off however, you could connect anything to anything.
This allowed interoperability between just about any musical equipment you could desire to own.
But something else much more important happened...
The MIDI sequencer was invented!
The concept of the MIDI sequencer is that you can record key presses from a musical keyboard into a computer. Then you can use that to build up several tracks, each controlling a MIDI sound generator that would create the audio live from the note data.
The sound generator would be a synthesizer or sampler, or perhaps a module whose sounds were based on samples although you couldn't add your own.
So in the 1980s and 1990s everything was MIDI-this, MIDI-that, MIDI-MIDI-MIDI...
You couldn't get away from it.
But we don't talk much of MIDI anymore, so what happened to it?
What happened to MIDI was first that MIDI sequencers acquired audio recording functions.
Loop-based music was already popular. Loops were recorded into samplers and triggered by notes recorded into MIDI sequencers.
But with an audio sequencer, you could create a loop directly in a track without the need for a sampler. So MIDI wasn't required.
Loop-based music became incredibly popular, and people would add drums and guitars to loops. Single-sample sounds could be positioned on a track wherever you wanted, once again without the need for a sampler.
And where you needed several sound modules, or a multi-timbral module, to create audio from a MIDI sequencer, you could just play keyboard sounds directly into your audio sequencer.
So gradually almost everything MIDI disappeared from the studio.
Except that it didn't disappear, it went underground.
So these days you probably don't connect your music keyboard to your computer through a MIDI cable and MIDI interface; you connect it with a USB cable.
It isn't actual MIDI data flowing from your music keyboard to your computer, but it is very MIDI-like in structure...
Just as MIDI had note-on and note-off messages (and no such thing as a 'note-continue'), these same types of messages are used today.
You can play software instruments directly from your USB-connected music keyboard and record their audio output. Or you can record MIDI tracks that contain note data but no audio; these MIDI tracks will drive software instrument tracks.
These MIDI tracks contain data that is exactly like MIDI - which notes you played, how hard you played them, modulation wheel and pitch-bend data etc. All corresponding directly to the MIDI of old.
It could be that we are overdue for a revolution, and something much better than MIDI could be invented now. However, the legacy of the past is deeply entrenched and it is likely that we will be using this 'under the surface' MIDI for decades to come.
Publication date Wednesday February 03, 2010
(You can unsubscribe quickly and easily.)
Discussion on this article's topic...
Wednesday May 19, 2010
There's some confusion, here.
MIDI is a standard defined on multiple levels, akin to physical, datalink and network layers in the ISO/OSI stack.
While USB keyboards don't have a DIN connector nor a current-loop circuit with an optoisolator, nor even those lovely 33kbaud UARTs (or whatever it was), the data they transmit from one point to another IS 100% STANDARD MIDI, with status, note on, note off and all.
Each and every byte defined by the 1983 standard is preserved, it's just the physical connection that is supplanted by a newer and more practical one.
Whether you talk into a phone or into Skype, it's still English, right?
Oh, yeah, by the way: sorry for my incomprehensible English.
Friday May 14, 2010
Monday March 22, 2010
Sunday February 14, 2010
Approx. 500 metres of MIDI cables, splitters and expanders here...
DAW (REAPER) is synced to MTC out of pure necessity rather then lust for it.
24 Track HDrec on RADAR24 just for the sound and feel of working with real audio instead of an approximation of sound like most DAW's do in my view.
Atari TT030 Cubase 3.01 master MTC with all serious expanders like SMP24 and good old MIDEX ATARI... No need to update that lot! And it NEVER crashes or fails.
S1100's, 2 Prophet 5's, Memorymoog, Trident, Synthex, Minimidi, Jupiter 8, a shackload of Juno 60's and 106's, Analog Vocoder SVC350, 808, DMX, Linn, Simmons etc..etc..... All on a Soundtracs IL 3632 Desk.
Sounds superior to any DAW i've heard.
Be honest, does your Pro53 plugsynth deliver the meat and grudge of a real P5?... Be honest i said! :-)
Monday February 08, 2010
Tuesday February 02, 2010
Monday February 01, 2010
Monday February 01, 2010
Monday February 01, 2010
Being a 7-bit system, MIDI is limited to numbers between 0 and 127. There are many workarounds incorporated into the system, but one big problem used to be 'zipper noise' - the fact that the difference in sound level was very apparent between subsequent numbers of MIDI Velocity or MIDI Volume. So, if the MIDI Volume was swept up and done, you might hear the sound level going up in discrete steps - not smoothly. Internal systems used within a DAW, being not confined to the MIDI protocol, are free to use more bits to achieve smooth transitions.
Monday February 01, 2010
Monday February 01, 2010
Monday February 01, 2010
UPDATE - Posting of comments has been disabled. RecordProducer.com has been targeted by a botnet posting spam comments. The facility to post comments will return when this problem has been resolved.
We welcome your addition to the discussion on the topic of this article. If you feel that the article is inaccurate in any way, please let us know by e-mail at . We read all messages sent to this address but we cannot promise a reply.
 |
A good manager is hard to find. But why do you need one in the first place? And where are you going to look? Read more... |
 |
If your drum reverbs are hanging around too long, they could be confusing your sound. How long should a drum reverb last? Read more... |
 |
As Roger Waters of Pink Floyd once said, "It doesn't have to be loud. We just like it loud." Well, some people would like it even louder. Is this possible? Read more... |
 |
An RP reader wishes to improve the sound he gets from his microphone. Is this possible, or does he need a better mic? Read more... |
 |
It was supposed to be a magical and revolutionary device. But now that it's here, it is plain that it really isn't anything special at all. Read more... |
 |
Jones For Tones is a Vancouver based music production company with a focus on songwriting, owned and operated by session bassist/recording artist Tony Marriott. Read more... |
 |
In the triangle of lyricist-composer-producer, various copyrights are generated on which royalties are payable. But who gets the lion's share? Read more... |
 |
Still struggling to get a good sound in your home recording studio? Perhaps a visit to a pro studio would fix all your problems. Read more... |
 |
Whoever designs microphones clearly thinks that they all should be microphone-shaped. But isn't it about time we had something more appropriate to the way we use them? Read more... |
 |
An RP reader successfully lands an internship in a major recording studio. But the kind of work he is asked to do isn't quite what he expected... Read more... |
 |
It's tricky to find a good place to set up a studio. If you live in an apartment, then unless you live in a very old building with really thick walls, you might as well forget it, or just record the electronic components of your music at home, monitoring on headphones... Read more... |
 |
An Australian court has recently decided that a song that is almost a national anthem rips off another song written 49 years previously. And someone is going to have to pay... Read more... |
 |
Do your recordings have warmth? Yes? But does the amount of warmth vary with the signal level? Wouldn't you like it to be more consistent... Read more... |
 |
An RP reader has worked out an interesting way of connecting his compressor. Will it work? Or is something going to blow? Read more... |
 |
You're trying to get a decent recording, but your singer is doing really strange things with the microphone. What do you do? Read more... |
 |
There are more audio formats than you could possibly shake a stick at. But could you find a use for FLAC in your recording process? We think you could. Read more... |
 |
Ah, that mysterious Q control in your EQ. Does it actually do anything? Read more... |
 |
Clipping is an eternal problem in audio. It causes terrible distortion and cannot be corrected. Here is the VERY BEST tool to prevent you getting a clip ever again... Read more... |
 |
There's a new software around that could be the savior of the music industry. And you can get your hands on some amazing original multitrack recordings too! Read more... |
 |
David Mellor argues that knowing how to position a microphone can make a far bigger difference to the quality of your work than which microphone you choose. Read more... |
