How MIDI Works in Electronic Music Production
One of the biggest challenges facing electronic music is the ability to recreate the natural expression that is an intrinsic part of any human performance. From the guitarist who strums certain notes harder than the others to the flute-player who sustains some notes whilst shortening the rest, it is this human element that contributes to the beauty of music and prevents it from becoming monotonous and dull. So how can an electronic music producer inject this human element into the computer hardware, software & synthesizers that they are using?
The answer is MIDI. MIDI (or Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a communications protocol which allows devices such as synthesizers to be connected to and controlled by a sequencer. Think of it as a series of instructions that can tell an end device how to behave. By carefully programming and automating MIDI control change (CC) messages, a producer can recreate the subtle nuances of a human performance in their digital instruments.
MIDI can be used to control how hard a note is played, how much pitch modulation should be applied, and even how much brightness a note should have. MIDI is also very useful for controlling rack mounted synths, as their external interface may not contain any physical real-time controllers.
The MIDI protocol makes 128 controllers available to any MIDI enabled device (CC 0-127). Many of these controllers are standardized and mapped to specific functions such as those mentioned above, whilst some are available to be interpreted by the device independently. Each controller has an associated variable parameter which controls the state of the function.
One practical example of using CC messages would be to incorporate stereo panning in an instrument that is controlled by a particular MIDI channel. As control change 10 corresponds to Pan, the sequencer would need to send a series of CC 10 messages to the receiving device (eg. a synth). Each message would contain an instruction to set the Pan variable to a particular value. Each time that the specific control change message is received by the synth during the course of the arrangement being played back, it would adjust the Pan appropriately across the stereo field.
The answer is MIDI. MIDI (or Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a communications protocol which allows devices such as synthesizers to be connected to and controlled by a sequencer. Think of it as a series of instructions that can tell an end device how to behave. By carefully programming and automating MIDI control change (CC) messages, a producer can recreate the subtle nuances of a human performance in their digital instruments.
MIDI can be used to control how hard a note is played, how much pitch modulation should be applied, and even how much brightness a note should have. MIDI is also very useful for controlling rack mounted synths, as their external interface may not contain any physical real-time controllers.
The MIDI protocol makes 128 controllers available to any MIDI enabled device (CC 0-127). Many of these controllers are standardized and mapped to specific functions such as those mentioned above, whilst some are available to be interpreted by the device independently. Each controller has an associated variable parameter which controls the state of the function.
One practical example of using CC messages would be to incorporate stereo panning in an instrument that is controlled by a particular MIDI channel. As control change 10 corresponds to Pan, the sequencer would need to send a series of CC 10 messages to the receiving device (eg. a synth). Each message would contain an instruction to set the Pan variable to a particular value. Each time that the specific control change message is received by the synth during the course of the arrangement being played back, it would adjust the Pan appropriately across the stereo field.
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