Musical Instrument Digital Interface

music, hardware, protocol, file format (MIDI /mi'-dee/,

/mee'-dee/) A hardware specification and protocol used to

communicate note and effect information between synthesisers,

computers, music keyboards, controllers, and other electronic

music devices. It is basically a high-speed serial

connection with separate connections for MIDI in, MIDI out and

MIDI through (to allow devices to be chained).

The basic unit of information is a "note on/off" event which

includes a note number (pitch) and key velocity (loudness).

There are many other message types for events such as pitch

bend, patch changes and synthesizer-specific events for

loading new patches etc.

There is a file format for expressing MIDI data which is like

a dump of data sent over a MIDI port.

The MIME type "audio/midi" isn't actually registered so it

should probably be "audio/x-midi".

Filename extension: .mid or .midi

.

Usenet newsgroups: news:comp.music.midi,

news:alt.music.midi.

(1998-06-27)