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
http://www.update.uu.se/~vick/Coordinator.html.
Usenet newsgroups: comp.music.midi, alt.music.midi.
(1998-06-27)
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