How MIDI works

[moaner]

I have one of those low end Yamaha keubaords, and it has midi in and out, and possibly thru, i'm not sure.

Does this send the information of what note is being played, so that, for example, i could plug a midi controller into the midi in and use the voices on the yamaha keybaord? Or does it send the actual note and information of the voice, so that both come out of the input of the 2nd keyboard?

I hope this is a clear question...

[robman304]

I'm not exactly sure about midi, one of my friends is very big on it and he's always told me that midi is just information signals, so that it just sends information of what note is being played. It should carry the voice with it, not exactly sure though because I don't use midi at all..I hope that helps somewhat.

[ToRidTheDisease]

I'm wondering this same thing.

[BluesKeys]

MIDI sends various signal messages, such as pitch bend, note, note velocity, after-touch, etc., to another MIDI device or your computer.

By connecting the midi controller to the MIDI IN of the yamaha, you are sending information from the controller to the keyboard. In theroy, you would be able to use the voices on the yamaha while playing on the controller.

Dave

[robman304]

^^^better said by someone who better knows what they're talking about :thumb:

[retard_robbie]

i think midi is the instructions for how to play something. whereas mp3 files etc. contain data about the waveform of the sound, midi files contain information about what note is pressed when, and what voice to use. so you can record on your keyboard a midi file, and play on a windows midi player

well thats what i heard anyway...

[Ned]

I have one of those low end Yamaha keubaords, and it has midi in and out, and possibly thru, i'm not sure.

Does this send the information of what note is being played, so that, for example, i could plug a midi controller into the midi in and use the voices on the yamaha keybaord?

Yes.

Or does it send the actual note and information of the voice, so that both come out of the input of the 2nd keyboard?

No--EXCEPT: One electronic keyboard's "GM" "voice" (Yamaha should be shot for misapplying this musical term; a voice is actually a line) should sound approximately the same as another, which, like most of the MIDI protocol, is utterly idiotic, of course. "GM" stands for "General MIDI".

I hope this is a clear question...

Much clearer than most of the responses.

[moaner]

ok, thanks ned.

[BluesKeys]

You should also be aware of the difference between a Yamaha "voice" and a GM sound. A "voice" actually contains layers of different sounds that increase the fullness of the sound. For example, the Yamaha "Portable Grand" voice is made up of different layers of stereo piano samples that change depending on what notes and the velocity you play.

A GM sound is a very basic sound, usually made up of one layer. Voices cannot be read by other midi devices, unless it's specifically meant to. For example, some Yamaha keyboards have "XG Lite" voices that can be read by XG Lite-compatible devices or software.

In essence, midi devices can only read GM-compatible data.

Dave

[Vicjan88]

I have just the thing you need........this site i found tells you about MIDI's and tells you how to connect it.....
http://www.etcetera.co.uk/Support/howto/howtoConnectMIDI.shtml#Methods

[CuShMaN]

Midi itself is nothing more than a digital player piano.

Imagine one of those old player piano's that has a big roll of parchment that has holes in it. As the wheel feeds the paper through it tells which keys to play. If you wanted to create a recording.. you could feed in a blank roll and play the piano and it could be set up to punch the holes in the paper as you played the song.

Today, we do the same thing, but the "holes" are recorded as "midi data". Some keyboards will record the data. Most keyboards have midi ports on the back.
And most musicians just stare at the ports and wonder what they do.
Simple. They let you transfer the data to another port.
Keyboard to Keyboard, Keyboard to Computer (or reverse), the list goes on.

Personally, I mostly use the midi out on my keyboard.
I run a midi cord from my keyboard (midi out) to my computer (using and interface) and I record anything I play as notation on my computer using the appropriate software.

If I wanted to, I could hook up another cord running back to my keyboard (midi in) and then I could have the computer play back the notes I just recorded and the keyboard would play it.

GM is a predetermined set of sounds that is universally accepted. When you record a piece of music that has different instruments.. each instrument in a midi piece has a different "channel" just like a score. GM is a list of channels from 1 to 127 that is set. For example 1 is always a piano and channel 48 is always a Timpany. This allows musicians to create music that they want to sound a certain way.. and when they give the midi data to someone else, it will sound the same on their set up.

Ghost Notes (http://ghostnotes.blogspot.com/)

[BluesKeys]

Okay, I did a little test today:

I connected the MIDI OUT of my Yamaha keyboard to the MIDI IN of my Casio keyboard. I was able to play the voices built-in to the Casio on the Yamaha. I was also able to change the voice from the Casio directly on the Yamaha. When I want to play the Casio's voices on the Yamaha, I select the '"Local Off" setting on the Yamaha; this disables the voices from my Yamaha to play while I'm playing the voices from the Casio. When I just want to play the Yamaha alone, I simply turn the Casio off and set my Yamaha to "Local On".

You can't use one keyboard as a speaker system for another, in the sense that you cannot play what's on your keyboard through the other keyboard, like a speaker system. You can use one keyboard to control the other, hence the term midi controller. In other words, it's like taking the information from one keyboard and inserting it into the keyboard/sustain/etc. of the other.

Dave