Midi?

[Surtr]

I've got a piece of crap Yamaha keyboard that has all those different voices on it, and I was curious, how can I put MIDI files into it and get out different sounds? Or really can someone explain MIDI to me so I know 100% what I'm on about.

[Moseph]

I've got a piece of crap Yamaha keyboard that has all those different voices on it, and I was curious, how can I put MIDI files into it and get out different sounds?

The short answer is "probably."

The long answer is that you may be able to, based on the model, either store MIDI files on an internal storage to the keyboard, provide them via a disk or other portable medium, or simply play back the sequences by connecting to a "MIDI In" connection if it exists.

Or really can someone explain MIDI to me so I know 100% what I'm on about.

In terms of "what is MIDI", that's way too broad a topic to tell you about in any reasonable number of posts.

However, I can tell you this: MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, and was developed as a sort of programming language for musical devices. MIDI signals are used to control devices, and contain no actual sound information. The most common use for MIDI signals is to control an oscillator or sampler, which will generate audio data in response to the MIDI control.

The good news, is that MIDI is a relatively old technology at this point. If you want to find more information about it, it's pretty easy to find basic and advanced concepts scattered across the Internet with a brief search.

I'd start here: http://www.midi.org/

[Motleyguy]

http://linux.tu-varna.acad.bg/~lig/MIDI/xplained/mx1.htm

a site called the Midi Xplainer. Should answer any and all questions related to MIDI.