Midi for dummies?

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desertrose

New member
Can someone please explain to me exactly what midi IS?
Speak to me slowly, as though addressing an idiot.
I have no clue, zilch, zip, nada , none!
I have this wonderful Roland E 500 which has been my best friend for several years, but I cried a lot of tears getting to know her basic parts and didn't even bother with the midi thing.
Too much for my frazzled little mind.
Now I'm curious.
Remember, please don't confuse me with "big" technical words... :)
 
Oh, come on, there are so many hundreds of articles and books that describe it... look around.
 
Do you intend to use your Roland with a midi sequencer on your PC or Mac ?
Or control it through a midi keyboard?
If no, then you dont need to know. If yes then perhaps we can help you some.
Here's a great starting point;

http://www.midi.com/
 
Gee thanks Alchuck. Real helpful. I wasn't asking for a whole BOOK of info, just a brief summary in a few words or sentences.
Instead of your facetious reply you COULD have expended your energy typing exactly that.
Nice way to make a newbie welcome to this site I must say.

Thankyou Stealthteck, I will have a look at the site you suggested.

>>>Do you intend to use your Roland with a midi sequencer on your PC or Mac ?
Or control it through a midi keyboard?

I'm not sure yet. As I said I have no idea what midi can do at all, though I had a read through some of the posts on this board and have a vague ( very vague ) notion.
It's just that last night I dragged an old keyboard of mine out which has midi outputs ( inputs?) on the back of it and this keyboard is a good one for composing good drum patterns.
My "regular" keyboard also, as I said, has midi and I wondered if it were possible to hook the two up somehow?
Don't know if you can understand what I mean by that.
This is why I wanted to find out exactly WHAT midi is.
 
>>>Using a master controller device such as a keyboard, one can play or trigger sounds from other electronic devices remotely. This eliminates the need for one keyboardist to perform with nine or ten keyboards around him. He can play all the keyboards through one simply by connecting them using MIDI.

Ah, see, this is what I was wondering about but I'm still unsure.
Could I use keyboard (A) to play the drum pattern and, for want of a better word "send" it to keyboard (B) where I can add it into my 16 track facility.
I don't need any other sounds. I just want to be able to lay down the drum track from the other keyboard.
 
desertrose said:
>>>Using a master controller device such as a keyboard, one can play or trigger sounds from other electronic devices remotely. This eliminates the need for one keyboardist to perform with nine or ten keyboards around him. He can play all the keyboards through one simply by connecting them using MIDI.

Ah, see, this is what I was wondering about but I'm still unsure.
Could I use keyboard (A) to play the drum pattern and, for want of a better word "send" it to keyboard (B) where I can add it into my 16 track facility.
I don't need any other sounds. I just want to be able to lay down the drum track from the other keyboard.
Click to expand...

here's another site if you are still confused
http://www.borg.com/~jglatt/tutr/miditutr.htm
 
MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. It is the data code by which musical gear talks to other musical gear.

Mostly it sends event information (although it is not restricted to that). What is event information? Striking the D# above middle C as hard as you can, and holding it for a period of 10 milliseconds is an example of event information.

Please, if you learn nothing else about MIDI, know that the sound itself (in this example D#) is not sent anywhere by MIDI. MIDI is not audio saavy. It only knows that you hit that particular key on your keyboard, how hard you hit it, and when you let it go. It does not know that you were playing the D# of your best bagpipe sample.

That's the jumping off point for understanding MIDI.

Carl
 
Ok..I took a brief ( very brief) look at both those sites where they describe what it IS.
So, it's a way to play other sounds from other devices through one keyboard ?
So in effect I could take sounds from one keyboard and put them on another, right?
But I couldn't take a whole piece of music ( such as a drum pattern) and put it on my keyboard.
I'll take a more indepth look at the sites later ( when the kids are asleep!)
Thanks for the help :)
 
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