MIDI
MIDI
(which
stands
for
"
Musical
Instrument
Digital
Interface
")
is
a
"universal
language"
adopted
by
most
musical
instrument
manufacturers
which
allows
MIDI
equipped
instruments
to
communicate
and
control
each
other.
The
DW-8000
is
MIDI
equipped
,
so
it
can
be
connected
to
other
MIDI
equip-
ped
synthesizers,
sequencers,
rhythm
machines,
and
personal
computers.
1.How
MIDI
Works
____
_
0 The MIDI
Control
System
In
the ear
ly
days
of
electronic music, it was possible to
"interface" (ie, interconnect) older monophonic synthe•
sizers together
by
using two simple voltage signals. One
was a CV (control
vo
ltage) signal that determined pitch.
The other was a trigger signal that started and stopped
each note.
But such techniques are too cumbersome and unreli-
able for today's computerized polyphonic synthesizers.
So
the MIDI format was developed. In contrast to the
older CV/Gate voltage signals, MIDI uses 8-bit digital
words transmitted serially from instrument to instrument
to
commu111icate
pitch, note on/off, and all kinds
of
infor•
ma
tion.
~
MIDI Channels
If
you are us
in
g more than two M
IDI
synths (or other
MIDI units}, then you can assign them different channel
numbers
(sort
of like
TV
channels). There are
16
possi-
ble channels (designated as channel
1,
channel 2, and
so
on) for sending and rece
iv
ing.
Sending Side
Item
to
be controlled (Example: Note on)
'
' '
' .
:
Encoded
as
:
• a
number.
"
'::
..
~:-
--
....
~
..
..
._
..
.,,.,,.
-.
,,
,.,,
Digitalization
(Example: 10010000)
Con11erted
to
MIDI
serial data
fonn
al
MID
I
Data
is
decoded
so
that
it
can
be used
by
the
synthesizer's internal computer system.
51
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