| From
computer geek to music freak
Imagine listening to the Beatles album "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club" in 1969 for the first time when nobody knew what a synthesizer was.The bending chords, strange reverberations and echoing sounds must have blown the minds of music lovers who were accustomed to John, Paul, George and Ringo without the frills. Synthesizers were developed in the 1960s but did not reach full potential until the introduction of MIDI in 1983. With MIDI, musicians could compose songs onto a computer screen with more than one instrument at a time and edit them with bizarre sound effects. MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface protocol. It is a protocol that provides a standardized and efficient means of conveying musical performance information as electronic data. In other words, it is a set of instructions that tell a music synthesizer how to play a piece of music. When someone plays a song on a MIDI controller (a keyboard or MIDI sequencer) it produces a data sequence that can be captured, stored, edited, combined and replayed. The data stream is received by a MIDI sound generator or module through the "in" connector, which responds by playing a sound. The single MIDI channel has 16 logical channels, which means that 16 different sounds can be played and stored simultaneously. MIDI files do not actually contain music recordings; they are a set of instructions on how to play a tune, like a roll on a piano that cannot be music without the transfer of a player piano. The advantage of these files is that they are very small and easy to access from the Web and thousands of different voices are available on MIDI software programs. Today MIDI is used by both professional and amateur musicians use to compose songs in the entertainment industry such as sountracks for movies, cartoons and commercials. It helps rockstars like Beck and Nine Inch Nails produce weird musical sequences full of both familiar and unfamiliar sounds. Perhaps the most famous compilation created on MIDI is the theme to the FOX cult show, "The X-Files." But it doesn't take a recording arts technology guru to develop a piece that sounds like spaceship landing or a multi-string ensemble, it just takes a standard synthesizer, knowledge of MIDI software and lots of creativity. |
MIDI Mania hits Chico State
Computers and synthesizers in the MIDI lab at Chico State. |
© 2000 Cat Bytes Magazine
