Most film and TV songs, as well as popular recorded music is written and performed using electronic keyboards and other MIDI musical instruments. (Thanks to advances in digital sampling and synthesis technologies, the orchestra playing behind that big-screen block buster is more likely to be the product of MIDI than a real orchestra with dozens of acoustic instruments and musicians)

MIDI is also easy to find in the world of personal computing. If your computer has a sound card, it most likely also has the ability to play MIDI files (using a built-in hardware or software synthesizer that responds to MIDI messages), and with an adapter can also be connected directly to other MIDI-equipped products, allowing you to take advantage of  various computer programs (eg. cakewalk) that can help you learn, play, create and enjoy music.

Recently MIDI has begun to be used to generate ring tones in mobile phones. Individual music notes cannot be heard in MP3 ring tones and mixed sound of music is heard with poor quality. MIDI ring tones sound far better because they are polyphonic (play more than one note at one time) and because they use music synthesizers which produce a wider variety of sounds than possible before. There are over 300 companies around the world making products that support MIDI. Well known companies such as Apple and Microsoft, Roland and Yamaha, Nokia and Sony Ericsson are among others.

MIDI is a technology that represents music in digital form. Unlike other digital music technologies such as MP3 and CDs, MIDI messages contain individual instructions for playing each individual note of each individual instrument. So with MIDI it is actually possible to change just one note in a song, or to orchestrate and entire song with entirely different instruments. And since each instrument in a MIDI performance is separate from the rest, its easy to "solo" (listen to just one) individual instruments and study them for educational purposes, or to mute individual instruments in a song so that you can play that part yourself. 

Record and edit your performance

A MIDI Sequencer can record your performances for listening at a later time, and even save your performance in Standard MIDI File format for playback on other MIDI systems. A MIDI Sequencer is a great way to evaluate your own progress, or even to study how someone else plays.

Better yet, because all MIDI data is editable, you can edit out any imperfections! If you play a wrong note, you can just change it using the Sequencer's editing tools. And if you find you just can't play fast enough to keep up with the tempo, you can slow it down for recording and speed it back up for playback -- without the "Mickey Mouse" effect that normally comes from speeding up a song. 

General MIDI's most recognized feature is the defined list of sounds or "patches". However, General MIDI does not actually define the way the sound will be reproduced, only the name of that sound.

Though this can obviously result in wide variations in performance from the same song data on different GM sound sources, the authors of General MIDI felt it important to allow each manufacturer to have their own ideas and express their personal aesthetics when it comes to picking the exact timbres for each sound.

Each manufacturer must insure that their sounds provide an acceptable representation of song data written for General MIDI. Guidelines for developing GM compatible sound sets and song data are available through the MMA.

• The names of the instruments indicate what sort of sound will be heard when that instrument number (MIDI Program Change or "PC#") is selected on the GM1 synthesizer.

• These sounds are the same for all MIDI Channels except Channel 10, which has only percussion sounds and some sound "effects".

GM1 Instrument Families

The General MIDI Level 1 instrument sounds are grouped by instruments. In each instrument there are 8 specific instruments.

GM1 Instrument Patch Map

Note: While GM1 does not define the actual characteristics of any sounds, the names in parentheses after each of the synth leads, pads, and sound effects are, in particular, intended only as guides).

The polyphony of a sound generator refers to its ability to play more than one note at a time. Polyphony is generally measured or specified as a number of notes or voices. Most of the early music synthesizers were monophonic, meaning that they could only play one note at a time. If you pressed five keys simultaneously on the keyboard of a monophonic synthesizer, you would only hear one note. Pressing five keys on the keyboard of a synthesizer which was polyphonic with four voices of polyphony would, in general, produce four notes. If the keyboard had more voices (many modern sound modules have 16, 24, or 32, 64 note polyphony), then you would hear all five of the notes. Yamaha PSR 1000 is 32 note polyphony and Yamaha PSR 2000 is 64 note polyphony. More polyphonic keyboard sounds better.

Midi Connections