What’s the Best MIDI Cable or MIDI Interface for Me? |
|
MIDI is still the most used method of getting digital musical instruments or software to communicate with each other. In this tailor-made Buyer’s Guide we explain what MIDI is, what you can do with it, how to link up your MIDI gear, what kind of MIDI cables you’ll need, and when using a MIDI interface is the best idea. If you can’t find the answer to your question here, feel free to contact us! What is it? | Connections | MIDI Interfaces | Length | Outdated? | The Future | GM | Chaining | More 1. What is MIDI?MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a universal way of getting synthesizers, digital pianos, keyboards, music software and any other kind of digital-based music gear to communicate. As such, you’re likely to find that a lot of this kind of gear comes fitted with MIDI ports. For example: you can use a MIDI-keyboard to play sounds that are on your computer (see image). The MIDI language or data used by the keyboard and computer to speak to each other describes what note needs to be played, for how long the note is played and at what speed. Put simply, MIDI data is information that describes the notes (just like musical score) and not the sound itself. MIDI data is saved as MIDI files. MIDI has little to do with sound quality. How good the music actually sounds depends on how good the sound of your synthesizer is, or the instrument plug-ins of your music software. It also has a lot to do with the way that the MIDI information is actually played by the musician. Say you make a simple piano line by using your mouse to click on individual notes in some music software. The tune is likely to sound very unnatural when compared to a pianist playing the same piece using a digital piano with a MIDI output since all of the tiny differences in timing and dynamics (slight volume differences) between notes is immediately captured, so that even MIDI can sound full of ‘life’. For more information about the MIDI protocol, see Questions 5 to 8.
2. How Do You Connect MIDI Up?There are two common ways to do this:
Also see Questions 3 and 4.
3. What is a MIDI Interface?A MIDI interface can be used to solve problems like connecting a digital instrument fitted with a classic 5-pin DIN MIDI port to a computer that only has a USB port. Since these two ports aren’t compatible, a MIDI interface can be used to hook them together. The instrument plugs into the MIDI interface via a standard 5-pin DIN MIDI cable, and the computer is then connected to the MIDI interface using a USB cable. It’s that simple. A few comments:
MIDI Interfaces: Adapter Cables
4.How Long Should My MIDI Cables Be?Generally, it’s best to figure out the length that your MIDI cable needs to be, then add a little extra just in case. It’s always better to have a cable that’s too long rather than a cable that’s too short. If you’re using a USB cable, then make sure not to get a USB 2.0 cable that’s any longer than 5 metres and a USB 3.0 cable tha’s any longer than 3 metres. Using USB cables that are any longer than this may effect the quality of their performance. You can also get really short MIDI cables that are no longer than half a metre. These aren’t great for connecting something like a keyboard to a computer since they’re likely to be too short, but if you have a big 19” rack packed with MIDI gear, then short MIDI cables will definitely come in handy. The only longer cable you’d need in this situation is the cable leading from the MIDI keybaord to the first MIDI rack unit. Up to 1m Long MIDI Cables
5. Is MIDI Outdated?That depends on how you look at it. The MIDI protocol is still used in most studios and on most stages by both amateurs and professionals. So, in that sense, MIDI is still very current. It is true that MIDI started being used back in the early 1980s and hasn’t actually changed that much since. These days, you might even find that you want to do things with MIDI that it wasn’t designed for. For example: ‘pitch bending’ (where a note is bent up or down in pitch using something like the pitch-bend wheel of a keyboard) can only effect the whole MIDI track and is unable to focus on individual notes. For this exact reason, Roli came up with their revolutionary Seaboard keyboards that are able to split the incoming MIDI signal into multiple tracks, so that it can pitch-bend individual notes – but this is an exception. MIDI also has a limited bandwidth. While most users might not notice this, once you start drawing in curves over maybe sixteen tracks, you’ll soon be reminded that you’re working with relatively old technology.
6. What’s the Future of MIDI?An improved MIDI protocol designed to overcome the limitations of traditional MIDI (see Question 5) has been in development for a long time. The question is whether or not (and when) digital music equipment manufacturers will make the transition. In terms of physically connecting gear up, we’re seeing the classic 5-pin DIN plugs replaced with a USB port and other modern connections more and more. The same old MIDI data is being sent and received, but via a more modern cable.
7. What is General MIDI (GM)?The General MIDI standard (GM) describes what a keyboard, synthesizer, sound module, workstation, or software package must be able to do before the developer can put a GM logo on it. According to the GM standard, a digital instrument must be 16-way multi-timbral, with track 10 reserved for drums. It also needs to have a minimum polyphony of 24, and provide at least 128 fixed instruments and a number of fixed drum sounds. The advantage of GM-MIDI data is that it can be seamlessly played on all GM equipment. For example, on GM gear, a clarinet will always be in bank 72, a harmonica will always be in bank 23, and a piano is always in bank 1. Before the introduction of GM, this would look completely different, so it was rare that you could play MIDI data from another system without hearing the sound of an entirely different instrument. Going back to our answer to Question 1, the sound quality can vary dramatically depending on the system you’re using to play back the MIDI data. After all, the clarinet sound of one digital instrument can sound much better than the clarinet sound of another digital instrument.
8. What Do I Need to Watch Out for When Linking Up More than One MIDI Device?It’s worth knowing that the full MIDI signal is made up of sixteen MIDI tracks (or MIDI channels). To give an extreme example: say that you want to control sixteen synthesizers at the same time. As explained in the answer to Question 2, the MIDI signal is sent to every synthesizer via the MIDI-THRU ports. This means that if you want to hear the piano on track 1 from synthesizer 1, but not from synthesizer 2, track 1 on synthesizer 2 needs to be muted. If you don’t mute it, then both synth modules will play the same notes. And, if you have sixteen synthesizers, each playing one specific track, then a lot of MIDI tracks need to be muted and all of the MIDI channels are used up. This is another unfortunate limitation of MIDI.
Links & More InformationProduct Categories MIDI Cables (5-pin DIN) Blogs & Buyer’s Guides DAW Software Buyer’s Guide
|
