By Kyle Tatum

 MIDI (or Musical Instrumental Digital Interface) is an industry-standard protocol, first defined in 1982 by Gordon Hall, that enables electronic musical instruments, computers and other electronic equipment to communicate and synchronize with each other. MIDI's primary functions include communicating event messages about musical notation, pitch, velocity, control signals for parameters between two devices in order to complete a signal chain and produce audible sound from a sound source.

 End of the 1970’s – Electronic musical devices were becoming more common and affordable. But unfortunately most of them were not compatible with each other.  Dave Smith- Smith was working on a polyphonic analog synthesizer which was to become the Prophet 5. Dave's innovative idea was to create an instrument with multiple identical sound-producing engines and make all the parameters of the voices digitally controllable.

 This diagram below shows how a MIDI works with its compatible electronics.

 Synthesizer: A sound generator for various pitches, loudness and tone.  Sequencer: A stand-alone unit or a software program for a personal computer (It used to be a storage server for MIDI data but is now used for a software music editor on the computer).  Track: Track in sequencer is used to organize the recordings. Tracks can be turned on or off during recording or playing back.  Channel: MIDI channels are used to separate information in a MIDI system. There are 16 MIDI channels in one cable.  Timbre: The quality of the sound. Can also play many different sounds at the same time.  Voice: The portion of the synthesizer that produces sound and can have many voices.

 There is a wide range of MIDI compatible software available such as auto accompaniment applications, notation programs, music teaching software, music producing, games and DJ/remix environments. Examples of such programs are Garage Band, Mixcraft, etc.