Music Instrument Digital Interface

In addition to producing sound, sound cards have another capability that is often overlooked. The Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI—usually pronounced middy ) technology incorporated into most sound cards allows PCs to talk with (and in some cases, control) musical devices. With the addition of a special adapter cable that plugs into the game port on most sound cards, a PC can use external sound modules to produce sounds. MIDI technologies are used by most electronic keyboard players and professional musicians. However, you don t need to have an electronic keyboard or external sound module to play MIDI sounds. Most sound cards include a set of ICs that incorporate some of the sound-generating circuitry found in most electronic keyboards. 

Early computer software used to play music yms limited to WAV (binary waveform audio file format) and textual MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) files and, while interesting, was not widely used. Better file formats, in particular, MP3 (MPEG-1 audio layer 3) files, have produced high-quality reproductions that are small enough to download and store easily, and this has greatly increased audio player software. Early video software also was limited by file... 

MIDI stands for Music Instrument Digital Interface. It is a relatively simple and universal computer communication standard that allows synthesizers, sequencers, drum machines, electronic instruments, controllers, and computers to talk to one another. MIDI data is not audio data that can be used to create noise out of a speaker, unlike. wav or other media files with audio data. Instead, it is a set of instructions that tell a MIDI instrument how to play. In the case of your computer, your sound card may act as a MIDI instrument or device. While MIDI is a fairly simple standard, the huge variety of devices and possible configurations can rapidly lead to confusion. 

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