music, hardware, protocol, file format (MIDI /mi'-dee/,
communicate note and effect information between synthesisers,
computers, music keyboards, controllers, and other electronic
music devices. It is basically a high-speed
serialconnection with separate connections for MIDI in, MIDI out and
MIDI through (to allow devices to be chained).
The basic unit of information is a "note on/off" event which
includes a note number (pitch) and key velocity (loudness).
There are many other message types for events such as pitch
bend, patch changes and synthesizer-specific events for
loading new patches etc.
There is a file format for expressing MIDI data which is like
a dump of data sent over a MIDI port.
The
MIME type "audio/midi" isn't actually registered so it
should probably be "audio/x-midi".
(1998-06-27)