Electronic Musical Information

A digital synthesizer is basically made of two major parts - the Primary Interface, which consists of the keyboard, knobs, buttons, switches, foot pedals, etc. (These are known as "Input Devices".) In essence, anything that you must physically touch in order to input information. This information includes things like patch changes, pitch bend or modulation wheel, and volume/balance changes. The second part, or more accurately, parts, are the various electronic components that produce your Processor inside the unit. Cool, huh?

Now, stop and think about it for a moment... We send all sorts of information electronically. Right now, you are most likely reading this text as a result of a Networked computers to "talk" to each other. Digital MIDI.

MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital (or Direct, in some circles) Interface. It is a common language that electronic musical instruments use to communicate with each other. MIDI can send information such as note on/note off messages, sustain pedal information, pitch bend and modulation, and a host of other messages that allow synthesizers, real-time MIDI data into a sequencer for editing and playback.

It is done with ports - IN, which receives MIDI data; OUT, which transmits MIDI data, and; THRU, which replicates the MIDI data arriving at the MIDI IN port and sends it out.