FAMC Mini, User Manual, Page: 11 / 98

11
The Basics of MIDI
What is MIDI?
So you bought a MIDI controller and you are now saying, OK, I needed one, but what is it? Where do I start? What is
MIDI anyway? MIDI is a very simple communication protocol used for hardware devices to “talk” to each other. Think of
this as a language that initially started as a way for musical devices to pass along musically oriented information useful
for real-time music message exchange- messages like “turn a “C” notes of a synthesizer on and off as an example. Think
of MIDI mainly as a “language” with specific rules, commands and vocabulary that all devices follow.
The MIDI “language” is passed along as a digital signal, and is NOT an audio signal. There are no audio signals found,
passed or otherwise used in MIDI. Just simple commands in digital form. Think of MIDI as a beeps and buzzes that you
used to hear when using MODEMs that connected one computer to another via phone line. It’s basically the same thing
in concept. The language of MIDI is structured into 8 core “messages”, with lots of subsets of those messages. The core
messages mostly used are:
NOTE ON,
NOTE OFF,
CONTINOUS CONTROLLER MESSAGES,
PROGRAM CHANGES, and
SYSEX MESSAGES
There are other commands which we will ignore for this quick primer, however, the Liquid-Foot+ Series controllers
allows you to address all of the standard midi message types, and the extended ones as well.
Devices that speak the language of MIDI also have a specific connector that is designed to support the transmission of
MIDI messages and information (called MIDI OUT port). This is the port used to send MIDI commands. Devices that
Listen to the language have a specific hardware port referred to as the MIDI IN port. This is the port that receives
commands that are being sent from another device. A third type of connector is the MIDI THRU port. MIDI THRU
connectors usually just act like another MIDI OUT port which transmits a copy of whatever message(s) that come into
the MIDI IN port of the same device.
You can connect as many MIDI devices as you would like in a daisy chain fashion. The MIDI OUT of the first device in
your chain will connect to the MIDI IN of the next device. Then that second device will connect its MIDI OUT (OR MIDI
THRU) connector to the MIDI IN of the next device in the chain, and so on. There are more complicated signal set-ups