Issue 2.0W 12/12/2012 Church Organ World Sequencer Plus - User Manual Page 5 of 27
4. MIDI Terminology
The following table lists of some of the MIDI terminology that you may encounter. For more information
consult the MIDI Manufacturers Association web site.
Term
Description
Sequencer
A device for playing musical performances. The more sophisticated sequencers
also record MIDI as well as other inputs and they will also
allow editing of saved data. The most common sequencers are software computer
programs running on Personal Computer hardware. There are many of these
available ranging from the simple to very sophisticated.
Patch
A patch is the sound that a device can produce i.e. a musical instrument such as
a piano, violin or drums. Patches are also referred to as “instruments, programs,
algorithms or timbres”. Some devices contain multiple patches and the MIDI
specification pre-defines a number of
sounds allocated to patches.
Channel
Although there is only one physical MIDI connection between devices it is divided
by the MIDI signals into 16 command slots known as channels. An instrument can
generally be set to respond to one or all of the channels.
Multitimbral
An instrument, synthesizer or sound generator is said to be multitimbral if it is capable
of producing two or more different instrument sounds simultaneously
Polyphony
The ability to play more than one note at a time.
Expander
A MIDI device that provides patches or other MIDI control function or a device that
replicates data coming to a MIDI IN port to multiple MIDI OUT ports.
Voice
Are the qualities of an individual note or group of notes that give a particular timbre
or sound. For example: a Trumpet or a Diapason
Synthesizer
A device for generating sound usually to emulate an instrument. Most modern synthesizers
can create more than one instrument sound or voice and are often incorporated into
sequencers for replaying sound files.
Controller
Is any MIDI input device that implements a function but does not sound a note as a
direct result of its operation e.g. a piston, stop, expression peddle, switch, knob, etc.
MIDI allows 128 controllers per device. Many of the controller functions are predefined
by the MIDI specification.
Module
A device that can generate musical sounds. Typically a module will incorporate one or
more patches but require external (MIDI) keyboard input to make them sound. Also
referred to as an Expander or Synthesizer.
SysEx
System Exclusive MIDI messages. These are generally used by manufacturers to
generate messages that the Standard MIDI system does not provide or to send a chunk
of data in one message rather than using a lot of MIDI messages
Program Change
The MIDI message used to select an instrument, patch or program. There are 128
program changes available.
Bank Select
The MIDI message used to select an instrument patch or program on a device that has
more than 128 patches. A device could have 128 programs with 128 banks of patches,
programs, instruments or timbres. Note that your Makin instrument does not implement
‘bank select’.
