Midi-Evil? Hell, No.

Making the digital tactile, midi provides a bridge, an interface, between computers and the rubberised universe of imagination, allowing the cubicle bound to more expressively control sound ( or colour and light ). Transcend the mouse~!

Vat Ist Midi?
Musical Instrument Digital Interface. Which means it is not audio, but a protocol invented for communicating between synthesizers and music machines to enable one machine to play another. Generally it’s note on / note off, as well as some timing information and controller (knobs, wheels, and sliders) information. Understanding midi allows connecting up of various music machines and computer software with hardware midi controllers – generally a range of knobs, sliders and triggering buttons for controlling your music or video etc. That’s it really. There’s a lot more in the details, well documented by people like these:

Software, hardware, anatomy of a midi message and much more – by Peter Kirn, In Makezine.
What it is, how it works, why it’s important and how to hook it up in your home studio – by “Rich the Tweakmeister”
MIDI and audio concepts explained in non-technical terminology – borg.com
Look Ma—Hands! Choosing and Using MIDI Controllers – Jim Aikin.
How to write a song with Music Software : Recipes for Song Construction with Midi Sequencers and Synthesizers.
Tutorial on MIDI and Music Synthesis.

If in doubt, let borg.com hammer it home :

“MIDI is the language of gods. Lesser life forms communicate in more primitive, less artistic manners such as barks, chirps, roars, or any of the many human verbal languages in use throughout the globe. But, gods communicate using MIDI messages….. The MIDI Technical Fanatic’s Brainwashing Center is a cyberplace dedicated to those individuals who wish to attain a higher level of existence than that of the plodding, MIDI-illiterate scum around them. Here, you will find MIDI technical documents and programming information, MIDI tutorials which explain various MIDI topics in easy-to-understand terms, MIDI software tools, examples of some very good uses of MIDI (in the form of well-constructed MIDI sequencer files), and blueprints for the surgical installation of a MIDI jack upon the human body so that a musician can directly communicate with his MIDI gear.”

And when you’re done – Try to Explain MIDI Drunk.

Midi Equipment
MIDI Sequencers can be software and hardware and generally allow timed sequences of events to unfold at a given tempo. Other
MIDI devices are dedicated to enabling performance and the sending of various midi signals ( on/off as well as values ). Aside from midi keyboards, there are midi saxaphones / flutes / piano accordians and an Australian designed ‘Digital Trumpet’ ( made by Morrison ), and a whole swagger of dedicated DJ related controllers. Mawzer controllers are high-end modular midi controllers that can be reconfigured depending on a gig’s needs. Faderfox controllers can be similarly slotted together. And pawn shops, trading magazines, Ebay and now amazon.com are littered with second hand devices.

Midi Weird
More fun though is to build, or seek out the more unusual gadgets for interfacing to creative expression. Again, the internet is your friend – sites like Music Thing uncover endless oddball inventions and instruments from portable roll up style electronic drum kits through to hamster powered midi controllers. Remember the speak and spell toys? People ‘break/circuit-bend’ them and sell them, adding MIDI to remotely trigger thousands of sounds–words, word fragments, garbled speech, percussion and bizarre sound effects.

Entering a ‘midi’ query at MakeZine will find a huge range of weird midi projects built by home enthusiasts. An easy-to-build MIDI detector packaged in a small Japanese action figure, a site that converts web pages into MIDI you can listen to, wearable motion capture MIDI controllers, wireless MIDI gloves, a homemade MIDI controller in a C64 case, a musical midi sofa, midi blender, midi gun etc etc etc midi-etc.

Create Digital Music have plenty of gold too, such as an article highlighting software that’ll convert your drawing gestures ( on/off & position, pressure & pen angle ) on a graphics tablet into midi for your audio or VJ software, as well as a tablet theremin~! “le rad!”

DM2 to MIDI is an application for Windows that allows you to use the DM2 (Digital Music Mixer) by mixman as a regular MIDI controller.

MIDI Over Internet
OS X tiger – now includes a MIDI Network driver, allowing you to send and receive MIDI over a network connection.
Other options : imidi ( mac )
midi overlan for PC – MIDI cross-platform solution for communication between MIDI applications over a local area network.
ipMIDI (pc)

DIY MIDI controllers
Guide to using PIC microcontrollers and Basic Stamps by Ross Bencina.
A Basic Stamp consists of a tiny circuit board on which is soldered a PIC CPU, a timing crystal, and some EEPROM memory for program storage. Non-commercial DIY Projects for MIDI Hardware Geeks.

Extending with MIDI
Bome’s Midi Translator translates MIDI messages (e.g. from a keyboard or a control surface) to different MIDI messages, or to emulated keystrokes for controlling other programs. Bome’s Midi Translator is PostcardWare for private use.
Numerology is a modular sequencing and Audio Unit hosting environment designed for performing musicians. It works by giving the user an organized workspace within which they can quickly create and connect together a variety of modules for sequencing, MIDI generation, automation, audio synthesis and effects.
Mac OS X MIDI Applications
midimouse – a small, easy-to-use and very simple program. It sends MIDI-controller-messages (CC) by moving the mouse over its (resizeable) window. While moving the mouse (with or without mouseDown) over the X-/Y-axxis, each axxis sends a CC, so you might send values within up to 4 configurable Controllers.
JunXion is a Mac OS X data routing application that allows the connection of any USB game controller and defines, in an easy user interface, the translation of each key or joystick action into a specific MIDI event. The resulting MIDI data is then available to any audio/music software that runs on that Mac or can be send to external MIDI interfaces.

MIDI Files online
Plug these into your audio software of choice for easy remixing / adoration / mutilation. VGmusic – 21,000 video game music midi files! holy crappola, there’s a lotta game-console glitch funk oozing outta this site. mididb – If it can be found on a jukebox, or comes with a high rotation music video, then the track can probably be found here.

21C Midi?
OpenSound Control (“OSC”) is a protocol for communication among computers, sound synthesizers, and other multimedia devices that is optimized for modern networking technology and has been used in many application areas.

See also Gibson’s ‘MaGIC’ – “short for Media-accelerated Global Information Carrier – makes standard Cat-5 Ethernet cable act like a super cable, capable of carrying up to 32 channels of 32-bit, 48 kHz uncompressed digital sound in both directions (64 channels total), with a control stream 100 times as powerful as MIDI over a single wire. It eliminates latency and jitter, allowing professional real-time sync of hundreds of instruments and devices (250 µs point-to-point latency over 100 meters). Gibson has made MaGIC non-proprietary to promote unrestricted development of new applications.”

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