week 5- rana,eric,chun yeap

I. What is a MIDI?

MIDI is a lot more than just hardware. Mostly, MIDI is an extensive set of "musical commands" which electronic instruments use to control each other.

It is a short term for "Musical Instrument Digital Interface" and has been one of the most useful tools for electronic musicians throughout its 14 years of existence. It became very popular with composers, beginners and experts, and by now it is also used in school for musical education. However, this does not mean that MIDI is some kind of instrument, but it is a communication protocol that allows electronic musical instruments to interact with each other. However, MIDI technology is not restricted to musical synthesizers.

Also, it is not unusual to find other stage equipment, such as lighting banks, under the control of MIDI-compatible computers. Each light may be assigned a specific MIDI channel and turned on or off according to a master program. MIDI programs may also control effects pedals for guitarists or pre-recorded sequences to supplement the sound onstage.

Now composing music is not just for some people, everyone can do it. Midi is supported by most computers with sound card. The quality of the sound might be quite different though.

II. What are the benefits?

MIDI is a technology that represents music in digital. Unlike other digital music technologies such as mp3s and CDs, MIDI messages contain individual instruments. So with MIDI it is actually possible to change just one note in a song, or to orchestrate and entire song with entirely different instruments. And since each instrument in a MIDI performance is separate from the rest, it’s easy to do or hear a "solo" (listen to just one) from an instrument and study them for educational purposes, or to mute individual instruments in a song so that you can play that part yourself.

III. How is MIDI best used in a multimedia project?

In a multimedia project there are a lot to consider to make it innovative. Aside from the ingenious design and cool effects, one would also consider the quality of the sound and the size of the file.

MIDI is considered to be one of the best choice since compared with other music files, it takes only a small space leaving the designer more space to put in more music files. Another it has better quality compared to other music files (e.g. .WAV).

Lastly, it also comes handy when there are times that one would not be able to find the type of music or sound wanted on the project since MIDI files could just be easily created - especially those that would use different instruments or just one. Also, it could be easily manipulated or edited unlike other music files which could be harder to edit.