MIDI

MIDI stands for musical instrument digital interface. MIDI has been around for
more than 30 years, it was invented in 1983 and it started as a connection
between a keyboard and a pc of some sort. MIDIs come in an array of different
instruments including keyboards, guitars and drums. When these instruments
are connected they can be played into software such as logic or fl studio. The
point of this leaflet is to promote the use of MIDI to new musicians.























This is an example of a midi keyboard, the Alesis Photon x25. As you can see the
keys start from c on the left side of the keyboard and as you go down the
keyboard you will notice when playing the notes they get higher and higher. This
only applies if youre playing an instrument as your chosen track on whatever
software your using, for example an electronic piano on logic.


If you have chosen a sound pack from the library of
sounds on logic then when you play different keys
the pitch wont be affected because each key will play
a different sound, for example the pop drum kit,
each key will play a different drum.





..
If you do wish to change the pitch of the sound you play you can
do this using the pitch wheel on the midi keyboard or on logic itself.




















These are called assignment knobs, they can change things up and down
when turned left or right, this could be volume or modulate etc.



These are called the octave; they are two small arrows, one facing left and one
facing right, the octaves allow you to play keys further down the keyboard if it
was full size so when you press the left arrow youll be able to play the deeper
keys on a keyboard or if your press right youll be able to play the higher keys.
If youre using a sound pack the octaves will allow you to play different sounds
from the keys.



When you start to play midi keyboards make sure you sit up right and stretch
your fingers off well before you start your project. Some projects may take hours
or days therefore its important to play correctly so you leave without back
strains or sore fingers.
3
Examples of midi keyboards

1 2






The difference between the first and the second is, the second (Akai
MPX8) is a device that you put samples (small loops or drums) on to each
separate pad; you can then use these samples to create a beat. This is obviously
different to the Alesis Photon x25 (number 2) because this uses keyboard keys to
play sounds off the software you are using. Number 3, the Alesis V125 is a
combination of both, as you can see it has the pads and the keyboard therefore it
does both.

DAWS
Digital Audio Workstations are made up of a computer, a sound card that
converts sound, digital audio editor software and an input device such as a MIDI
keyboard. These can be different when using devices such as mobile phones,
which are much simpler, but when using a PC this is the normal.

MIDI cables and messages
There are different types of cables/connectors when using MIDI, the first one
invented and used was a 5 pin MIDI Din, these are still used today because they
work at a decent pace when using only one MIDI device. The newer version used
is the USB cable. When using the USB connector the USB has to be plugged into a
PC therefore they cant adapt two different MIDIs together however when
plugged in they generally work straight away therefore you can play stuff into
the PC using your MIDI right away. USBs are mostly used with MAC or Windows
PCs because they know how the MIDI sends and receives messages. Messages
are sent to and from when playing MIDI equipment into a PC.

Using MIDI with logic
When playing in melodies using a MIDI keyboard it is extremely hard to play it in
perfect especially when youre playing around looking for the right sound thats
why its important you know how to use logic or any other software you use
because there is tools to make these melodies perfect and place them/ put them
together properly.

Heres a melody I played in for one of my recent tracks, as you can see some of
the notes are out of place, look at it now when Ive quantized it.











As you can see all the notes are now in place, this is because I used the quantize
tool to move each key to the nearest bar, these are the lines going down the
piano roll. You can see the piano roll once youve recorded a melody in and then
double clicking on the track youve played.

You can choose how to quantize, whether you choose 1/8
th
or like I did the
1/16
th
. This aligns the MIDI to the grid. You do this by selecting on the drop
down list and the pressing the q.



Copying
If you wish to copy part of a melody like I did with the first 7 keys I played in the
melody above I quantized then you can simply drag and hold over them to
highlight them and then hold alt and you can drag an exact copy further along
the piano roll.



Velocity
If you look above you can see some of the keys are yellow and some are orange,
this is because the orange ones were the ones I hit harder when playing them in
on the MIDI keyboard, the harder you hit the closer the key will go red , the
softer you hit them the closer theyll go to light yellow.


Toolbox- To access the toolbox you have to click on the arrow
shown in the picture.

The pointer tool allows you to select different tracks and drag
them around.
The pencil tool allows you to manually draw in tracks.
The eraser tool allows you to delete certain tracks / keys.
The text tool allows you write over tracks.
The scissor tool allows you to cut down unneeded parts off tracks.
The glue tool allows you to merge two cut up tracks together.
The solo tool allows you to hear only one track.
The mute tool allows you to mute chosen tracks.
The zoom tool allows you to zoom in on the chosen area.
The fade tool allows you fade sections of track in/out.







Music with / without logic / MIDI
Without logic youd have to have a whole band of people playing each individual
instrument, trying to time it and put it all together whereas with logic you can
play any instrument using the keyboard and sound professional.


This shows you, you can
play a variety of different
instruments and then
move them around and
put them on top of each
other to make them sound
good.






MIDI and logic also allows you to make mistakes. Like I mentioned before there
is a quantize button which composers obviously didnt have when everything
was played live and recorded, back then in the time of Beethoven every musician
in the orchestra had to play everything in time and together without making any
mistakes. If Beethoven had MIDI and logic back then he wouldnt have needed an
orchestra and if something went wrong he couldve simply cut parts out or just
deleted them. Logic also allows you to change the tempo of tracks by using the
bpm scroll. Someone like Beethoven could have played in a number of tracks and
speed it up or slowed it down, instead of building up parts of a song by
increasing the speed and velocity of the orchestras hits he could have used the
volume wheel or the fade tool.
However the negative of logic to someone like Beethovens music is that the
music could loose the rustic and natural feel, which comes with playing
something live. With everything in perfect order some music can feel robotic
and less magical.

Conclusion
I found using MIDI quite easy to use making my tracks once id had more
experience on it. I found playing melodies in on the MIDI keyboard quite easy but
quantizing them was difficult because once quantized some didnt quite sound
right so I had to move them manually. Using samples from packs outside of logics
own sound also caused problems because when loading a beat using a sound
from them packs logic didnt recognize them. Overall logic and MIDI are great
tools to make music and Id recommend them to anyone wanting to make music.