ABSTRACT
A common analogy for musical instrument digital interface (MIDI) is the player piano, which thanks to HBO’s Westworld has come back into the public eye. MIDI data include a number of pieces of information. The reliability of digital audio workstations has decreased the need to be constantly editing and sifting through MIDI data in a numerical format. MIDI plays many different roles: instrument control, control surface communication, time code sync, and lighting control. Many performers use MIDI output from their instruments to control various lights, or the control boxes are fed from a sequencer timed to the performance. The MIDI Association announced some of the biggest changes to the MIDI protocol in 2018 which moves forward the ability of MIDI to work with future hardware/software options. MIDI Messages are made up of several essential pieces of data. Each portion is assigned a specific role such as triggering notes, setting velocity, and adjusting other controllers.
