MusTech.Net!

The [tag]Music Instrument Digital Interface[/tag] ([tag]MIDI[/tag]) standard has been around for a long time. Although many of us still think of MIDI as a “newer” technology, Midi has been around longer than todays undergraduates and most of the students currently enrolled in their master programs!

The initial MIDI specification was developed in 1982 and various changes have been made over the course of its implementation.  In the beginning, MIDI was not only revolutionary but fairly easy to use.   Compared to the trials and tribulations of those who wrangled with synth technologies in the 1970s, MIDI was both simple and enabling.  But, it was not without problems.

One of the major problems that plagued the initial MIDI 1982 standard was the lack of vendor consistent standards and cross vendor interoperability of the MIDI devices (keyboards, sequencers, etc.) especially, with relation to the “sounds” or sound patches. If a MIDI file was programmed and saved on one type of synth then attempted to be played on a different manufacturers device, it did not sound remotely similar to the original. This was due to the lack of a manufacturer independant  “sound “patch”.  Simply put, a piano sound on one manufacturers device might be a trombone on anothers. 

Another major problem, with the fledgling MIDI 1.0 standard, was individual keyboard manufactures would often have designated “percussion channels” assigned to different playback channels. This would cause a whole host of problems for the end-user and often created a completely ”jumbled sounding” composition when played back with a different manufacturer’s device.

Perhaps the most irritating inconsistency among manufactures was the failure to label the keyboard notes the same way. A “middle c” on one manufacturer’s synth might be an entire octave above or below one played on a different manufacturers’. Most of these problems were fixed with adoption of the [tag]General MIDI[/tag] standard in 1991 (also GM or GM1).

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