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About this Page If you are totally new to MIDI, or if you have heard of it but never had to deal with it, then read on - a large number of Guitar players, Bass players etc. are now acquiring Digital Modeling equipment, and are perhaps wanting to take advantage of the fact that a lot of this equipment can communicate digitally with Computers via MIDI. The information I am presenting here applies primarily to PCs, particularly with regard to the MIDI Interfaces, Sound Cards etc. that are commonly used with the PC, but MIDI itself is not specific to the PC, so those with Macintoshes and other types of Computer may find useful information here. 2. Your Computer and MIDI: Required Hardware 3. Got the Required hardware? How to hook it up... 4. Using the Behringer FCB1010 Floorboard M.I.D.I is an acronym that stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface - way back in the early 1980's, the manufacturers of electronic keyboards, synthesizers, and drum machines etc. were looking for better and more standardized ways to electronically link up multiple instruments for the purpose of giving musicians greater creative potential and richer sounds from their instruments. Driven by a couple of pioneers from a now-defunct company Sequential Circuits, a panel which included a number of huge electronic musical instrument manufacturers hammered out a specification which was entitled MIDI Specification 1.0. The standard quickly gained widespread acceptance and has endured well over the years, with relatively few changes being made even up to this day. MIDI Provides a method for interconnecting and controlling a wide variety of electronic devices used in music creation/production. A simple way to view the concept is to consider that each device "talks" to other devices in a fashion similar to a two-way radio - the information, in digital form, is Transmitted and/or Received. Unlike radio, the digital MIDI data is Transmitted or Received over a length of cable. From any given device, one cable is used to carry the Transmitted data, and another is used to carry the Received data - when you look at the MIDI connection points on your POD, or your Cyber-Twin, you will see a socket marked "MIDI Out", or just "Out" - the data that your POD or Cyber-Twin is transmitting gets sent Out over the cable that is plugged into the Out connector. Conversely, you POD or Cyber-Twin receives data that is travelling on the cable that is connected to the IN connector. Since MIDI was introduced, Personal Computers have proliferated everywhere, and since MIDI information is digital, most of us have, sitting upon our desktop, a Computer which is unbelievably powerful and is absolutely perfect for the job of formulating, storing, manipulating, and controlling the kind of data that travels over MIDI cables... Your Computer and MIDI: Required Hardware This section covers three possible ways of hooking up your PC to your equipment via MIDI: 4. Other types of MIDI Interfaces 5. Desktop, Laptop - which Interfaces can I use?
It is unfortunate that the Personal computer (PC), originally introduced by IBM, has never fully supported an integrated MIDI Interface and connection point(s) for MIDI cables. One of the first MIDI Interfaces to become available for the PC was from a division of Roland DG (a division of Roland), it was called the MPU401..
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The Roland MPU401 - It was connected to the PC via a special cable that plugged into an Interface card in one of the PC IO Slots. This unit had it's own onboard "firmware" and was capable of a variety of operating modes. |
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While the MPU401 became fairly common, it was a fairly expensive piece of gear. Luckily, the manufacturers of Sound Cards for PCs eventually came to the rescue...sort of...
Way back, seeing the potential for gaming on the PC, Sound Card manufacturers like Creative Labs started to produce Sound Cards like the SoundBlaster with a built in interface for a Joystick - since Game Adapters for the PC used a 15 pin connector for the standard type of PC Joystick, and not all of the 15 pins were ever used, they added circuitry for MIDI Input/Output, and exposed the necessary signals on "unused" pins on the Joystick Connector...
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| Typical Sound Card showing 15 pin Joystick connector | Single MIDI cable with male DIN 5 pin plugs | |||
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After studying the pictures above, and knowing that you need to connect one MIDI cable for sending MIDI, and one MIDI cable for receiving MIDI, you will no doubt be wondering how and where you could connect the cables...what you need is a Sound Card Joystick/MIDI adapter, photographs of a couple of types are shown below...
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Sound Card Joystick/MIDI adapter with MALE MIDI plugs |
Sound Card Joystick/MIDI adapter with FEMALE MIDI plugs |
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It is somewhat frustrating that you need to go out and buy these separately - I have always felt that these adapters should be a supplied accessory with the Sound Card itself - Creative Labs used to bundle an adapter with certain models of the SoundBlaster, but these days, the only option is to purchase one. They are readily available in many Music stores, Electrical/Electronic goods stores, and quite a few online Vendors, and one will cost you anywhere from $15.00 USD to $35.00 USD.
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TIP:
If you don't already have your adapter, and
you have a choice when making your purchase, estimate the distance
between your PC, and the device that you are hooking up the MIDI to
- if it is quite close (under 3 feet), then the adapter with male
plugs on the MIDI lead-outs will be fine, if longer, I would
recommend that you get the type that has Female plugs on the
MIDI lead-outs, the reason being that these lead-outs are typically
quite short (around 3 foot) - this is not usually long enough and it
is less expensive to extend the length of the lead-outs by using
regular male-male MIDI cables.
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The latter half of the nineties saw the introduction of a new type of IO Port for PCs known as the Universal Serial Bus, or USB. It was not long before a number of manufacturers embraced this new form of connectivity and created MIDI Interfaces that could be easily connected via a cable to the USB Port(s) of both Desktop PCs, and Laptop PCs. In the case of the Laptop PC, the USB MIDI Interface is probably the preferred choice, because Laptops typically do not implement the 15 pin Joystick connector that carries MIDI signals from the Sound Card  The
MidiMan MidiSport USB Interface shown connected to the USB port of a
typical Laptop Computer.
This particular USB MIDI Interface is a 2x2, meaning that it has two Input Ports, and two Output Ports that are totally independant of each other USB Interfaces are available from a number of Manufacturers: MidiMan, Roland etc.
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Other types of MIDI Interfaces Much less common than Sound Card and USB MIDI Interfaces are the ones that connect to either the Parallel, or the Serial Ports of the PC...  The
MIDI Interface shown here is designed to connect to the Serial
Port of a PC. It can be used on any type of PC that has a serial
Port connection available
A similar type of MIDI Interface to this is available that is designed to connect to the Parallel, or Printer Port of a PC that has a Parallel Port connection available Note the handy "Dual" MIDI Cable that serves as a useful "two-way" connection to equipment. |
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Desktop, Laptop - which Interfaces can I use? Desktop: If you plan to use a Desktop Computer to hook up your equipment to, then any of the MIDI Interface types described above will probably be usable, but you are strongly advised to actually verify that your Desktop PC does ideed have the connection point available for the type of Interface that you want to use - there are always exceptions and oddities.. For example, if you are using a Desktop PC that is more than a few years old, it may well not have an integral USB Port. If you plan to use your PC's Sound Card, it's worth checking that it did actually have MIDI, most do, but there have been some that don't... Laptop: With the typical Laptop, you will probably need to rule out the Sound Card Joystick connector since the 15 pin connector is usually absent - a USB MIDI Interface is nowadays the favorite for a Laptop, but Serial, or Parallel connectors are usually present on a Laptop, so those types of Interface are a possible options also. OS NOTE: Certain versions of the Windows operating system did not have support for USB, even if your machine has the "physical" Port present. The original Windows 95 and earlier did not support USB, so bear this in mind when making your choice. DON'T BE FOOLED! You may well come across an adapter that is described as a "USB Gameport adapter". These adapters allow the connection of a Joystick to your USB port. They DO NOT carry MIDI signals, so connecting one of the Sound Card Joystick/MIDI adapters described above will not work. |
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Got the Required hardware? How to hook it up... If you have never used MIDI equipment before. it's quite natural to assume that you connect the IN of the Computer to the IN of your AX2, POD, Cyber-Twin etc. This is however, wrong!! 
IN
does NOT connect to IN
OUT does NOT connect to OUT
It's easy once you consider that MIDI data flows in a certain direction - the MIDI data flows OUT from your Computer and IN to your AX2, POD, Cyber-Twin etc. On the return path, the data flows OUT from your AX2, POD, Cyber-Twin etc. and IN to your Computer 
OUT
connects to IN
IN connects to OUT
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| This page last updated December 12 2001 6:00 am PST | ||||
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Don't
worry though, you can always get these female-female inline MIDI
connectors - useful for extending cable lengths...
