A Study of MIDI Computer Music for Multimedia Systems

• Main Authors: Wang, Wen-Jin, 王文晉
• Other Authors: Wang Chung-Ming
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 1996
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/11240072085461017821

碩士 === 國立中興大學 === 資訊科學學系 === 84 === Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) is a digital communicationsinterface, protocol and compatible hardware specification specially for theelectronic music. Within a connected MIDI network, it allows multipleelectronic instruments, performance controllers, computers, and other relateddevices to communicate with each other and exchange the performance messages.Besides, we could utilize MIDI to transmit these messages of performance orcontrol events (such as: playing a note, changing the program, varyingvolume, panning to right or left, modulating a wheel ... etc.) to the MIDIdevices to generate the wonderful music. In the world of electronic music,MIDI provides us an integrated production environment where we couldimperceptibly and completely control the overall sound characters (such as:pitch, duration, volume and timbre) of individual instruments and otherperformance controlling parameters; thus, it enables us to dedicate ourselvesto the creating of music and express our music concepts to the acme. In thisthesis, we will do the study of the arrangement of MIDI computer music and thetechnique of the converting from MIDI files to Wave files. In the multimediasystems, there are three audio media types: MIDI, Wave, and CD-Audio;however, there are some advantages for using MIDI architecture to producemusic, not only matching the motif of multimedia application systems, but alsobeing more changeful and belonging to the style of yourself. For thepractical MIDI music production, we choose the "Korg X5" synthesizer as ourinput device and performance keyboard, which also provides sound module whileperforming music; besides, we utilize the "MIDI-Express PC", which is equippedwith 6 MIDI-IN and 6 MIDI-OUT ports, as the MIDI interface to communicatebetween MIDI devices and the computer and pick the "Cakewalk 3.0 Pro forWindows" as our sequencer. Subsequently, we apply the basic music theories( melody lines, rhythm patterns, accompaniment types, bass running, fundamentalharmony, and chord arrangement... etc.), MIDI basic concepts and principles,and MIDI arrangement techniques and tricks (such as: editing of MIDI songs,the arrangement and utilization of musical instruments and effector... etc.)to produce some MIDI songs for verifying the MIDI principles and arrangementtechniques mentioned in this article. Besides, we experimentally try toconvert the finished MIDI files to another audio specification: Waveform fileformat using the TiMidity converter. For the converting platforms, we choosethe SUN Sparc-2 and Sparc-10 two workstations for executing the real-time andnon real-time converting. By this way, we could do some discussions on thecharacteristics and applicability between MIDI and Wave audio files andcompare the quality difference of the music files produced by differentfile formats or distinct sound sources and then make our conclusions. MIDIcomputer music has been widely used in the album, movie, animation andmultimedia industry. Utilizing the techniques of MIDI, the music composerhimself could create the music expression which should be performed by a largeband before. To compose and arrange the music using MIDI, we could express ourinspiration to the acme. Due to the increasing requirement of quality andquantity, it''s very urgent to combine the advantages of MIDI music files andWave audio files and support each other. TiMidity provides us one solution toconquer the disadvantages of MIDI and Wave files and fully utilize theadvantages of each other.