iConnectivity
iConnectMIDI™ Owner’s Manual
Revision 0.5
Page 16
Owner’s Manual
New to MIDI?
Let’s start simple
MIDI is the way that MIDI-enabled devices and instruments communicate with each other,
specifically allowing them to “play” each other. For example, a controller keyboard (that may
not make any of its own sound) can communicate with a synthesizer (that can make its own
sounds).
MIDI does not confine itself to simply instructing a sound generator to make a sound. MIDI can
also tell an electronic instrument to alter it’s characteristics in very specific ways. For example,
MIDI can remotely adjust the volume of a sound generator device, or tell a sound generator to
play the sound with more brightness.
MIDI is extremely versatile in its ability to control electronic instruments remotely. In fact, the
number of parameters that MIDI can control number in the hundreds. In general, however, only
even proficient MIDI users use a small handful of these parameters regularly. At the very
simplest, you will be “playing” notes from a keyboard or controller to a sound generator.
MIDI cannot produce sound by itself. MIDI is not the sound information. Rather, it is a set of
commands that allow the remote triggering of a sound-generating instrument connected to
your MIDI system to produce sound. Audio connections from your sound generator to an
amplification and speaker system allow you to hear the sounds generated.
What Can I Connect?
USB, 5-pin DIN, or Computer?
As mentioned above, MIDI is the language that electronic music devices use to communicate
with each other. These are sent to and from devices in the form of messages, which are a
series of bytes organized in a specific way in which both the sender and receiver can
understand.
But there are a few different ways that these messages can be sent between the devices,
despite all being sent over some type of wired connection (we won’t discuss the wireless
methods for now since it is not inherent to iConnectMIDI; just know that MIDI can also be sent
and received wirelessly). Although there are different types of connectors, such as USB and 5-
pin DIN (the round 5-pin connector type found on old and new MIDI devices and instruments), it
is important to understand that, regardless of connector type, these devices still move MIDI
data around. But until now, the different types of connectors prohibited musicians from
connecting up their disparate instruments to each other.
MIDI DIN to USB
iConnectMIDI solves this problem by allowing your devices with MIDI DIN connectors to
communicate with devices with USB-MIDI connectors. Without iConnectMIDI, even if an
instrument had both MIDI DIN connectors and USB-MIDI connectors, you could not plug in
another USB-MIDI instrument and have it directly communicate with the first instrument without
a computer, let alone have the first instrument pass MIDI data through to the MIDI DIN ports
originating from a second USB-MIDI instrument. This is now possible with iConnectMIDI (see
USB with MIDI instruments).
