35
W8808A is MIDI-compatible, featuring MIDI IN and MIDI OUT terminals and providing a
variety of MIDI-related controls. By using MIDI functions, you can expand your musical
possibilities. In this chapter, it mainly talks about what MIDI is, what it can do, and as well as
how you apply MIDI to W8808A.
No doubt you have heard the terms----acoustic instruments and digital instruments. In the
world today, these are the two main categories of musical instruments. Let's consider an
acoustic piano and a classical guitar as representative acoustic instruments. They are easy to
understand. With the piano, you strike a key, and a hammer inside hits some strings and
plays a note. With guitars, you directly pluck a string and the note sounds. But how do digital
instruments go about playing a note?
As shown in the pictures above, in digital instruments, the sample notes (reserved notes)
stored in the tone generator section (electronic circuit) can be played when the information on
the keyboard is collected. Then what is the information on the keyboard?
For instance, if you use W8808A to play a C quarter note, unlike an acoustic instrument that
puts out a resonated note, it puts out information from the keyboard such as
with what
voice
,
with which key
,
about how strong
, and
when was it pressed
and
when was it released
. All the information will be converted to a number value and sent to
the tone generator. Based on these data, the music source will adopt stored sample note and
play it.
WHAT IS MIDI?
WHAT IS MIDI?
Based on playing information from the keyboard,
a sampling note stored in the tone generator is
played through the speakers.
MIDI FUNCTIONS
MIDI FUNCTIONS
