Very low bit rate, and as you know, consistent quality, but for slow internet is very well suited. Now for the Midi. The introduction of digital music has created a fundamentally new format for recording MIDI (Musical Instruments Digital Interface), which means Musical Instrument Digital Interface. Need to realize that MIDI format is not a sound recording, as such. In the stream of MIDI commands are recognized exclusively only “orders” sampler or synthesizer for the implementation of actions aimed at extracting sounds.
And the MIDI protocol itself is not transmitted sound vibrations to it, but only command to display it. These “orders” in the process of sound comes on a modern computer concepts are not so many and they cover the basic parameters of sound: the sound of the instrument, pitch, volume, duration, Pan, FM and many more. Almost all modern electronic instruments and sound cards work with the format MIDI. It was created to ensure that the instruments of different companies (synthesizers, samplers) could equally respond to the same team. When playing a midi file data stream is passed the device generates sound (sampler / synthesizer) – the channel number, pitch, about which key to press, with what strength, duration, some pedal and a lot of different information. At the same time can be heard 16 different instruments.
In 1982, the Association of MIDI-instrument was developed standard General MIDI (GM). It the most commonly used, despite the fact that later created three more species. GM has 16 channels, a standard pot of musical instruments, where every instrument is fixed a permanent serial number. In 128 melodic timbres bank (including electronic) and 47 percussion instruments arranged for 10 channels (each key corresponds to a percussion instrument). A frequently used format – a standard MIDI file (SMF – Standard MIDI FIle). This is the format for storing the recorded data from a sequencer, whether hardware or software. There are 16 channels, with MIDI tracks of different instruments. Every track – it’s recorded music of any party tool. And any sequencer is compatible with GM, reads about the same, these music files. That is, it reads information about the used instrument, pitch, their duration, loudness, etc. For example, if recorded the guitar, in any sequencer will sound just guitar and no other tool. Another thing is that this guitar can be a different sound quality – it depends on the quality of the sampler or synthesizer. AND yet, on any track, you can assign any instrument (of 128) of the bank’s standard GM, and only 10 channel is used exclusively for percussion instruments. We can say that MIDI-recording – it is like musical notation for a sequencer or PC sound card, reading a midi format, with high precision position of each audio setting. And add the important fact that the MIDI information is very small in terms of memory, which is very convenient and economical. This, of course, not all and not complete, but that so far and done. Everything. Thank you for your attention. Good luck in your endeavors.