What's Midi - Yamaha Clavinova CVP-208 Owner's Manual

What's MIDI?

Let's consider an acoustic piano and a classical guitar as
representative acoustic instruments. With the piano, you
strike a key, and a hammer inside hits some strings and
plays a note. With the guitar, you directly pluck a string
and the note sounds.
But how does a digital instrument go about playing a
note?
Acoustic guitar note
production
L
Pluck a string and the body
resonates the sound.
As shown in the illustration above, in an electronic
instrument, the sampled note (previously recorded note)
stored in the tone generator section (electronic circuit) is
played based on information received from the keyboard,
and output through the speakers.
Now let's examine what happens when we play back a
recording. When you playback a music CD (for example,
a solo piano recording), you're hearing the actual sound
(vibrations in air) of the acoustic instrument. This is called
audio data, to distinguish it from MIDI data.
Recording and playing back the performance of an acoustic
instrument (audio data)
Recording
In the above example, the actual acoustic sounds of the
pianist's performance are captured in the recording as
audio data, and this is recorded to CD. When you play
back that CD on your audio system, you can hear the
actual piano performance. The piano itself is not
necessary, since the recording contains the actual sounds
of the piano, and your speakers reproduce them.
Digital instrument note
production
Internal amp Internal amp
Tone generator
(Electric circuit)
Playing
the keyboard
Based on playing information
from the keyboard, a
sampled note stored in the
tone generator is played
through the speakers.
Playback
Using Your Clavinova with Other Devices
Recording and playing back the performance of a digital
instrument (MIDI data)
Recording
Controller (keyboard, etc.)
R
In the case of digital instruments, the audio signals are sent
through output jacks (such as AUX OUT) on the instrument.
Playback
Tone generator
Sequencer
FD
FD
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