Chapter 4 Midi; Overview; Midi Connections - Kurzweil V150 Owner's Manual

Chapter 4
MIDI

Overview

MIDI, which stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, enables electronic musical
instruments to communicate in the numeric language of computers. You can connect your
V150/V110 to other MIDI instruments, or to a computer that has a MIDI interface (either a set
built-in MIDI connectors, called ports, or an external device with one or more MIDI ports and a
standard connection to the computer).
Connecting to other MIDI instruments enables you to control them from the V150/V110's
keyboard—or to control the V150/V110 from their keyboards. Connecting to a personal
computer enables you to record the music you play into software that creates sequences, which
are computerized recordings of the music you've played.
A computer connection to your V150/V110 also enables you to update the internal software,
should a revision become available.
MIDI Information
MIDI isn't exactly music—it's a standardized language for representing musical data with
numbers. Information such as what notes you're playing, how hard you're playing them, and
whether they're sustained—all gets translated as numbers and gets sent along a MIDI cable as a
series of electrical pulses that represent the numbers.
In practical terms, that means that you'll think a little differently about the sounds you play
when you start using MIDI connections with other instruments. For example, suppose you're
controlling a MIDI organ from your V150/V110. Playing a piano sound on the V150/V110
obviously can't play a piano sound on an organ. Instead, you'll hear whatever sound has the
same sound ID (also known as MIDI Program Change number) as the piano sound. If you're
playing the Stereo Grand Piano sound (which has a sound ID of 0) on the V150/V110, you'll
play whatever sound has ID 0 on the organ as well. This enables you to add even more layers of
sound to your music.
You can find the sound IDs for all of the V150/V110's sounds, in Appendix C, in the tables that
list the sounds by banks.

MIDI Connections

On the bottom panel are three MIDI ports: In, Thru, and Out. You'll connect MIDI cables
between one or more of these ports and similar ports on other MIDI instruments, including
MIDI-capable computers.
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