About Midi; What's Midi - Roland Sound Canvas SK-500 Owner's Manual

About MIDI data

About MIDI

What's MIDI?

MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. MIDI devices can transmit
musically related data such as performance data or data to select sounds. Since MIDI
is a world-wide standard, musical data can be sent and received between devices
even if they are of different types and were made by different manufacturers. In the
MIDI standard, data describing a musical performance such as "play a note" or
"press the pedal" are transmitted as MIDI messages.
As long as you are using the this unit to simply play commercially available music
data or to provide sound for game software, it is not necessary to know about MIDI.
Simply follow the instructions in the manual for your music data playback device
(MIDI player) or your software.
The explanation that follows will help you use MIDI to control this unit in greater
detail.
How MIDI Messages are Transmitted and Received
First, we will briefly explain how MIDI messages are transmitted and received.
MIDI Connectors
MIDI messages are transmitted and received using MIDI connector on the SK-500.
Connect MIDI cables to these connectors as appropriate for your setup.
fig.11-1e
M I D I
OUT IN
MIDI OUT: This connector transmits messages from this unit.
* SK-500 does not have MIDI IN and MIDI THRU connectors.
MIDI Channels and Multitimbral Sound Modules
MIDI transmits a wide variety of performance data over a single MIDI cable. This is
made possible by MIDI channels. MIDI channels allow specific data to be selected
out of a large amount of data. The concept is similar to the idea of TV channels. By
changing the channel on a TV receiver you can view the programs of different sta-
tions. By setting the channel of the receiver to match the channel of the transmitter,
you can receive only the program you wish to watch. In the same way, MIDI allows
you to receive data only when the channel of the receiver matches the channel of the
transmitter.
fig.11-2e
Station A
Station B
Station C
The cable from the antenna carries the TV signals from many broadcast stations.
112
The TV is set to the channel
of the station you wish to watch.