Components of a MIDI System

Synthesizer:

• It is a sound generator (various pitch, loudness, tone colour).
• A good (musician's) synthesizer often has a microprocessor, keyboard, control panels, memory, etc.

Sequencer:

• It can be a stand-alone unit or a software program for a personal computer. (It used to be a storage server for MIDI data. Nowadays it is more a software music editor on the computer.
• It has one or more MIDI INs and MIDI OUTs.

Track:

• Track in sequencer is used to organize the recordings.
• Tracks can be turned on or off on recording or playing back.

Channel:

• MIDI channels are used to separate information in a MIDI system.
• There are 16 MIDI channels in one cable.
• Channel numbers are coded into each MIDI message.

Timbre:

• The quality of the sound, e.g., flute sound, cello sound, etc.
• Multitimbral - capable of playing many different sounds at the same time (e.g., piano, brass, drums, etc.)

Pitch:

• musical note that the instrument plays

Voice:

• Voice is the portion of the synthesizer that produces sound.
• Synthesizers can have many (12, 20, 24, 36, etc.) voices.
• Each voice works independently and simultaneously to produce sounds of different timbre and pitch.

Patch:

• the control settings that define a particular timbre.