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Musical Instrument Digital Interface is a digital communications protocol. In August of 1983, music manufacturers agreed on a document that is called "MIDI 1.0 Specification". Why was it developed? MIDI was perhaps the first true effort at joint development among a large number of musical manufacturers. An industry standard enabling musical communication between musical hardware synths and sequencers for example. By 1985, virtually every new musical keyboard on the market had a MIDI interface. What is contained in Midi data? It is important to remember that MIDI transmits commands, but it does not transmit an audio signal. The MIDI specification includes a common language that provides information about events, such as note on and off, preset changes, sustain pedal, pitch bend, and timing information. Binary Data (just to aid understanding). Computers use binary data. A base 2 numeric system. We are used to a base 10 or decimal system. In a binary system there are only 2 numeric values 0 and 1- on or off. So in a binary number the first column records single units up to 1, the second column records 2s, the third 4s, the fourth 8s and so on. Each digit of resolution is called a bit and can represent the values on or off. A byte is 8 digits of digital information.
Bearing in mind the very limited capability of computers in the 1980s, it is worth remembering that because MIDI data contains only instructions, file sizes are very small in comparison to digital audio files.