Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #156433 in Books
• Published on: 2000-02-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 200 pages

Synopsis
To take advantage of the technology provided for musicians by synthesizers and samplers, it is essential to understand the basics of MIDI - the Musical Instrument Digital Interface. Paul White covers those basics, as well as looking at the equipment needed to fully exploit its potential.

Customer Reviews

A very good introduction
Many books have already been written about MIDI and how to connect things and instruments to let the music flow. This book does perhaps not offer many new things, but it is competent and inspiring. Effort has been done in making the book easy to understand and easy to carry around (due to its handy size) so that any wannabe musician can bring it to the music store without fear of making a fool of himself.

I could have wanted some real or good examples of the different ways that some synth modules have to be programmed, knowing that they are quite more complex than good is. However, the book - held as an introduction - is quite good.

Basic in form but not in content
Basic MIDI. OK so like so many of you I considered that I knew quite a lot about MIDI…. Wrong, all I have been doing is muddling 18 devices on a daisy chain and not even considering other aspects of what can be achieved with this system. “Omni, what’s that?”. This book has been an eye opener as to what can be achieved. The title is accurate though, Paul White gives a clear understanding from Multitimbrality to SMPTE (if you don’t know you need this book) without all the wads of technical jargon to confuse the issue. “I just want to play and produce music, not worry how the bit’s and bytes communicate with each other.” Very descriptive, lots of tips and pointers and very down to earth with his explanations and examples and some good diagnosis of potential problems.
For those who are just entering the world of MIDI, and those who have not been doing a great deal with your MIDI “because you got it working and just want to get on with the music” this book is a must, before you get into the other bigger beefier volumes about the subject.

A very basic introduction
This book, while good as a general introduction to midi, is fairly repetative. It seems that large sections of the book have been cut and paste into different chapters making the reading somewhat monotonous. The author states many times how he is keeping the book simple and that an in-depth knowledge of midi is not required for general midi use. While I agree entirely I would have preferred him to mention this only once or twice at the beginning of the book rather than in every second chapter. The size of the book is convenient for transporting around. Unfortunately the size is not taken advantage of as it would make for a good source of references had information such as the general midi instrument and drum sets been included. Sadly the only included reference is one on common cable connections.