Reference Guide

1543
MIDI
Beginner’s guide to Cakewalk software
Figure 455. Standard MIDI cable—use this if your MIDI interface has standard 5-pin input and output ports
A. Connect one end to an OUT on your MIDI interface B. Connect the other end to an IN on your MIDI
instrument
MIDI instruments have inputs and outputs labeled MIDI IN and MIDI OUT. You connect a MIDI cable
from one of your MIDI interface’s MIDI OUTs to a MIDI IN on an instrument. You also connect a MIDI
cable from the MIDI OUT on one of your MIDI instruments to the MIDI IN on your MIDI interface. The
instrument that you connect to the MIDI IN of your interface is called a controller, and typically has
a piano-style keyboard for sending note on/off messages, pitch and modulation wheels, and perhaps
some sliders on it for sending other MIDI messages to the interface. You can also get MIDI converter
modules that turn guitars, drums, and other instruments into controllers. You can use a controller to
record yourself playing in real time. When you play your controller, the MIDI messages go to the
interface, then into your computer, and then back to the interface and to a specific MIDI instrument
that’s connected to the interface. You choose what instrument the messages come back to by using
the software. This process of a computer sending back out the MIDI messages that it just received is
called echoing. By using echoing, you can play one MIDI instrument, but cause other MIDI
instruments to play. Your controller usually has a setting on it called Local On/Off. When your
controller is connected to your interface, you need to set the Local On/Off setting to Local Off. That’s
because if your software is set to send MIDI messages back to your controller, when you play a note
on your controller, it is sent to the computer, and then back to the controller again through its MIDI
IN, causing it to play two notes every time you play one note on it. When your controller is set to
Local Off, it won’t play a note on the controller when you press a key, but only when the Note On
message comes back from the computer, which happens instantaneously. Remember to set it back
to Local On if you’re going to use the controller separate from the computer.
MIDI instruments have a third port called a MIDI THRU port. This port passes through MIDI
messages without changing them in any way. You can chain MIDI instruments together by
connecting the MIDI THRU port on one MIDI instrument to the MIDI IN port on another instrument,
with several instruments chained together that way. If you had a MIDI interface that had 8 outputs,
and you chained 3 instruments together on each of those outputs by using the MIDI THRU ports,
you would be able to play 24 instruments at one time.
For more information, see:
“MIDI drivers” on page 1544
“MIDI files, projects, tracks, and clips” on page 1545
A B