Home -> Magazines -> Issues -> Articles in this issue -> View
Technically Speaking | |
Article from Making Music, August 1986 |
What you can get from a MIDI Implementation Sheet, apart from total bafflement.
The mysteries of the MIDI implementation sheet. Andy Honeybone casts a spell.
VERY MOVING to see Wainwright, champion of the Lakeland Fells, expressing the wish for his ashes to be scattered over the crags and tarns of Haystacks. In my line of speciality you might think I have a parallel aspiration, perhaps to end my days amongst the carpet pile in Rod Argent's Keyboard Shop. Not so, dear reader, as W.W. would say, nothing could be further from the truth. But, as ever, I digress for this is not a forum for outdoor-type name-dropping; this month a look at MIDI implementation sheets and the Roland TR505 in particular.
Armchair MIDI enthusiasts may well have considered last month's MIDI Talker project somewhat unnecessary as all the information you could possibly glean from such a tool is already freely available within that single A4 side called a MIDI implementation sheet. Well, point taken, but in defence, such sheets are brief to the point of obscurity and there's many a slip twixt Japanese and English.
The sheet to which I allude is among the bumf that falls from the box un-noticed as you hurry to get on down with those funky pre-sets, basically a page of four columns where, apparently, someone has been playing noughts and crosses.
The left most column describes the function under consideration with the next two handling what is sent out and what can be received. The last is for remarks, and remains blank for the most part, to the annoyance of all. Three symbols can be found liberally dotted over the page: the cross indicates 'not supported' whereas the circle is good news. The asterisk can mean anything from 'not relevant', through 'see footnote' to 'date of unspecified length' — a good one to ignore.
Managing MIDI |
MIDI Theory and Practice |
Adventures In MIDILand (Part 1) |
![]() The Myths Of MIDI |
Practically MIDI (Part 1) |
Orchestrating with MIDI (Part 1) |
Inside MIDI |
Dumping Grounds (Part 1) |
Local Area Networks |
MIDI-UM - does it work? |
![]() Fairlight Goes MIDI |
MIDI 2.0 Is Here! |
Browse by Topic:
Feature by Andy Honeybone
mu:zines is the result of thousands of hours of effort, and will require many thousands more going forward to reach our goals of getting all this content online.
If you value this resource, you can support this project - it really helps!
New issues that have been donated or scanned for us this month.
All donations and support are gratefully appreciated - thank you.
Do you have any of these magazine issues?
If so, and you can donate, lend or scan them to help complete our archive, please get in touch via the Contribute page - thanks!