MIDI

Musical Instrument Digital Interface, or MIDI, is a system designed to transmit information between electronic musical instruments. MIDI allows computers, synthesizers, sound cards and drum machines to control one another, and to exchange system information. Though modern computer sound-cards are MIDI-compatible and capable of creating realistic instrument sounds, the fact that sound cards’ MIDI synthesizers have historically produced sounds of dubious quality has tarnished the image of a general purpose computer as a MIDI instrument.