Tutorial: MIDI and Music Synthesis

An explanation of music synthesis technology and how MIDI is used to generate and control sounds.

This document was originally published in 1995 at a time when MIDI had been used in electronic musical instruments for more than a decade, but was still a relatively new technology in the computer industry. All these years later, the PC industry has changed, and some of the explanations herein are now dated (such as references to “internal sound cards”, which have been replaced by external Analog to Digital converters). The explanations of MIDI technology and synthesis methods are still accurate.