Acoustica Mixcraft 7 - Manual (Page 119)

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MIDI BASICS
MIDI is an acronym for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. It is a series of messages
that keyboards and synthesizers use to play notes or change the sounds of instruments.
A Virtual Instrument Track in Mixcraft contains Virtual Instrument Clips, which
contain MIDI data.
MIDI NOTES
When middle C is played on a music keyboard, it sends a short message that translates
to “play middle C.” When you let go of the key, a message is sent that translates to
“stop playing middle c.” In addition, the message contains other information, such as
the MIDI channel and key velocity. There are 16 MIDI channels which allow you to
route MIDI messages. The key velocity is a number from 1 to 127 which describes how
fast the key was depressed. A velocity of 1 would hardly be heard and a velocity of 127
would be full volume.
Each MIDI Note message contains the following information: note value (C0 – C10),
key velocity (1-127), and MIDI channel (1-16)
NOTE VALUE
This is the value of the note. There are 128 possible MIDI notes. Note 0 corresponds to
“C0”, where “C” means the note C and “0” means octave 0. Note 127 corresponds
to G10. A normal eight-octave MIDI piano keyboard has a range from A1 to C9.
KEY VELOCITY
This is how fast the key was pressed. Faster velocities usually correspond to louder
sounds or may trigger extra sounds, depending on the synthesizer and sound
programming.
MIDI CHANNEL
MIDI channels can be thought of like lanes on a freeway - each of its 16 channels
contains an independent MIDI data stream. In reality, MIDI messages are sent down the
cable one after the other (i.e. serially), but because the data is moving very quickly, it
behaves as if multiple channels are sent simultaneously (i.e. in parallel). MIDI channels
allow routing of specific channels to specific synthesizers, tracks, or both.