manual/_manual/03_setting-up-your-system/05_setting-up-midi.html

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title: Setting Up MIDI
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<h2>What Can Ardour Do With MIDI?</h2>
<p>
  <dfn><abbr title="Musical Instrument Digital Interface">MIDI</abbr></dfn>
  is a way to describe music data and to control music hardware and 
  software. Ardour can import and record MIDI data, and perform a 
  variety of editing operations on it. Furthermore, MIDI can be used to
  control various functions of Ardour.
</p>
<p class="note">
  Ardour does not include a <dfn>synthesis engine</dfn> to produce audio 
  from MIDI data, but relies on plugins or external hard- and software 
  for the task. This can be a stumbling block for first time users who 
  expect MIDI input to result in audio output by default.<br />
  Please see the section on working with plug-ins for more information on
  turning MIDI data into audio output.</p>

<h2>MIDI Handling Frameworks</h2>
<p>
  Ardour supports various ways of sending and receiving MIDI data:
</p>

<h3>CoreMIDI</h3>
<p>
  <dfn>CoreMIDI</dfn> is the standard MIDI framework on OSX systems. 
  It provides drivers for MIDI hardware and libraries needed by MIDI
  software clients. 
</p>

<h4>ALSA MIDI</h4>
<p>
  <dfn><abbr title="Advanced Linux Sound API">ALSA</abbr> MIDI</dfn>
  is the standard MIDI framework on Linux systems. It provides drivers 
  for MIDI hardware and libraries needed by MIDI software clients.
</p>
<p>
  The <dfn>QJackCtl</dfn> control software displays ALSA MIDI ports 
  under its "ALSA" tab (it does not currently display CoreMIDI ports).
</p>

<h4>JACK MIDI</h4>

<p> 
  <dfn><abbr title="JACK Audio Connection Kit">JACK</abbr> MIDI</dfn> 
  is a framework used to comunicate between JACK MIDI software clients. 
  It provides zero jitter and a fixed latency of one <dfn>period</dfn>,
  the same latency as for JACK audio.
</p>
<p>
  JACK MIDI ports show up under the <kbd class="menu">MIDI</kbd> tab in
  QJackCtl.
</p>
    
<p>
  There are several ways of <dfn>bridging</dfn> between the native MIDI frameworks
  (e.g. CoreMIDI or ALSA) and JACK MIDI, as described in the sections
  below.
</p>

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