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

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layout: default
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 musical
  performances and to control music hardware and software.
</p> 
<p>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>

<h2>MIDI Handling Frameworks</h2>
<p>
  MIDI input and output for Ardour are handled by the same "engine"
  that handles audio input and output. Up to release 3.5, that means
  that all MIDI I/O takes place via JACK. JACK itself uses the 
  native MIDI support of the operating system to receive and send
  MIDI data. These are:
</p>

<h3>OS X</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>

<h3>Linux</h3>
<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 class="note">
  NoteThe <dfn>QJackCtl</dfn> control software displays ALSA MIDI
  ports under its "ALSA" tab (it does not currently display CoreMIDI
  ports).  By contrast, JACK MIDI ports show up under
  the <kbd class="menu">MIDI</kbd> tab in QJackCtl.
</p>
   
<h2>JACK MIDI Configuration</h2>
<p>
By default, JACK will <strong>not</strong> automatically detect and use existing MIDI
ports on your system. You must choose one of 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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