manual/include/setting-up-midi.html

<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. 
</p>

<dl>
<dt>OS X</dt>
<dd>  <dfn>CoreMIDI</dfn> is the standard MIDI framework on OSX systems. 
</dd>
<dt>Linux</dt>
<dd>
  <dfn><abbr title="Advanced Linux Sound API">ALSA</abbr> MIDI</dfn>
  is the standard MIDI framework on Linux systems.
</dd>
<dt>Windows</dt>
<dd>
  <dfn>There is no single standard MIDI framework on Windows,
    but Ardour can work with ASIO and others.
</dd>

</dl>

<p class="note">
  On Linux systems, <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>