The MIDI Manual: A Practical Guide to MIDI within Modern Music Production

by David Miles Huber

The MIDI A Practical Guide to MIDI within Modern Music Production, Fourth Edition, is a complete reference on MIDI. Written by David Miles Huber (a 4x Grammy-nominated musician, producer and author), this best-selling guide provides clear explanations of what MIDI 1.0 and 2.0 are, acting as a guide for electronic instruments, the DAW, MIDI sequencing and how to make best use of them. You will learn how to set up an efficient MIDI system and how to get the most out of your production room and ultimately … your music.

Packed full of useful tips and practical examples on sequencing and mixing techniques, The MIDI Manual also covers in-depth information on system interconnections, controllers, groove tools, the DAW, synchronization and more. For the first time, the MIDI 2.0 spec is explained in light of the latest developments and is accompanied with helpful guidelines for the long-established MIDI 1.0 spec and its implementation chart.

Illustrated throughout with helpful photos and screenshots, this is the most readable and clearly explained book on MIDI available.

Genres: Music

289 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 26, 2020

Reviews

[David Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-written by a professional in the field and contains very useful info on MIDI in the earlier chapters. However it tries to cover far too much and has so many needless definitions ("The PC", "The iOS", "DVD", etc etc) that the length of the book could be easily reduced by two-thirds in my opinion. And for all the unnecessary information it does include, there is a glaring omission from the chapter on Music Notation, which mentions NIFF but fails to mention MusicXML, the most established interchange format out there which succeeded NIFF (as long ago as 2004 - this edition is from 2020) and has plenty of relevance to the MIDI format.

[Shane Sinjun · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a fourth edition, I was surprised at the number of typos and misnomers. I was also hoping for a deeper dive into system exclusive.
I grew up on the author's Modern Recording Techniques as a primary reference text, which was excellent.
I hope the fifth edition of this addresses its shortcomings.