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Getting Your Computer “MIDI Ready”
-  PART 1 -
by Michael Tyler
Computer Music Products

If you are a musician wanting to incorporate a computer as part of your musical arsenal, you will want to become familiar with at least a few of the options available to you when setting up your computer music system. I will show you the common MIDI setups for the IBM/PC compatible computer. Part 1 of this article will cover the procedure for setting up a simple MIDI system using a MIDI compatible sound card. Part 2 will describe setting up your system with a separate, dedicated MIDI interface. As always, I hope you will find this helpful and informative!

For the purpose of this article, I will define a “MIDI setup” as a system that includes...

• A computer equipped with music software (i.e., for recording, playback, printing, etc.)
• A MIDI keyboard (for playing/inputting music into the computer software)
• A MIDI sound source (MIDI keyboard with built-in sounds, or a sound card, or a sound module)
• A means of connecting the MIDI keyboard to the computer (MIDI interface hardware and cables)

P.S. - If you haven’t already read the article entitled “Where To Begin”, you may want to read it before this particular article.

Basic Sound Card MIDI Setup

NOTE: When this article was originally written, Soundcards often included external MIDI interface support. Today, this is not as common. The easiest way to connect a MIDI keyboard to your computer now is with the use of a USB MIDI Interface. (this note was added in 2004)

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A sound card MIDI system is the simplest and most economical MIDI setup. There are a couple of typical sound card setups that will directly apply to the majority of MIDI musicians. If you own a PC of a fairly recent vintage (say, about 2 years old or less), chances are extremely good that your computer came with a pre-installed sound card. Most sound cards are SoundBlaster® compatible and will have a built-in MIDI interface that is accessible through the sound card’s gameport/joystick receptacle.

Notice that I said most will have the MIDI interface capability. It is up to you to verify whether yours has it or not, by checking the documentation that came with your particular sound card. (If there is no mention of this, then you most likely won’t be able to use the sound card for connecting your MIDI keyboard, so you will need to purchase a separate MIDI interface.) Even though your sound card may have the built-in MIDI interface, the manufacturer rarely includes the gameport-to-MIDI adapter cable necessary for actually connecting your computer to your MIDI keyboard instrument! Fortunately, these adapter cables are not costly.

 Photo of a Gameport-to-MIDI Adapter Cable

Installation of one of these gameport-to-MIDI adapters is straightforward. Just plug the 15-pin end into the gameport/joystick connector on the back of your sound card, and plug the 5-pin MIDI ends into the back of your MIDI keyboard. (The end labeled MIDI “IN” from the gameport cable plugs into the MIDI “OUT” receptacle of your keyboard. And, as you would expect, the end labeled MIDI “OUT” from the gameport cable plugs into the MIDI “IN” receptacle of your keyboard.)

The final step is to start up your music software, go into its MIDI Setup Menu, and “engage” by selecting your sound card’s MIDI input and output driver so the software knows to use it. (Your music software owner’s manual will guide you through this final step, in case you have no idea what I mean by input/output drivers!). From start to finish, this entire process should take only about 10 or 15 minutes, and you’re in business!

Here are two diagrams of common Sound Card MIDI Setups

Diagram 1 - Standard MIDI Keyboard hookup

Diagram 2 - MIDI Controller hookup

Note: The standard MIDI keyboard hookup (Diagram 1) gives you two options for playback of MIDI songfiles. You can designate in your MIDI software to trigger the sound card only, or choose to have the software send MIDI playback data to your keyboard to utilize the keyboard’s own built-in sounds. (You can usually select, from within your particular music software, whether to output the “MIDI flow” to either the sound card or the MIDI output port connected to your MIDI keyboard to trigger whichever one you want - in some cases, even both!).

In the MIDI controller hookup (Diagram 2), the keyboard controller has no sounds of its own -it is totally dependent upon the sound card for producing any sound at all. When your computer is on and your music software is running, playing the MIDI controller keyboard will trigger the sounds contained in your sound card and you hear them via the multimedia speakers connected to the sound card.

• Descriptions and prices of MIDI controller keyboards

Upgraded Sound Card MIDI Setup

The next step MIDI musicians sometimes take is to upgrade their sound card-based MIDI setup. The upgrade does not change the basic hookup for MIDI input -you still use the gameport adapter for connecting your keyboard to your computer as previously described. The primary goal is to get higher quality MIDI instrument sounds than what most factory installed sound cards typically offer.

One way to upgrade your system is to add a MIDI “sound module”. A sound module is essentially a small box containing hundreds of instrument sounds and numerous drumkits to use in your MIDI recording projects. Most recording musicians will eventually add at least one or two sound modules to their desktop recording setups.

You can easily add a sound module by connecting the MIDI "OUT" from the gameport cable (shown in Diagram 2) to the MIDI "IN" of the module. (In Diagram 2, you see that the MIDI "OUT" cable is available for this purpose, since it is otherwise not being used in a soundcard-only setup.) When you play your keyboard, the sound module receives the MIDI data and triggers the sound module's built-in sounds. Likewise, when you play back a MIDI recording from your computer, the module's sounds are triggered from the gameport cable's output. Of course, you will need to connect a pair of speakers to your sound module in order to hear it when it’s being used for MIDI playback instead of your computer’s soundcard, or you can monitor the sound directly from the module by plugging in a set of headphones into the modules headphone receptacle.

Photo of a MIDI sound module

Conclusion for Part 1

Setting up a sound card based MIDI system is economical, simple to accomplish, and enables most anyone to get started with MIDI/music applications right away with a minimum of effort. Part 2 of this article will cover MIDI setups using dedicated MIDI interfaces for desktop and laptop computers. 

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