6 <h2>What Can Ardour Do With MIDI?</h2>
8 <dfn><abbr title="Musical Instrument Digital
9 Interface">MIDI</abbr></dfn> is a way to describe musical
10 performances and to control music hardware and software.
12 <p>Ardour can import and record MIDI data, and perform a variety of
13 editing operations on it. Furthermore, MIDI can be used to control
14 various functions of Ardour.
17 <h2>MIDI Handling Frameworks</h2>
19 MIDI input and output for Ardour are handled by the same "engine"
20 that handles audio input and output. Up to release 3.5, that means
21 that all MIDI I/O takes place via JACK. JACK itself uses the
22 native MIDI support of the operating system to receive and send
28 <dfn>CoreMIDI</dfn> is the standard MIDI framework on OSX systems.
29 It provides drivers for MIDI hardware and libraries needed by MIDI
35 <dfn><abbr title="Advanced Linux Sound API">ALSA</abbr> MIDI</dfn>
36 is the standard MIDI framework on Linux systems. It provides drivers
37 for MIDI hardware and libraries needed by MIDI software clients.
41 NoteThe <dfn>QJackCtl</dfn> control software displays ALSA MIDI
42 ports under its "ALSA" tab (it does not currently display CoreMIDI
43 ports). By contrast, JACK MIDI ports show up under
44 the <kbd class="menu">MIDI</kbd> tab in QJackCtl.
47 <h2>JACK MIDI Configuration</h2>
49 By default, JACK will <strong>not</strong> automatically detect and use existing MIDI
50 ports on your system. You must choose one of several ways
51 of <dfn>bridging</dfn> between the native MIDI frameworks
52 (e.g. CoreMIDI or ALSA) and JACK MIDI, as described in the sections