6 <h2>What Can Ardour Do With MIDI?</h2>
8 <dfn><abbr title="Musical Instrument Digital Interface">MIDI</abbr></dfn>
9 is a way to describe music data and to control music hardware and
10 software. Ardour can import and record MIDI data, and perform a
11 variety of editing operations on it. Furthermore, MIDI can be used to
12 control various functions of Ardour.
15 Ardour does not include a <dfn>synthesis engine</dfn> to produce audio
16 from MIDI data, but relies on plugins or external hard- and software
17 for the task. This can be a stumbling block for first time users who
18 expect MIDI input to result in audio output by default.<br />
19 Please see the section on working with plug-ins for more information on
20 turning MIDI data into audio output.</p>
22 <h2>MIDI Handling Frameworks</h2>
24 Ardour supports various ways of sending and receiving MIDI data:
29 <dfn>CoreMIDI</dfn> is the standard MIDI framework on OSX systems.
30 It provides drivers for MIDI hardware and libraries needed by MIDI
36 <dfn><abbr title="Advanced Linux Sound API">ALSA</abbr> MIDI</dfn>
37 is the standard MIDI framework on Linux systems. It provides drivers
38 for MIDI hardware and libraries needed by MIDI software clients.
41 The <dfn>QJackCtl</dfn> control software displays ALSA MIDI ports
42 under its "ALSA" tab (it does not currently display CoreMIDI ports).
48 <dfn><abbr title="JACK Audio Connection Kit">JACK</abbr> MIDI</dfn>
49 is a framework used to comunicate between JACK MIDI software clients.
50 It provides zero jitter and a fixed latency of one <dfn>period</dfn>,
51 the same latency as for JACK audio.
54 JACK MIDI ports show up under the <kbd class="menu">MIDI</kbd> tab in
59 There are several ways of <dfn>bridging</dfn> between the native MIDI frameworks
60 (e.g. CoreMIDI or ALSA) and JACK MIDI, as described in the sections