Customer Reviews

The MIDI Companion: The Ins, Outs and Throughs

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book taught me how to put together a whole home studio with a computer adn different kinds of keyboards and synthesizers. It was clear, easy to understand and even pretty funny. I definately recommend it to anyone who wants to learn about MIDI, synthesizers, home recording, song writing or film scoring.

Very comprehensive, can get you up and running in 48 hours. A very thin book that contains the bare essentials as to familiarize yourself with MIDI and the initial steps to set up a working compilation of MIDI products. Explains concepts such as sequencers, samplers, MIDI-IN/OUT/THRU and countless more... the good part is that even though it holds great amounts of information, the book is orgenized in a way that is easily referenced in the future. It's easy... it's wonderful.

Who would be better at writing an over view of MIDI than Mr Rona, who was one of the founders of the MIDI Manufacturers' Association? i am thoroughly enjoying this book, because it is not too technical for the average reader, and yet it does explain the internal functions of computers and digital machines to the extent of providing a good understanding of the instruments we use. i always find it useful to know a little background information to anything i'm learning, and there is a (very) short history of how MIDI was developed. the book is written in a very lively manner, with some subtle humour found in the illustrations, veyr clear (almost condescendingly simple) diagrams. the sections are structures in a logical way, so the whole learning process is very comfortable. i know nothing about computers, and wanted to really understand how MIDI works so that i can properly hook up a few pieces of drum machines/sampler/sequencer/MIDI controller i have, and i find this book very helpful. i highly recommend it for the MIDI newbie.

This book really should be removed from circulation. While basic MIDI information is in there, it is so out of date it just makes it hard to read. Examples are of obsolete or vintage gear and has no real relation to todays musician.
Illustrations are all cheesy and look like bad microsoft clipart. Photographs are all poor and dated. The section on MIDI and a personal computers lists atari and commodore as possible good choices - get the picture!
If you are looking for charts of Control codes etc, - they are in here, but you can find those anywhere. If you are trying to get information on MIDI in the last decade or so, buy a different book.

This book is thin and concise, I have read many books on MIDI and have found none to be as useful as this and has my full recommendation.

I was prompted to write a review due the poor and inaccurate reviews that say it is out dated. Sure maybe buying a book about Microsoft operating system that is 10 years old would be considered out dated but that is far from the case here.

I challenge anyone to find a more concise book explaining MIDI anywhere. If you have read another MIDI book better than this, I most likely have read it and disagree with you! All the info in this book applies to working with MIDI in this year 2005 in any audio work station today or your Akai MPC or whatever.

As far as the reviewer that said their pages were stuck together, I am sorry, mine was not like that and you just got a bad copy.

This is a great book by the long-time contributor to Keyboard Magazine Jeff Rona. It eases the beginner into the basics and thoroughly covers everything you'll need to know to get started in the whacky and wonderful world of MIDI. It's a very decent reference book that should be on the shelf of all musicians who would like to take advantage of all the creative possibilities that MIDI offers.

I am a student at musicians Institute in LA. I wanted to learn more about MIDI and bought this book.

It has old pictures and couple sections are out of date. But if your are able to tell the difference between todays computers used in Music, you'll be fine>

Great explanation. Very easy discription how MIDI messages are sent, how to use them and how to put together a MIDI System>

All in all a great book. Helped me a lot

As a practicing musician for 45 years, and after reading quite a few books on the subject of MIDI, this book is another typical MIDI book. It tells of how and why it was developed. It's always good to know the roots of everything one studies but this does not help one understand how to make your keyboard tell your guitar effects processor to change to patch #3, your vocal effects processor to switch to patch #49 and use a command to raise the reverb level to a certain point at a precise millisecond, or maybe message,(talk), to another keyboard in the MIDI chain and tell it to do whatever you want, all at the same instant. MIDI is truly a beast worth utilizing, and works quite well, for some. But I wouldn't trust it with my life. All of these MIDI books give the history and theory of MIDI. Every MIDI object has its own method of giving a midi command or recieving one. This and every other book I've read on the subject of MIDI is just as this one. One you should have seen if the library had. Gerald Somers ggp.

This book was published in 1987 and reprinted in 1994. The book does recognize that it is really when the MIDI-instruments are connected to a computer that MIDI takes on its real power, but only 10% of the book talks about MIDI and computers. The chapter on computer tells you about the choice between PC, MAC, Atrari and Commodore, and explains in length what a CD-rom is, and why we need it (not all programs fit on a floppy disk...) Sequencer program are mentioned, but barely so.

The book does a fair job in explaining the MIDI standard and how it works, but it does not help me at all when I want to get started in connecting the components to my PC. I do think this was an excellent book in 1987, but digital music has moved on a long way since then.

First thing I noticed about this book was that the pages were stuck together. No, really...they were. The printer did not get it right when they cut the edges of this book. There were many pages that had to be hand cut just to TURN them. I could not stand the ... design. Then, once I get everything readable, I find that the information herein is, oh, about 15 years old and totally useless for current midi applications.

MIGHT be ok if you are looking for a history of midi and want to spent an hour making the book readable by cutting the uncut pages so that you can actually READ them.