Like a guitar, saxophone, human voice or any other instrument, MIDI has the capability to be either very bland, very expressive or somewhere in between.
If you just plunk the notes in without regard to the expressive elements, you will get an bland MIDI file at best.
In writing and editing MIDI you have control of the choice of notes, velocity (note volume), timing, duration and aftertouch control. How your synth reacts to all these parameters depends on your synth and how each patch is set up.
But in addition to the above, there are the continuous controllers (cc). The cc's change things about the note while the note is being played, volume, vibrato, sustain, reverb, chorus, and a host of others. There are 128 continuous controllers, and although there are a few that aren't implemented yet (reserved for future growth) and a few that are reserved for different synth manufacturers, most of them can turn that bland MIDI file into something that rivals or even exceeds what the best musicians can do.
It's worth your time to take each cc and learn what it can do, and what it cannot do.
A complete list of the 128 continuous controllers can be found on my site here:
http://www.nortonmusic.com/midi_cc.htmlTutorials on how to use them are all over the Internet and in reference books.
MIDI has been embedded in the DNA of virtually every pop tune for the past 30 years (paraphrasing an Alan Parsons statement) and you hear a lot of expressive music coming out of LA, Nashville, New Orleans and elsewhere. It's worth it to learn how to use the available expressive controls MIDI offers, the 'handles' that can turn 'empty notes' into truly expressive music.
Insights and incites by Notes
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