page_title: MIDI
section_title: Connectors
hierarchical_section_title: MIDI / Devices / Connectors
caption_attribution_description: English: 5 pins DIN connector MIDI ports and cable. Deutsch: 5-poliger DIN-Stecker für MIDI Buchen und Kabel Français&#160;: Ports MIDI utilisant des connecteur DIN 5 ports et câble.
context_page_description: MIDI is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and related audio devices for playing, editing and recording music. The specification originates in a paper published by Dave Smith and Chet Wood then of Sequential Circuits at the October 1981 Audio Engineering Society conference in New York City then titled Universal Synthesizer Interface.
  A single MIDI link through a MIDI cable can carry up to sixteen channels of information, each of which can be routed to a separate device or instrument. This could be sixteen different digital instruments, for example. MIDI carries event messages; data that specify the instructions for music, including a note's notation, pitch, velocity; vibrato; panning to the right or left of stereo; and clock signals. When a musician plays a MIDI instrument, all of the key presses, button presses, knob turns and slider changes are converted into MIDI data.
context_section_description: The cables terminate in a 180° five-pin DIN connector. Standard applications use only three of the five conductors: a ground wire, and a balanced pair of conductors that carry a +5 volt signal.  This connector configuration can only carry messages in one direction, so a second cable is necessary for two-way communication. Some proprietary applications, such as phantom-powered footswitch controllers, use the spare pins for direct current (DC) power transmission.
  Opto-isolators keep MIDI devices electrically separated from their connectors, which prevents the occurrence of ground loops and protects equipment from voltage spikes. There is no error detection capability in MIDI, so the maximum cable length is set at 15 meters (50 feet) to limit interference.
  Most devices do not copy messages from their input to their output port. A third type of port, the "thru" port, emits a copy of everything received at the input port, allowing data to be forwarded to another instrument in a "daisy chain" arrangement. Not all devices contain thru ports, and devices that lack the ability to generate MIDI data, such as effects units and sound modules, may not include out ports.
caption: MIDI 1.0 connectors and MIDI 1.0 cable
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