## 3.5 MIDI output

MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a standard for connecting and controlling digital instruments. A MIDI file is a series of notes in a number of tracks. It is not an actual sound file; you need special software to translate between the series of notes and actual sounds.

Pieces of music can be converted to MIDI files, so you can listen to what was entered. This is convenient for checking the music; octaves that are off or accidentals that were mistyped stand out very much when listening to the MIDI output.

Standard MIDI output is somewhat crude; optionally, an enhanced and more realistic MIDI output is available by means of The Articulate script.

The MIDI output allocates a channel for each staff, and reserves channel 10 for drums. There are only 16 MIDI channels per device, so if the score contains more than 15 staves, MIDI channels will be reused.

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