In this segment, J. Anthony Allen explains that MIDI is purely digital data—binary note‑on/off messages and velocity—rather than audio, so it bypasses the audio interface. He clarifies that a MIDI controller sends no sound over its USB cable; all audio generation occurs inside the computer or an external synth. The tutorial outlines the hardware required for MIDI recording, reviews various MIDI controllers and instruments, and previews workflow tricks in Ableton Live, including automatic recording of every action to streamline production.
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Okay, let's transition over to talking about midi. Now, MIDI works a lot different than audio recording, primarily because when we're recording midi, the thing we need to remember is that MIDI is data. It's ones and zeros, right? We don't really need to go through an audio interface for MIDI because it's already digital. Like, if I press, if I press a note here, it sends a message to the computer that just says note number 60 was pressed and, and how hard I pressed it. That's all it says. So my computer then has to take that information and say, okay, note number 60 was pressed. What do we do with that? If we're connected to an instrument, then we know, okay, make that note sound. And that's easy enough to do. So it's not analog anything. There's no. If I look at a MIDI controller like this, there is no audio going down this wire, okay? This wire is USB wire. No sound in that. This keyboard can make zero sounds. Okay? This does not make any sound at all except for, like, the plastic hitting together does not transmit any sound. I should say to the computer, okay, all of the sounds are in the computer. MIDI keyboards just send note on and note off messages. And they can send a few other things too, but they don't send. But primarily, that's all they send. Okay, so this section we're going to go over everything you need to get set up to be able to input MIDI stuff to record midi. We'll look at a bunch of different MIDI controllers, MIDI instruments, setting everything up, and then a couple tricks that are built into live for having a really efficient workflow, including automatically recording everything you do all the time. It's a little freaky, but I'll show you. Trust me. Okay, so let's dive in and talk about our hardware needs for MIDI recording.
