MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface)

MIDI is a protocol designed for recording and playing back music on digital synthesizers that is supported by many makes of personal computer sound cards. Rather than representing musical sound directly, it transmits information about how music is produced. The command set includes note-ons, note-offs, key velocity, pitch bend and other methods of controlling a synthesizer. The sound waves produced are those already stored in a wavetable in the receiving instrument or sound card.

Since a MIDI file only represents player information, it is far more concise than formats that the sound directly. An advantage is very small file size. A disadvantage is the lack of specific sound control.