The full form of MIDI is Musical Instrument Digital Interface, this is an industry standard protocol that enables electronic musical instruments, computers and other equipment to communicate, control and synchronize with each other. A MIDI Synthesizer is an electronic musical system capable to produce or manipulate audio tones, such as musical notes, through the audio signal processing sometimes referred to as audio processing. It is the processing of a representation of auditory signals or sound. And here the representation is digital.

MIDI Synthesizers have developed over the years with the enhancement of technology. There are many other synthesizers based on the technology they use to duplicate musical instruments. The most common synthesizers in recent days are the sampling synthesizer. With digital audio, sounds can be broken down into numbers and then they are used to reconstruct the original sound. A sequencer is used to change the MIDI data before sending it to the synthesizer. A digital audio editing software enables the digital audio numbers to be altered so that the sound you play back is different from the sound recorded. Whereas, Sampling synthesizers use the features of digital audio editing software to record samples only to manipulate and play them back.

MIDI synthesizers are the ones that play music in response to the MIDI data. You can also save the present settings by sending them as MIDI data to a sequencer for future use. How does it function? The MIDI messages a fed into the synthesizer and musical notes are generated. To hear these sounds you need a set of amplifiers and speakers attached to the synthesizer. You should keep in mind that you should follow one type of signal at a time. The sound generated by your MIDI synthesizer is an audio data just like the ones your home stereo system produces.

For composing music using a MIDI synthesizer you need a MIDI controller and a sequencer, because nothing can function in the absence of the other. These three components are found in a single device. Most MIDI keyboards are actually keyboards and synthesizers. There are many other devices that are to be associated with the MIDI synthesizer to complete the system, which includes the combination of hardware sequencer and synthesizer with no keyboard or other kind of MIDI control device.

All modern MIDI synthesizers are capable of polyphony, which means they can play more than one note at a time and more than one instrument at a time. It uses channels to execute polyphony. The Note On, Note Off and Program Change messages each contains a 4-bit code that indicates the MIDI channel. The channels are usually numbered 1 through 16 and each of them is associated with a particular instrument.

MIDI synthesizers are widely used systems today, and it has made music recording much simpler and faster. In recent version of Windows, you will find a software-based MIDI synthesizer called Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. It uses instrument sounds from the Roland Sound Canvas, and it may be superior to the hardware synthesizer on your sound card.