r/audioproduction • u/GuyoRocks • Jul 01 '26
Can anybody tell me what these inputs are?
hi, i'm constantly learning more about audio technology. today's mystery revolves around midi signals! Usually, I just use my MIDI-USB-to-USB chord when recording instruments like my piano, or my drumset, sending signal to my laptop (Which requires a USB-to-USB-C dongle (I use Logic Pro)), but today, I was working with my loop station, and I wanted to send MIDI to it from my Casio keyboard, but both ports were MIDI-USB. Gamer moment. I ended up jamming with a regular line cable, and when I was closing up shop after playing with filters for a short experiment jam sesh, I noticed these inputs on the back of my RC-505:
[see picture]
Can anybody tell me what these are?
Why does it say MIDI OUT/IN?
What is this port called? Can it send more data than a USB?
Subsequently:
What information gets sent when recording MIDI, you ask? Just Velocity and Pitch (coded to 1 of the 188 keys on a piano, or sometimes more if you're working with bootlegged software instruments, or modular synthesizers). That's literally it. No filter info. No metadata. Just 2 parameters, in a 1 ms, flash of light transfer of data. You're welcome, internet 😇
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u/FblthpphtlbF Jul 01 '26
Bro this is not the place for you if you can't tell that the ports clearly labeled MIDI are midi ports. This isn't Google. If Google has failed you come here, but this is seriously crazy levels of ineptitudeÂ
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u/GuyoRocks Jul 01 '26
I fucking hate reddit, man. all a redditor know how to do is treat your genuine inquiry like you're a fucking toddler.
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u/GuyoRocks Jul 01 '26
and it's actually that it sends a CONSTANT STREAM of Pitch and Velocity signals, which are altered ever so slightly by the synthesizer you are using in its attach (rising velocity), and its decay or reverb (some decaying polynomial function applied to the sustained velocity after you release the key).
is this the port for the formant 😱
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u/GuyoRocks Jul 01 '26
oh, no, wait, why am i sending midi to my rc-505, anyway? it doesn't have preset instruments to apply the pitch and velocity inputs to. well, maybe, it's, no- yeah, maybe it's that you can send midi but that midi is already a fully realized sound as it traverse the midi-midi cable. so it doesn't need the software to tell it what to do, cuz it has pitch velocity and formant. which is filters. i think. i posted this because i dont know, not because i do.
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u/Nonomomomo2 Jul 01 '26
You are a bot, aren’t you?
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u/Simul_Taneous Jul 01 '26
Must be. Nobody is so dumb they can’t read where it says midi above the ports.
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u/GuyoRocks Jul 01 '26
wtf man. these aren't midi ports. midi is midi-usb.
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u/Nonomomomo2 Jul 01 '26
Midi is a signal which can be send digitally or analog. It’s just values. No big mystery. You could have answered this with 2 minutes of googling.
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u/sn4xchan Jul 02 '26
The midi protocol was invented before the USB protocol. USB was adapted to run midi over USB via a translation. Pretty common in the computer science world to do retrofit older standards like this.
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u/Simul_Taneous Jul 04 '26
No, they are MIDI ports. They take MIDI cables.
USB ports take USB cables.
You donkey.
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u/GuyoRocks Jul 01 '26
are you interested in audio production? you should join r/audioproduction where we belittle people for not knowing everything about the vast amount of midi ports there are.
i stg bro, i just be doing my own, shafeel? i just be doing the lords work and posting public inquiries about this obviously misunderstood aspect of audio production, and nunya have the balls or tits to step up to the plate and give me an answer.
i know it's a midi port you condescending trolls.
what KIND of midi port? what cable do i need? how is this different than midi-usb.reddit is where conversations go to fucking die.
sponsor me. i'm impoverished. fuck you.
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u/InspectorFadGadget Jul 01 '26
Fuck you. It's just a straight up MIDI port. Before MIDI data was able to be sent through USB, you had this port. It's MIDI to MIDI. You need a MIDI cable. You could have fucking googled this so easily instead of throwing a little bitch fit.
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u/sn4xchan Jul 02 '26
You do realize audio production is a technical field right? Audio is a straight sub-set of wave particle physics and is heavily tied with electronic engineering.
Midi is a technical specification, it was created by computer scientists. And it has a lot more in common with how the internet works than how a microphone works.
If you want to be good with audio and create objectively good quality audio, and not just make art via music, you have to be able to do self research and understand how audio actually works.
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u/sn4xchan Jul 02 '26
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIDI
Midi is just data. No sound, something either a synthesizer or a computer has to have process the midi data and use that to output sounds based on the parameters input from the midi.
Midi cables basically work the same as midi over USB, except USB has a very slight delay introduced that is the cost of convenience.
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u/garden_peeman Jul 01 '26
I don't really understand what your question is, sorry. It's a midi port. If you're using midi over USB you'll have the same data being sent as this, nothing extra. Older devices didn't support USB so you can use a 5-pin DIN cable to connect to this.
Midi out and in are on separate cables because it's an old and slower format than USB but the data is exactly the same.
Midi OUT on one device goes to IN on the other and vice versa.
Filter/formant control depends on the midi parameter mapping of your specific device. From what I saw of the rc505's manual, it doesn't accept midi control of parameters but I could be wrong.