Using MIDI, the standard Musical Instrument Digital Interface, for psychoacoustic experiments

MIDI, the music industry's standard Musical Instrument Digital Interface, allows control of commercially available music synthesizers by personal computers, as well as measurement and reproduction of musical performance parameters. The resolution in frequency, amplitude, timbre, and time of the system is adequate for various psychoacoustic experiments. A Yamaha DX7 synthesizer controlled by an IBM PC was used to measure subjects' judgments of the similarity of synthesized tones differing in timbre [G. L. Gibian et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 82, S68 (1987); G. L. Gibian et al., Audio Engineering Society Preprint ♯2488 (1987)].