Difference between MIDI and MP3 Audio File Format

Key Difference: MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. A MIDI is a file that records music and controls the notes of each instrument, what note of the scale is, etc. On the other hand, MP3 files contain files larger in size and the audio files are compressed to about one tenth of the original size.

MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. A MIDI is a file that records music and controls the notes of each instrument, finishes, how loud, what note of the scale is, etc. It can be any MIDI instrument. MIDI is pronounced as middy. MIDI was first announced in 1982, and by December it actually appeared on an instrument. After that time, the electronic musical devices have increasingly became very common. It is used in instruments that have sound cards, synthesizers and sound generators that control music. It is a format that is universally accepted and if one synthesizer has produced music using MIDI format, then that can be modified with another synthesizer.

MP3 is short for MPEG-1 Audio Layer III. Later it also extended to MPEG-2 Audio Layer III. It is a patented encoding format for digital audio. It uses a lossy compression algorithm which is designed to reduce the amount of data required to represent the audio recording while still sounding like a faithful reproduction of the original uncompressed audio. MP3 Uncompressed audio files are rather larger and take up a lot of space. This is mainly due to the fact that sound is very complex and the translation of it into a digital format can take up a lot of data. An MP3 file compresses this data using a 128 kbit/s setting that results in a file that is about 1/11 the size of the original data. The MP3 files can be created at higher or lower bit rates, with corresponding higher or lower resulting quality.

MIDI and MP3, both differ from each other. The key differences between both the terms are listed below:

 

MIDI

MP3

Definition

A MIDI file is software for representing musical information in a digital format.

It is a patented encoding format for digital audio.

Abbreviation

Musical Instrument Digital Interface

MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III

Filename extension

.MIDI or .MID

.mp3

Format type

Compressed

Lossy Compressed

Common use

Computer based musical tools

Mobile phones

Storage

Less storage

More storage compare to MIDI

File Format

Narrow

Wide

Contain

Do not contain a recording of sound

Contain a recording of sound

Application

Compose

Record

Sound

Versatile

Less versatile

Image Courtesy: deejaysystem.com, tjl.co

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