A
MIDI mockup is an extensive
demoA demo version or demo of a song is one recorded for reference rather than for release. A demo is a way for musicians to approximate their ideas on tape or disc, and provide an example of those ideas to record labels, producers or other artists...
of a recording project built using
samplersA sampler is an electronic musical instrument closely related to a synthesizer. Instead of generating sounds from scratch, however, a sampler starts with multiple recordings of different sounds added by the user, and then plays each back based on how the instrument is configured...
to stand in for acoustic instruments.
These extensive demos are frequently used in projects requiring large budgets to record, such as
film scoreA film score is an alternative word used for the background music of a film . The term soundtrack is often confused with film score, though a soundtrack may also include songs featured in the film as well as previously released music by other artists, while the score does not...
s. A MIDI mockup allows the director, or executive producer, to hear the compositions in a setting that approximates their final version, and thus to approve or alter the project before the budget has been committed to record the actual instruments.
MIDI mockups first came into wide use in the 1980s, when
synthesizerA synthesizer is an electronic instrument that is capable of producing a variety of sounds by generating and combining signals of different frequencies...
and sampler technology developed to the point where it could create approximate replicas of acoustic instruments.
A
MIDI mockup is an extensive
demoA demo version or demo of a song is one recorded for reference rather than for release. A demo is a way for musicians to approximate their ideas on tape or disc, and provide an example of those ideas to record labels, producers or other artists...
of a recording project built using
samplersA sampler is an electronic musical instrument closely related to a synthesizer. Instead of generating sounds from scratch, however, a sampler starts with multiple recordings of different sounds added by the user, and then plays each back based on how the instrument is configured...
to stand in for acoustic instruments.
These extensive demos are frequently used in projects requiring large budgets to record, such as
film scoreA film score is an alternative word used for the background music of a film . The term soundtrack is often confused with film score, though a soundtrack may also include songs featured in the film as well as previously released music by other artists, while the score does not...
s. A MIDI mockup allows the director, or executive producer, to hear the compositions in a setting that approximates their final version, and thus to approve or alter the project before the budget has been committed to record the actual instruments.
MIDI mockups first came into wide use in the 1980s, when
synthesizerA synthesizer is an electronic instrument that is capable of producing a variety of sounds by generating and combining signals of different frequencies...
and sampler technology developed to the point where it could create approximate replicas of acoustic instruments. Large film-scoring studios would build systems with dozens of
sound moduleA sound module is an electronic musical instrument without a human-playable interface such as a keyboard, for example. Sound modules have to be "played" using an externally connected device...
s, all linked to a single
sequencerA music sequencer is software or hardware designed to create and manage computer-generated music....
that would play back the MIDI version of the score.
With the development of faster computers, and better software environments for sampling and MIDI editing, most MIDI mockups today are done with
software synthesizerA software synthesizer, also known as a softsynth or virtual instrument is a computer program for digital audio generation. Computer software which can create sounds or music is not new, but advances in processing speed are allowing softsynths to accomplish the same tasks as dedicated hardware...
s. The replication of acoustic instruments has progressed steadily, to the point where MIDI mockups are occasionally included in the final score on films where time or money has run out.