A means of bypassing the 16-channel limit of the MIDI specification by using a MIDI interface with multiple MIDI sockets that carry totally independent signals and effectively provide separate MIDI networks that function in parallel. Typically, there may be four such sets of sockets, each socket representing one MIDI port that can be used for up to sixteen channels. Such interfaces, which are generally the huob of a large MIDI network, are occasionally built into master keyboards. More typically, they are add-on hardware devices attached to a computer and will usually only operate in conjunction with sequencing software from the same manufacturer.