WHAT THE HELL
IS A MIDI-FILE ANYWAY?
MIDI Files do not contain
sounds. they contain 'instructions'
MIDI-FILE'S ARE LIKE ANY
OTHER FILE ON YOUR COMPUTER. They are collections of digital bits and
pieces that contain information,that is interpreted by a musical instrument of some kind and
the piece of music is "played back" by the instrument.t
A midi-file is not a 'recording' as such.
To help you understand this, most are you will
be familiar with the old pianola (Remember
all that pedalling?) A pianola is an
instrument that can make sounds, but it needs someone / something to tell it which ones to make!
The paper pianola roll with those little holes in it can't play music itself, but it
contains the information to tell the piano what to do.
This is what a midi file
is.
A midi file is the 'paper' roll' that tells the midi instrument ('the pianola') what to play. The instrument can either be a electric piano like I have (which is connected up
to computer) or a sound-card
inside the computer.
A SOUND CARD is basically a
collection of stored sounds which the midi file can instruct to reproduce in various ways. (Actual recordings of sounds (from CDs or MP3s) can
also be made on a computer, but they take up lots of room on the hard
drive!) Midi-files only contain bits of instructions and are
therefore quite small and easy to transport around the internet.
Sometimes, the sounds may be in a separate 'sound
module' ('box') outside the computer. It does the same thing as the sound card.
I haveone of these on my piano now
DO I HAVE A SOUNDCARD? I hear you cry?
Well, these days, most computers have some sort of sound set up. If you
have speakers somewhere on, or attached to your computer, (or if you
have a look at the back, where all the spaghetti plugs in, -- look for
some of those small 'headphone' holes, like on your Walkman) then
you probably have some sort of soundcard. Whether it can handle midi or
not is a question. The best thing, is to ask me to e-mail you a
small midi file and see what happens when you click on it. If nothing happens,
then it still might work. Give me a phone call, and I will take you
through a few simple settings on your computer that may make it
work.
MEANWHILE: Back to Grandma's
pianola: If
her piano was badly out of tune, then you got an out of tune performance.
Put the SAME piano roll on a fabulous piano and you got a fabulous
performance.
Just the same with a soundcard: The quality of the sound will depend on
the quality of the soundcard. I have spent a fair bit of dough getting a
soundbox with pretty good sounds. Don't be surprised if you
start to listen to a midi-file at home and they sound a bit more 'dinky'
than they do at my place. Once again, some settings may help there but it might just be
the low quality of your soundcard.
It is still worth having a look at though,
even a 'dinky' piano sound can still be useful for learning songs
etc, (I went around Australia once with as a member of a
professional a-cappella group, and all we had with us was a portable
keyboard that most kids would turn their nose up at, but it worked.
It gave
us the notes and was good enough for rehearsal.)
I'm a singer. This techo stuff is all
very interesting for a computer nerd, but what use would midi-files
be to me?
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