MIDI Files - Please Explain

Greetings All -

First of all, I must express my thanks to everybody for their replies to my posts. I have learned so much from this site and everybody is so willing to help.

I have been seeing references to MIDI files around here. People are requesting certain MIDI files for popular tunes. Are these those short, 20K files that contain all of the MIDI instructions for a particular song? Do you simply put them into your arrnager and hit play? Are they chords only or do they contain the lead? Are you only limited by your own arranger sounds?

I'm curious about these because if it is possible to download a couple hundred of these files and play lead on the right hand (I'm an accordionist)you can expand your repertoire exponentially. I do get the impression that most people on the board here dislike MIDI files and I'm trying to figure out why, other than having a lack of personal creativity.

Thanks again for all of the help.

Take care.

hey accordion. here's the story. first of all, yes, midi files are those little 20k things, although they could get much bigger depending on how much data there is and the length of the song. you can play most midi's on your arranger. if you have a recent yamaha, then you have the XG voices and a lot of midis take advantage of those instead of using the plainer and more limited GM ones. you can turn off any channel you like in a midi and you can mess with it and even substitute your own style instead of the one they use, if your keyboard supports that feature. the problem with playing live with midis is that first of all if it's a situation where you need constant music then you can't wait the 2 seconds it takes for the board to load the next one. also if you do it that way, it's very hard to choose to make the song longer or shorter. hope this helps. Zack

Which Keyboard do you have? You will need one that has a Floppy Disk drive or some other source for playing midi files through the Keyboard. The PSR 2000 is ideal for playing midi files while the keyboardist plays along,(melody, chords, Style/Multipad Accompaniment etc.) Some Keyboards do this better than others as you might expect. The Tyros has support for GM2 "General Midi 2" specification which enhances upon the GM1 specification even more, ie., (greater capability in sound creation and reproduction) plus the Tyros is also ideal for what you are considering, ie., playing along with the Midi songs. Some other brand Keyboards incorporate GM2 also.

I think Midi has been 'underrated' by many people and I think in the years to come Midi will have an even greater impact on the music world imo.

And yes, you are limited in Midi capability by the Keyboards sound engine. The output will only be as good as the sounds and the processing capability of the Keyboard.

Midi files are essentially digital "player piano" files - they play back a synth. Since they have no "sound" the files are small. I have a great dislike for downloaded midi files which are often poorly made and can contain lots of garbage in many forms. If you can't make your own then you can buy professionally-made commercial midi files from a number of sources. Or you can create your own pretty easily with a program called Band In A Box from http://www.pgmusic.com/.

Playing back midi files and using an arranger are two different things really - an arranger follows your chord input live whereas a midi file on playback does not. Midi file playback requires a sequencer or midi player... there's many ways to accomplish this from using keyboards to dedicated midi file players or computers.

Thanks for the responses.

I am an accordionist and am planning on purchasing the Ketron XD3 module because it appears to be ideally suited for an accordion. I recently was checking out some midifiles and was impressed, even though they were playing through my less-than-state-of-the-art Soundblaster Live!

Does anybody know where I could check out some midifiles being played through an XD3 (or XD9, the keyboard equivalent)? It would be nice to hear what they sound like.

Thanks again. Midifiles seem very interesting to me.

As has been stated, what you can do with a midi is limited pretty much only by the board you're using to play it ... I have found some free midis on the net that are pretty darn good, and some that I wonder why anyone took the time to put it there... Pick a song you want, let's say 'Misty' ... do a search on "Misty midi" and see what happens ... or do a search on 'jazz midis' or whatever you're interested in ... There are also a number of 'pro' midi sites where you can purchase the midi of your choice...
I use a technics kn6000 and I've lengthened, shortened, changed voices, etc. and then saved the midi as I want it ... using the excellent sounds of the kn6....
As creative as making your own song files using the styles on your board? .. perhaps not, but for certain tunes they can be a lifesaver.... or gig (job ) saver ...
t.

Have any of you used any of the Roland
products like their XP boards and their
top of the line hardware sequencer which
have what I think is called an RPS playback
feature? It allows you to trigger, for
example, the verse, chorus, bridge,solo,etc.
sections of a MIDI sequence from assigned keys of the keyboard, and I believe, the solo
section will vamp continuously until you
hit another key. I never used it or checked
it out, but it seems like a neat concept
that makes a Midi file more practical to use
in a live situation.

It is a lot of preparation work to do this..I have set up my XP80 with drum patterns in the lower octave. It works in a pinch but not as well as a dedicated drum machine,,SMF's can work as you mentioned[I am sure you will have glitches along the way]..I just use my G1000 now[sold the XP80] , there is much more versatility with out experimenting with the above concept.. The G1000 will allow you to que a section of a sequence in realtime, that you can go back to, for example late on the floor dancers, when you are at the end of a sequence..

Vquestor,
I agree with Fran. While the Roland XP series will play SMF files, some with exceptional quality, the time and effort required to program the RPS (on board) is usually not worth the effort. I have not tried RPS programming via software (Sonar, etc.) which may make the process easier, but a drum machine or an arranger will do the job much better.

Regards,
Steve

Fran and SOC9, thanks for your helpful insights. I suppose using an arranger (either keyboard or software)that would have
a large enought memory in their style slots,
would be the ideal situation. In this
way, you could put each part of a song in
a slot and trigger them with buttons-where
the current playing part will play continuously until you make the next selection. And those sections in the FILL
slots would play once and then continue
to the next section.
BTW,I think Roland also used to make something called the "Sound Brush" which was a small floppy drive SMF player that was sold along side the first Sound Canvas module. I think it had a footswitch input where you could activate a solo section of the midi file to continously vamp, and a second hit on the footswitch would make it continue to the next section. I guess it was the precursor to RPS, but just for the solo section.