MIDI
The Musical Instrument Digital Interface
is a music-definition language and communications protocol
enabling electronic instruments from all manufacturers to
communicate musical information.
A MIDI (.mid) file conveys music like a musical score:
both translate music into a simple set of performance instructions.
Unlike digital audio (.wav) files, compact discs, or cassettes, MIDI
does not capture and store actual sounds.
Instead, it is a set of data which describes the specific steps
that a soundcard or other playback device must take to generate the
same sounds via electronic synthesis.
MIDI files are very much smaller than other audio files.
The compact size of MIDI files makes them especially well suited for
delivery over the Internet.
A one-minute MIDI file might require about 10 KB of disk space.
Compare this to a .wav file of the same duration,
which might require from 5 MB to 10 MB of disk space,
depending on the audio qualities of the file.
There are several types of
plug-in software
for playing back MIDI files, such as
Crescendo!,
Yamaha's MIDPLUG,
and
Netscape's LiveAudio.
These depend greatly on the MIDI playback capabilities of the hardware
or of the operating system.
On the Macintosh, the waveform that produces the sound depends on
QuickTime sounds, and on Windows, it depends on the FM tone generator
of the sound board (usually a
SoundBlaster
or compatible) that is accessed through the MIDI Mapper.
There are many pre-made MIDI music files available on the Internet.
Many of these are freely available for download at such sites as
Many personal web sites use these free files.
However, putting them on web sites raises questions regarding
the copyrights to
the music and the compensation due to the composers and performers
(even if the composer has been dead for 75 years, the performer may
also be entitled to fees). You can avoid copyright issues:
From
Romeo Music International.
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