Midium Rare features the work of three sequencers, listed below:
- MIDI by Bob Lasnek ... fusion and Latin jazz
- MIDI by Shannon Strzalkowski ... original MIDI collages
- MIDI by John Kwasnik ... my own eclectic MIDI
But before jumping straight to the files, please read on below ... there is some technical info for MIDI freaks, followed by a brief explanation of MIDI for newbies ... from the point of view of how it affects what you will hear when you play these files.
... what's up with this thing?
If you are a MIDI hobbyist yourself, these links may be of interest:
- Mixing and Tweaking -- for tips on how to easily modify most of John's files so they sound better on your hardware.
- Tools -- for info on the hardware and software used in producing these files.
- Virtual Instruments -- for info on how John simulates realtime instruments with MIDI.
A few words about MIDI files in general:
MIDI files are merely instructions to your soundcard's synthesizer chip ... what tone to play, when to play it, and how to play it. The soundwaves that emerge from your speaker are very dependent upon your particular synth chip. General MIDI is supposed to be standardized, but anyone familiar with the term "Hayes compatible" in modems, or "Plug-and-Play" generally, knows that it only goes so far before those exceptions to the rule start popping up.
The instrument patches vary widely among synths ... the fiddle patch on my card may sound quite different from that on yours ... in tone color, volume, duration, etc.. Likewise, synths vary considerably in the way they implement "tweaking" instructions, like volume changes and special effects. So the only way to hear exactly what the arranger hears is to play the file on identical hardware. But given the following, you can count on a fair approximation of what the MIDI arranger intended.
The best way to listen:
The files presented here were produced with better-quality wavetable soundcards, or external synth modules, with effects processors. The very best way to listen would be if you were using similar equipment ... but only a hobbyist is likely to have invested in such expensive hardware. Alternatively, one of the many soft-synths, or software emulations of a wavetable soundcard, ought to give passable results.
Ten years ago, mid-range wavetable soundcards had pretty good MIDI playback, all in hardware on the card. This was the era of DOS games, when game designers wanted a minimum of drivers and TSRs, so that most of the precious 640KB could be used for game logic and imagery. The MIDI synth played background music, while the digital audio circuitry supplied the sound effects on top of that.
Modern cards seem to be downplaying MIDI in favor of digital audio, like MP3 files. Onboard MIDI hardware has been drastically cut back, replaced by a soft-synth in the card driver, or in a stand-alone application. This forces the cpu and motherboard to do the work of the hardware synth, building an audio stream from wavetable samples in system RAM.
Unfortunately, this is a fairly heavy resource burden on even a fast box. MIDI playback in these circumstances will improve if there are few other processes running, making demands on system resources. Polyphonic tracks (like strummed guitar chords) will tend to be muddy; simple melody lines work much better. And effects, like reverb and chorus, are likely to be applied to the entire playback, rather than differentially track-by-track.
Still, the soft-synths sound a lot better than the early FM-synthesis chips (e.g., Yamaha OPL3) commonly found on early SoundBlaster cards and their clones. Best would be converting these to MP3, Ogg Vorbis, or some other digital audio ... but I don't have the server space, and most folks lack either the broadband connection, or the patience to download huge files on a dialup connection.