On Sat, 2002-12-14 at 21:05, Anne Wilson wrote: > Now that's confused me, for sure. So how, exactly, do we play midi files on a > computer?
Well, MIDI is just a protocol. There are a series of events, such as a "note", with parameters, such as the volume or pitch of said note. All events are arranged vertically (several sounds at the same time) and horizontally (one thing after the other). This is what the famous sequencer does, it's used to record/edit/replay the sequence of events and accompanying parameters in the correct manner. All this information is passed to a synthesizer which contains "samples". A sample would be, for example, the sound of a violin playing a single note. The MIDI synthesizer, acting as slave, is cotrolled by the sequencer, which passes along the information. When you play the file, thus, you need a sequencer with the file loaded, as master (this is just software) and a synth as slave (hardware). There are all sorts of different additional pieces of hardware which can be usefully controlled by MIDI, but that is the minimum setup. Think of a MIDI file as a score sheet, which in fact is exactly what it is. Score sheets don't sound, you need a musician (sequencer) and an instrument (synth). I believe there are synths which are just a PC card, and you could use that plus the appropriate software. But the actual sound you are going to hear depends on your synth, and it requires a very good one and an awful lot of work to make it sound nearly natural. You do NOT hear what the author of the file hears on their system, you have no way of really knowing what they hear unless they attach the make and model af their synth, what samples they use, and how they're tweaked. And you happen to have the same model synth to reproduce it all. If what you want is just to listen to music, stay away from MIDI. MIDI is not music, it's just a sort of musical notation. Hope that explains it. Meliton.
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