Midis

   El Rincon Musical Boricua 

Contents

What are MIDIS?

Listening MIDI files

Making MIDI files

Downloading MIDI files

Contributing MIDI files to the Boricua Musical Corner 

Contacting the Webmaster

Copyright Information!

What are MIDIS?

The term MIDI stands for "Musical Instrument Digital Interface". A MIDI is not a sound file (such as a WAV file) but a digital music file. These files are digital files made from music scores by electronic musical instruments that support the General MIDI standard. In this case the sound card does not translate into music the data from a file (as in the case of a WAV file) but it produces the sound files itself in accordance with the score, which in this case is the MIDI file.  When it comes to MIDIs the sound card is both musician and instrument and the file is just the musical score. On the other hand, when it comes to WAV files the sound card is just the musical instrument while the WAV file is both the score and the musician. That's why MIDIs are so small as compared with WAV files.   MIDIs rely on a sound card with a processing chip that creates a musical instrument sound from a frequency.

A simple salsa made into a sound file (WAV), for example, can be as big as 45 Megabytes while the same song in MIDI format will be about 160 Kilobytes. This means that we can fits more than 250 salsa midis in the space occupied by a single salsa WAV file. 

The only drawback is that the sound quality may not be as close to actual music as that of a WAV file. Because the sound read by the sound card from a midi file is digitalized when it is played by the card its quality will depend on the quality of the sound card. 

Also, there is NO way to convert a WAV file into a MIDI file. This would require a way to separate the musical score data from the sound data. Unfortunately this technology has not been developed (and, if it has been developed, it has not become part of the domain of public knowledge).

Listening to MIDI files.

To listen MIDI files you have to have a MIDI compatible sound card. These days most sound cards are MIDI compatible. (all the ones that are Sound Blaster 16 compatible are also  MIDI compatible). 

In terms of software most Microsoft Operating Systems (Windows 3.1, 95, 98 and Millennia) come with a utility named Media Player that is midi compatible. It is found in the Accessories folder of all these versions.

For Macintosh a good utility to play midis is SoundApp.

The quality of the sound will depend on the type and kind of sound card, the speakers and the sound controller. Downloadable utilities such as WinGroove or Crescendo may be used to improve the sound on your computer.

To listen to a MIDI directly from the internet you have to start by clicking the "mouse" on the hyperlinked midi icon or name as you see it on the Web Page. The MIDI file will load into your computer according to the modem's speed. Once the file has loaded the sound card will automatically beging to play the song as the midi file indicates.

From there on it all depends on the sound card and other sound processing equipment you might have connected directly or indirectly to the computer (amplifier, equalizer, speakers, etc.) With the right equipment the sound is awesome.

Making MIDI files

You need a MIDI sequencing utility to make MIDIs. A MIDI sequencing utility or MIDI sequencer is a software suite or program used to build  MIDI files. A popular one is Cakewalk Professional (There is a trial version of it that can be downloaded).

If you have a compatible GENERAL MIDI keyboard, you can connect it to your sound card and with some of the software mentioned below, you can play your keyboard and record it. The musical notation will be seen in your monitor. Later on, you can edit, arrange, and print the musical scores.

Another one is Note Worthy Composer. It is easy to use, and powerful at the same time. With it you can insert the musical notation with your computer's keyboard and export it as Midi, that's it!

Other musical notation programs that can be used are: Midisoft Studio, Mozart, Cubase, Musicator, Recording Session, Music-Write/Voyetra, Orchestrator, Lyra-Windows, EZ Piano, etc.

Downloading MIDI files

If you have Internet Explorer or Netscape, follow these steps:

1. Right click on the link you wish to download.

2. Click on "Save Target As .." in the pop-up menu.

3. Choose a location on your hard drive to save it.

Contributing MIDI files to the Boricua Musical Corner

If you have MIDI files that you would like to contribute or have found a MIDI file of Puerto Rican music, please either send the file as an attachment, or send information about where to obtain the file to the Boricua Musical Corner.

If you have musical scores of Puerto Rican music of any genre you can also scan the musical score and send it to us as an attachment in *.jpg, *.gif, format. We can sequence the MIDIs based on the musical score and post it in this site.

If you sequence MIDIs of Puerto Rican music and want to share them tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans around the world, you can e-mail your sequences to us. We will gladly publish the work and recognize the contributors, mentioning their names and e-mails and including the address of their web pages.

Contacting the Webmaster

If you have any questions related to this webpage, or if you want to contribute to this noble and monumental task, please send an e-mail to:

Obed Cintron ocheyes@aol.com

Copyright Information!

To the best of Our knowledge, MIDI files on this website are public domain or have been authorized for copying for non commercial purposes. We encourage to pass them along other Puerto Ricans and lovers of Puerto Rican music around the world. Some midis in this site, however, may have additional copying restrictions stated in the author's website. For this reason we ask that the user check first the author's web site for copyright restrictions. 

Also we ask that if a midi is to be used in a web page the user must obtain permission from its author, mention the name of the author in the page and  make a link to the author's website.

THE BORICUA MUSICAL CORNER

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~~~~~~~~~~ oOOo ~ (_) ~ oOOo ~~~~~~~~~~

http://musicadepuertorico.com

NOTE: If you are the author or are related to the production of any of the MIDI files in this website, and your MIDI file is under copyright laws please contact me directly about this issue ...

"Obed"