MIDI Format

You won't lose any quality by converting as there is no quality there to begin with. MIDI is *not* an audio format - it is just like sheet music, in that it is simply a list of notes with their durations, volume etc.. This is why the files are so small - there is no audio data there at all. When you play a MIDI file the player simply reads through these and sends the data to some piece of hardware/software which in turn makes the sound. If you don't have any luck finding a portable device which will play them (I'd be surprised if there were any tbh) then don't worry about rendering them as MP3s, as you won't be doing any harm to them.

Most cell phones can play MIDI files, with increasingly good sample sets and polyphony. My cellphone, a really old Motorola v551, sounds surprisingly good with classic game soundtracks such as Final Fantasy 7 or Warcraft 2.

Other than that, you're best off rendering the MIDI files with a high quality MIDI renderer.

The only (good) one that I know of is Audio Compositor. Unfortunately, the original website is down and the creator is missing, so you're going to have to crack it. I don't normally advocate cracking shareware, but in this case there is no choice; even finding the newest version is extremely difficult.

Audio compositor uses the SoundFont format for sample sets, and is a non-realtime renderer at higher quality modes (and sounds better than any Creative soundcard for various reasons). It can take a while to render a song, but with a good soundfont the results are amazing.

listen to ben as he is wise. Midi is not a format. It is an interface (M usical I nstrument D igita I nterface). Best thing you can do is use a production software like cakewalk to convert to MP3 or WMA format. Your sound quality in MIDI is coming from your Midi instrument software base which can vary drastically from system to system. for example a midi piano may sound like an old childs toy on mine where it would sound like a yamaha grand on yours. Therefore you need to "dump" your midi audio tracks to a single MP3 or WMA audio track. If you choose MP3, just choose a higher bitrate (320k compared to 64k) and you should sound fine.

anymore schooling and I would have to charge.... lmao!

Semantics. When you take a protocol from an interface and stick it in a file, you've got a format.

You can't "dump" a MIDI file to an MP3 or WMA file. You need a GM or GS MIDI sample set. Most professional level applications either don't support GM/GS mapping by default, or make it difficult to do it (real musicians don't seem to use GM/GS sample sets, they're more interested in samples for specific instruments).

That's why I recommended Audio Compositor, a MIDI renderer that uses DLS or SF2 sample sets. The application's primary use is rendering MIDI files to wave data using a GM/GS sample set, so it's pretty easy to do so. It can render in real time to a soundcard, but if you want to enable antialiasing (Yes, you can have aliasing in audio just like in graphics), you're going to need to render to a file instead, because most CPUs can't handle rendering with antialiasing in real time (Audio Compositor doesn't support multithreading).

I actually found a copy of Audio Compositor 4.5 and a serial for it last night. I'd like to purchase it, but since it's abandonware, that's not possible.

dang, after that post I guess I may just have to post the exact steps to do what you just said I couldnt. I use Cakewalk Sonar 5 Professional, and I know all the way back to Sonar 3 that it is fully capable of using your audio card's or even a custom GM/GS sample set which you select in program. You basically load your Midi file into a new project in Sonar. Play the file if needed and make any adjustments you wish then you use Sonar's abilities to "render" the file into a usable audio format (mp3, WMA lossless). The command is right under the file menu. Export audio I think. It is quite easy to do as I have done it many times in my years producing my own music.

And guspaz, as a long time music guru, I do admit maybe the word "dump" when referring to rendering MIDI was a bit broad, but I can accomplish the task you just stated above in about 3 minutes on my system from start to finish. I do not use "abandonware". I use the newer stuff. And it's multithreaded if needed. And it's fully SoundFont Capable. And it antialiases. And you can modify, add, remove tracks if you want too. Should I go on...

Now as far as loss of quality goes, There are many different quality levels you can choose from. A 320k MP3 file will sound much better than a 128k MP3. It really depends on what your device supports and your taste. Now the other quality you look at is the sample quality of the GM/GS midi waveset you have installed on the computer you will be converting on. Microsoft's GM set is ok for some, but I have upgraded mine and/or use soundfonts instead. I do have a REALLY GOOD custom midi GM/GS set I got from Yamaha's website a long time ago. It is called the S-YXG50 soft synthesizer. The GM set is absolutely breathtaking and has many added features that a normal Midiset would not (XG capabilties). Fully recommended if you can still find it.

anyways, if you still need help BigEE, let me know.

Good to know. I had assumed that most professional applications ignored GM/GS, since I had had some bad experiences with that. I guess I was wrong. Marginally, though personally I can't tell the difference higher than 192kbit Well, Windows just ships with a REALLY bad 3MB DLS sampleset. And it's pretty horrible. The balance is quite good, but the actual sample quality... *shudder* I normally try to stick to 64MB soundfonts, 200MB soundfonts, you know, something with a bit more heft S-YXG50 is actually a software synthesizer, and a pretty decent one at that. Unfortunately, unless I'm mistaken, it still uses a 4MB sample set. The built-in reverb is decent, but pretty low quality (and it has this strange phasing artifacts that eventually becomes so distracting that I keep hearing it even after I stop playing :P It's a lot less noticeable when you're listening to multiple instruments though. It just isn't ideal for single instruments. However, as decent as S-YXG50 is (and I've been using it for many years, almost since right after it came out in the late 90s), it pales in comparison to even an old SoundBlaster Live! with a good SoundFont. Still, if EVERY soundcard shipped with a modern version of S-YXG50, the world would be a much better place. It's really too bad that Yamaha abandoned software synthesis, I still have my license sheet for S-YXG50 Still, I wouldn't exactly call it breathtaking, more like a good backup solution. While trying to get Audio Compositor set up recently, I discovered that the MIDI file parsing is rather flawed compared to what I originally thought. While looking for a solution, I noticed that Timidity++ is pretty decent these days (supports SoundFonts, and pretty nice reverb), although there are sometimes some artifacts. Unfortunately, the latest build of the Windows version doesn't seem to work very well with a MIDI loopback device for use as a general system-wide synth, but the MIDI file player version works decently. I'll have to give Sonar a look. Although, if all you want to do is MIDI synthesis, considering the cost of Sonar, it seems a lot more cost effective to buy Creative's software audigy drivers. They do software soundfont synthesis and software EAX (for adding reverb, chorus if the MIDI track requests it, etc), and for $30 it's a lot cheaper. Of course, I haven't seen the quality, but if it's as good as their hardware versions, I'd be happy. My main concern with that route is, pay $30 for the drivers, then update to Vista only to learn the drivers don't exist for Vista :P