Why do midis not sound as good as they should?

[imported_goku]

I've listened to midi songs of popular music, usually just follows the instruments in the song and I wonder, why can't it sound the same? The 'beat' in the song should be able to be easily emulated on the computer due to it being instruments, right?

 

[dighn]

MIDIs sound very good if you have a good synthesizer with a good wavetable. A few years ago I tried this yamaha software synthesizer which made MIDIs sound extremely good. Sadly I couldn't find it again the last time I tried. Windows XP/most soundcard's builtin MIDI is complete junk.

 

[DayLaPaul]

Professionals spend hundreds even thousands of dollars on a good MIDI synthesizer. Seeing as how MIDI on consumer sound cards or more of a 'bonus,' there is no comparison.

 

[Evander]

"MIDIs sound very good if you have a good synthesizer with a good wavetable. A few years ago I tried this yamaha software synthesizer which made MIDIs sound extremely good. Sadly I couldn't find it again the last time I tried. Windows XP/most soundcard's builtin MIDI is complete junk."

you are thinking of this:
YAMAHA XG
It seems they stopped selling it and closed the homepage- that's just asking for people to download from illicit sites with the crack.

It sounded pretty good (especially piano), but personally I've been using the softsynth Wingroove since 1997 it still recommend it.

 

[LanceM]

MIDI is, for all intents and purposes, textual data. It is up to your own, personal sound card to produce the sounds that you hear. Thus, if your sound card is integrated or a simple SB Live variety (even the $300 ones), you won't necessarily get good sound.

In fact, I could go out right now to buy a $2000 sound card and have very poor quality when playing a MIDI file. The beauty lies in the sound bank currently used, and the more expensive cards merely allow for larger sound banks to be stored.

There are also very few GM (General Midi) sound banks that produce a great sound right off the bat, because you have 128 channels attempting to produce one instrument per. To truly make a realistc sound, you need a larger bank that includes individual slurs, legato, and so on for individual instruments. There are some collections entirely devoted to strings, for example, that run several GB.

 

[PingSpike]

As mentioned, midi isn't recorded music...its more like a piece of sheet music for the computer to play. If all your computer has for instruments is a kazoo and a rubberband stretched over a pencil its going to sound like ass. And since midi seems to have fallen out of use for a lot of consumer things it seems like more and more computers have that.

 

[0roo0roo]

no love for mod? lol old school ghetto pc music for when it was kewl that your pc could make music at all now we just listen to mp3s.

 

[Rubycon]

We use MIDI every day on a professional basis. It's used for far more things than just an instruction to play musical samples too. For example, it will fire lights, lasers, smoke and sound effects all around the stage.

 

[LanceM]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
no love for mod? lol old school ghetto pc music for when it was kewl that your pc could make music at all now we just listen to mp3s.

I just about cried when traxinspace.com went down many years ago. I had already lost ALL my MODs, ITs, XMs, and S3Ms due to a format, so I was intensely mad.

 

[Scarpozzi]

MIDI is great. I had an old keyboard back in the 1980s that had MIDI output. It was pretty amazing technology then and has only gotten better with the use of wavetables. The real limitation in MIDI music is that it is often too perfect. When you hear music played by a human, the skill and slight variations in the instruments is what makes the music unique.

For instance, MIDIs can change dynamics, but have trouble changing effects mid-stream without referencing a different instrument. So you end up with generic sounding music.

 

[0roo0roo]

heh, but they are so tacky! they are amusing though..in a retro kinda way. i've lost all mine too

 

[AccruedExpenditure]

Get some good soundfonts. Then you'll hear midi in it's full glory.

 

[LanceM]

Originally posted by: Scarpozzi
The real limitation in MIDI music is that it is often too perfect. When you hear music played by a human, the skill and slight variations in the instruments is what makes the music unique.

For instance, MIDIs can change dynamics, but have trouble changing effects mid-stream without referencing a different instrument. So you end up with generic sounding music.

Hence the need for modern libraries that include several variations of these techniques. They're high end ($5000 for a medium-sized orchestra at 238 GB), but they're out there.

EDIT: I hope you're joking about the SoundFonts.