MIDI on the
MacintoshMany Macintosh users are frustrated the first time they try to use MIDI files from sources such as the internet (using resources such as those found here on Twin Cities MIDI, or from other computer platforms (e.g. Windows users). They transfer the file to their Mac, but they can't get their MIDI applications to recognize them. So they assume something must have gone wrong with the transfer. That's most likely not the case. This page addresses this issue, as well as others of interest to Macintosh MIDI users. You can read it straight through, or select the topic of interest to you. If after you read this you still have a question about MIDI please post it on the Twin Cities MIDI: Bulletin Board
In most cases, you want to make sure you're using a "standard MIDI file" (sometimes called SMF, but usually just called a "MIDI file"). MIDI files are not the same as the files output by most sequencers, such as Trax, Performer, etc. However, most sequencers can output a MIDI file if you ask them to. As an analogy, consider word processors. Microsoft Word uses one format, Nisus Writer another, ClarisWorks another, etc. etc. One program's native format is not compatible with the others, and cannot be used with the others (please ignore the fact that most programs now will automatically convert other formats to theirs...). However, if you ask the word processor to save as ASCII text, you can load it into virtually any word processor from Quark Xpress to AppleWriter //e and it will work just fine. The analogy can be extended in that when you save a word processing file as ASCII text, you will likely lose formatting information such as margins, tabs, fonts, etc. Likewise, in converting your sequence to an SMF, you might lose some "sequencer specific" items that would normally be stored in the sequencer's native format. However, SMF's were designed for being transportable across platforms, so your SMF should contain more than enough data to play just fine.
How do you tell if you're dealing with a SMF? Well, the convention is that the file will end with the extension '.MID' if it's a standard MIDI file, and something else (e.g. '.WRK') if it's a native sequencer format. But just renaming the file won't change it-- it's the internal formatting of the file that counts.
Once you've transferred the file to your Mac (and ensured it's a SMF, see above), you may find that your MIDI application (a MIDI file player or sequencer, etc) will not recognize your files as MIDI files. Usually, they simply won't appear in the 'Open' dialog box. The reason for this is that the application has no way of knowing this is a MIDI file. PC's normally use the extension .MID on MIDI files so that applications will recognize them. On the Mac, however, a filetype is used for this purpose. You must change the filetype from whatever it is set to "Midi". To change the filetype, you have a couple of options:
Midi Typer is wonderful little utility by Peter Castine which automates the above process. With it, you simply drag MIDI files, or folders of MIDI files onto its icon. Midi Typer will determine which of the files contain MIDI data, and change the type of those which are to "Midi". Therefore, you can drag a folder of MIDI's to the icon, and all of the real MIDI files will be converted, but the 'readme' text files will not. It's great, and you'll wonder how you ever got along without it if you've been doing it the ResEdit way.
To download Midi Typer, click here. (Note: This is a Stuffit archive. If you don't have a means to uncompress it, please read on, and download Stuffit Expander, below.)
Several are available. MidiGraphy ($20 shareware), is the best know and fairly full-featured, once you figure out the interface. For MidiGraphy and other freeware or shareware sequencing software available for the Macintosh check out the Macintosh Midi User's Internet Guide (if you know of any more, please let me know). You will also find demos of commercial products at this link, and on archive sites such as info-mac. These demos, are usually 'crippled' in that they cannot save, your work, and sometimes have a limited time for use. Otherwise, they are generally the full commercial product, so it's a good chance to 'try before you buy'.
If you simply looking for a program to play standard MIDI files, you're in luck. A number of good freeware and shareware MIDI players exist. One well-recommended one is Arnold's Midi Player, a $10 shareware program which works with both MIDI instruments and QuickTime. Click on the name for information about this program, or to download the latest version.
Anthem is a shareware sequencing and scoring program that has a configurable (to your MIDI device) patch librarian. If anyone can tell me more about it please contact me.
Many files you'll find out on FTP sites or newsgroups will be in a compressed format. One of the most common compression schemes for MIDI files (and most other files originating from Windows platforms) is 'PKZIP'. These files have the extension '.ZIP'. There are several utilities you can use to handle this compression, but the one I recommend is the duo "Stuffit Expander" and "DropStuff w/ Expander Enhancer", from Alladin Systems. "Stuffit Expander" is freeware and uncompresses several Mac formats. "DropStuff" is shareware, and adds compression in the Stuffit (.sit) format, as well as expands Stuffit Expander to handle almost any format you'll encounter on the Internet. I recommend it, since it's easy to use and works with so many formats (including .ZIP).
Uncompressing a file will generally yield a .MID file, or a folder of .MID files, which need to have the filetype changed, as discussed above.
Please read and understand the shareware license agreement included with these products before using them.
To you can download Stuffit Expander and DropStuff w/EE directly from Alladin by clicking on their names.
QuickTime, starting with version 2.0, has a built-in facility for playing QuickTime movies. To use it, you'll need the following:
QuickTime is General MIDI compatible (see the What is MIDI section if you don't know what this means), therefore your files should be general- MIDI for best results. Then follow these steps:
Instruments in italics are not available, and will be mapped to a 'similar' instrument. If you don't like the sound quality, read the next two sections
Yet another, and the easiest, method of converting standard MIDI files to QuickTime movies is using the program All MIDI, which you can download here by clicking on its name or by clicking here. I haven't tried this, but if it works as advertised, it will allow you to simply "drag and drop" your SMF onto it's icon, and create a QT movie, suitable for playing. Other programs, such as Arnold's Midi Player (see above) will also deal directly with QuickTime MIDI..
The addition of MIDI capabilities into QuickTime was a great move by Apple. Not only can QuickTime movies take advantage of this capability, using much less data than traditional sound data used in movies, but it also brings MIDI capabilities to a vast number of users who wouldn't otherwise have it
However, this setup isn't perfect. The General MIDI standard, which defines which instrument plays on which voice number, among other things, defines 128 instruments. QuickTime contains only a small subset of these, and the 'missing' instruments must be mapped to the nearest corresponding instrument. This may work will when mapping "Bright Acoustic Piano" to "Acoustic Grand Piano", but what do you map "Applause" to? Therefore, depending on the particular sequence, you may get anything from satisfactory to terrible results.
Secondly, if you have an older Mac, you may lack the horsepower to play all but the simplest MIDI files. A Mac LC II I used to own 'crackled' on even a simple one- instrument sequence, large multi-track sequences could actually crash the system. Owners of newer Macs, especially Power Macs, should have no problems with this, however.
Finally, the sound quality of a hardware MIDI instrument, even a relatively inexpensive one, probably exceeds that of the QuickTime instruments. It was also pointed out to me that the QT instruments only provide 8-note polyphony (only eight notes/voices can be sounding at the same time), whereas even inexpensive MIDI devices usually provide at least 24-note polyphony. The sounds themselves are also of a rather mediocre quality (most likely an attempt to get it to run on the smallest-horsepower machine as possible). If you're finding that the QT instruments don't sound real enough for you, start shopping for a MIDI device (if you own a high-end Mac, also read the next section). Combination midi interfaces/instruments exist for well under $300.
If you own a high-end Mac, the answer is ?(Will someone please let me know of there is another alternative). Invision Interactive had a product called Cybersound Studio (which is now discontinued), which is a software only synthesis device. Cybersound requires no hardware other than your Mac, but if you have a MIDI interface, it supports it with either Apple MIDI manager, OMS, or FreeMIDI. Cybersound comes with many excellent sounds, including a full General MIDI set, as well as specialized banks including a piano bank, rhythm/loop bank, and several others. The sound quality is as good as that of many 'real' MIDI instruments.
You need a fast enough Mac to run the program as well. Cybersound Studio requires Power Mac with 16 megs RAM, and would love even more for best performance. Virtual memory is not supported, due to the real-time nature of sound synthesis. I have seen Cybersound VS 1.0x work with RAMDoubler; the results were fair but not excellent and rather unpredictable. I don't know whether this will work the the current release. Cybersound was the first product to fully take advantage of the Mac's own sound capabilities in a MIDI setting. It also contains a basic sequencer/MIDI player, and works with any Midi Manager/OMS/FreeMIDI- compatible software.
The techniques discussed above should work just fine if you're getting your MIDI files from other users (via disk, for example), or from most FTP sites. However, if you're getting files from Email or a newsgroup (such as alt.binaries.sounds.midi, there's another step you need to be concerned about.
Email and Newsgroups were designed to handle text messages. Standard MIDI files are binary files, meaning they are designed to be computer-readable rather than human readable. Sending such a binary file via normal means would not work correctly, since these files can contain characters other than the standard ASCII character set. To get around this, an encoding scheme known as "UUENCODE" was developed. UUENCODE is similar to the Macintosh "BinHex (.hqx)" format that you may have used already. It converts a binary file into a sequence of ASCII characters that can be sent over Email or posted to USENET newsgroups. The receiver can then UUDECODE the file to return it to its binary state.
There are many utilities for UUencoding and DECODING files on the Macintosh. The Stuffit Expander/DropStuff with EE combination available above will decode this format. The Newswatcher newsreader for the Macintosh is probably your best bet if you have a directly-connected (to the Internet) Macintosh, or use SLIP/PPP and MacTCP or Open Transport for your connection. Newswatcher not only decodes UUENCODED files, but can piece together files split into multiple pieces (a common practice for larger files on newsgroups, in order to get around some sites maximum message-length restriction). Check out your favorite Mac archive for this and other utilities
You will also find things of interest at Mac music and Web Tools or Macintosh Midi User's Internet Guide. be sure to check out Page 2 as well.
Index of /computing/systems/mac/info-mac/gst/_MIDI has several Macintosh MIDI related files.
We hope this page was helpful to you. If you still have questions, or have something to add to this list (whether you know the answer, have something related you've been wondering) or have trouble downloading any of the files available here, please let us know.
Go to:
Twin Cities MIDI Home Page
Twin Cities MIDI Copyright © 1995-96 Timothy S. Fischer
Twin Cities MIDI Copyright ©
1997-2001 David L. Stevens
Cyber Dad's Home
Page