Digital Accompaniments 2: MIDI to MP3. This
presentation by Terry B. Ewell presents an overview of MIDI files. It
provides instructions for converting MIDI files to MP3. It also
introduces the largest repository of MIDI files for bassoonists with
additional files for oboists and other double reed players. BDP
#280, www.2reed.net.
[Music: Hummel Bassoon Concerto]
Welcome, I am Terry Ewell. This video will explain in more detail the
differences between MIDI and audio files. I will detail where to find
media files, particularly for bassoonists. Then I provide some quick
methods to convert MIDI to mp3 or other audio formats.
What is a MIDI file?
It is important to remember that MIDI files are digital instructions
not sound. Sound files such as wave, aif, mp3, or ogg files are digital
encodings of sound waves. MIDI files are codes that indicate the
timing, loudness, pitch, and instrumentation of each note. Because MIDI
files are coded information, it is easy to transform them by changing
tempos or instruments. This was explained in the last video.
How are MIDI files created?
Many music graphics programs such as Finale, Sibelius, or MuseScore
allow music graphic files to be imported into the program and then
exported to MIDI.
Entering music notation by hand, however, is certainly a labor of love.
Finale does, however, allow for scanning music into the application,
but in my work with that around 2015, I found the results need a great
amount editing after the scan. Perhaps the process is more accurate now
and it will serve your purposes.
Some applications avoid the music notation altogether and instead
process MIDI only with a graphic interface. MIDI sequencers such as
Aria Maestosa allow for point and click entries of MIDI notes. To
illustrate this, here is a portion of a demonstration I made in 2013
for one of my university courses:
There we go. F3 and then G3. There it is working now. It seems to work
better when it is just left on eighth note. I don’t know why. OK.
F3, G3 and then what was my last..? C3 is down here for two beats. It
still doesn’t like me! There we go. C3, OK. Then you can repeat
that through there…
However, this is quite a tedious way to create a MIDI file especially if the music has hundreds of notes.
The best solution that I have found to rapidly generate MIDI files is
to record them on a Yamaha Clavinova and to save the MIDI information
on a thumb drive. Since I often accompany my students in their lessons,
my familiarity with the piano parts makes this method of MIDI input
convenient for me.
I record the accompaniments at a slow tempo, one that I can read with
minimal errors. My results aren’t perfect, but they do provide
for passable practice files for students. Along the way I have been
more interested in quantities of accompaniments rather than a few
note-perfect accompaniments.
Where Can I Get MIDI files?
I host what I think is the largest collection of MIDI files with
accompaniments and practice files for the bassoon. I have made
these available to the double reed community for free. Most of the
files were created by me, but some were donated by other colleagues.
This collection was built over a period of about 25 years. This site
also includes some files for other double reed instruments. I continue
to add to this collection as the needs arise in my studio.
Two other large collections of MIDI files are available on midiworld and classicalmidiconnection.
http://www.midiworld.com/midifile.htm
http://www.classicalmidiconnection.com/cmc/
These might provide some files that you are interested in or you can search the Web for other sites.
What Can I Do with a MIDI file?
Even if the MIDI file has all of the parts included, it is an easy
matter to edit out one of the voices, such as the bassoon part,
provided that the MIDI file is imported with separate voices.
Here is a MIDI file of Henry Mancini’s “Baby Elephant” that I have imported into MuseScore.
[Music Example]
Let’s delete the trumpet part from here. I select the first note
or rest in that line, page down to the end, then press the shift key
and select one of the last notes. Now the whole line is select. Then I
use cut to delete the notes. This version is now ready for me to
perform the trumpet parts to the accompaniment, if I wanted.
Decades ago web browsers would allow you to directly play the MIDI file
on a computer. Most often, however, you need to download the file and
then play it on your computer.
If, however, you want to play the accompaniment on your smart phone
there are many ways to convert MIDI files to mp3 files. As demonstrated
in the last video, MuseScore3 will convert to mp3 files. Finale and
other software do as well. A quick note, however. Many of these
applications do not come preloaded with the mp3 file converter. This is
due to copyright restrictions on that application. You may need to
download the LAME encoder, save it in the proper location, and then
point the application to the LAME program. Here is some information
that you might find useful:
Information for MuseScore:
https://musescore.org/en/handbook/2/file-formats#mp3
Information for Audacity:
https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/40274/how-to-add-mp3-support-to-audacity-to-save-in-mp3-format/
The simplest method of conversion is available online. If the file is
at a tempo and with instrumentation you want, the application Zamzar
will convert the MIDI file to mp3.
Add files, choose your option—mp3 here. You can put in an email
address where a link will be sent. Or when the process is completed
online you can download it to your computer or cell phone.
My website 2reed.net has some MIDI files already converted to mp3 format on this
page:
https://www.2reed.net/mp3/home.html
However, this page does not contain mp3 versions of all of the MIDI
files on the website. That is not a problem for you, right? You now
know how to convert the MIDI files to mp3 audio files.
Happy Practicing! Bye.
[Music: Hummel Bassoon Concerto]