God bless you, sir. I tried, I really tried to listen to all of MIDI Over The Hills And Far Away but I had an uncontrollable urge to go on a shooting spree as soon as the lyrics came in.
I hope one of these days you make a similar post featuring MOD files, if you haven't already. posted by bondcliff at 12:40 PM on July 14, 2011 [1 favorite]
Psh, MODs are where it's at! posted by Eideteker at 12:41 PM on July 14, 2011
True story: I was using Scream Tracker to sequence drums until at least 2001.
Also, YYZ (and much of the Maiden stuff) sounds (in my head) like the Doom soundtrack. posted by uncleozzy at 12:55 PM on July 14, 2011
Actually, a lot of these would make great ringtones.
Either "Rock and Roll" or "Kashmir" are possibilities so far. posted by Curious Artificer at 12:56 PM on July 14, 2011
Old internet MIDI stuff just doesn't sound right coming out of Quicktime using a Roland-ish General MIDI patch set... for ultimate authenticity I think you need to play them back on an OLP3 or similar FM synth.
For ULTIMATE INTERNET MIDI NOSTALGIA download the GXSCC player (Win / OSX*), and double click on the logo in the upper left hand corner to activate the secret OPL3 emulation mode. Then just drag and drop MIDI files. Sounds like Netscape. posted by drumcorpse at 12:57 PM on July 14, 2011 [2 favorites]
I had a bunch of They Might Be Giants MIDI files on my website back in '97. Those were the days. It had frames and everything. posted by The Great Big Mulp at 1:05 PM on July 14, 2011 [4 favorites]
Someone needs to mention Anton Maiden in this thread.
You know, that General MIDI Tom Sawyer isn't bad at all. It got my head moving. posted by ignignokt at 1:10 PM on July 14, 2011
'Houses of the Holy' was positively cute. Nyan Zeppelin. posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 1:34 PM on July 14, 2011
This post reminded me that I had a directory full of old MIDI files I had collected from my early days online in the late '90s. Every time I upgraded, I'd copied my stuff over to the new system, nesting directories like a digital matryoshka doll. Somewhere along the line all the filenames got mangled in a botched file system conversion (thanks, MICROS~1!) so I can barely make out the names.
Fifteen years ago I paid big bucks for a Yamaha wavetable daughterboard for my Soundblaster. Then I played DOOM in Nightmare mode for ten hours a day, ten inches away from a salvaged 20" CRT, wearing headphones. I think for a month and a half I ingested nothing but 3:00 am cream cheese bagels at the grimy coffee shop up the street. posted by CynicalKnight at 2:12 PM on July 14, 2011 [1 favorite]
This made my day inexplicably better in a way that Rush, Yes, and Iron Maiden never did. posted by mazola at 4:38 PM on July 14, 2011 [1 favorite]
The thing I remember about MIDI files was this era in the mid-90s when basically everyone I knew online had an IRC client that supported the /sound command, and a carefully groomed collection of .wav/.mid files acquired over DCC transfers.
It was like the teenaged internet's equivalent of my real-life peers' incapacity to say three sentences in a row without breaking into Jim Carrey dialog, except somehow less grating. A lot of the joy went out of chat as most of us gradually migrated to things like ICQ and AIM. posted by brennen at 10:25 PM on July 14, 2011
PERFECT! Now I have a reason to load up synthesia again. posted by sandswipe at 3:30 AM on July 15, 2011
I remember when game ports on computers were also used for MIDI. My soundcard had a craptastic wavetable, but I could hook my sweet-ass keyboard up to it for MIDI output.
I'd also import downloaded MIDI files into Finale for Windows 3.1 and laugh my ass off at the mess it created. posted by charred husk at 6:32 AM on July 15, 2011
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posted by brennen at 12:33 PM on July 14, 2011