Comments on: ComMIDIcations Breakdown

ComMIDIcations Breakdown

not_on_display — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 12:31:32 -0800

[1999Filter] • M I D I Led Zeppelin • M I D I Rush • M I D 9 Beatles • M I D I Yes • M I D I Iron Maiden • [previously]

By: brennen

brennen — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 12:33:15 -0800

Why in the hell does my browser not play MIDI files any more.

By: RobotVoodooPower

RobotVoodooPower — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 12:37:13 -0800

How am I supposed to play those MIDI files when you know they're not sorted?

By: bondcliff

bondcliff — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 12:40:01 -0800

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.

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 12:41:33 -0800

Psh, MODs are where it's at!

By: humboldt32

humboldt32 — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 12:46:26 -0800

6-6-6

By: humboldt32

humboldt32 — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 12:46:50 -0800

\m/

By: jclovebrew

jclovebrew — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 12:49:58 -0800

Someone needs to mention Anton Maiden in this thread. May as well be me. RIP. \m/_ _\m/

By: Curious Artificer

Curious Artificer — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 12:53:09 -0800

A MIDI Revolution #9 is about the most useless thing ever. Which is the point.

By: uncleozzy

uncleozzy — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 12:55:31 -0800

MODs are where it's at! 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.

By: Curious Artificer

Curious Artificer — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 12:56:42 -0800

Actually, a lot of these would make great ringtones. Either "Rock and Roll" or "Kashmir" are possibilities so far.

By: drumcorpse

drumcorpse — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 12:57:01 -0800

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.

By: drumcorpse

drumcorpse — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 13:00:43 -0800

* requires WINE

By: The Great Big Mulp

The Great Big Mulp — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 13:05:04 -0800

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.

By: ignignokt

ignignokt — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 13:07:31 -0800

Someone needs to mention Anton Maiden in this thread. Scream for me, Long Beach!

By: ignignokt

ignignokt — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 13:10:15 -0800

You know, that General MIDI Tom Sawyer isn't bad at all. It got my head moving.

By: Kronos_to_Earth

Kronos_to_Earth — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 13:34:04 -0800

'Houses of the Holy' was positively cute. Nyan Zeppelin.

By: The Lurkers Support Me in Email

The Lurkers Support Me in Email — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 14:04:07 -0800

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. MIDI files just doesn't sound right to me unless they're played on an FM synth.

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 14:05:01 -0800

ditto on Houses of the Holy MIDI is the Easy Listening of the computer era.

By: CynicalKnight

CynicalKnight — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 14:12:28 -0800

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.

By: mazola

mazola — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 16:38:22 -0800

This made my day inexplicably better in a way that Rush, Yes, and Iron Maiden never did.

By: davebush

davebush — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 16:47:18 -0800

This version of Rush's "Subdivisions" sounds very, very much like the original for the first 20 seconds or so.

By: brennen

brennen — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 22:25:36 -0800

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.

By: sandswipe

sandswipe — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 03:30:45 -0800

PERFECT! Now I have a reason to load up synthesia again.

By: charred husk

charred husk — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 06:32:26 -0800

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.