Can someone explain to me why midis are so great?

Why is it I sometimes I see requests for midis of certain songs instead of mp3s (I speak of other forums because I haven’t seen any requests here lately)? Why would you want a lower quality of a song when you could have the original? (it’s ironic that I ask this as I listen to Guile’s SNES theme, but you get my point)

Maybe someone with an older cell phone wants a midi for a ringtone? I know I DLed a lot of midis a few years back to try to create ringtones for my phone. A Midi can also be turned into sheet music in some editing programs, which may be handy for someone trying to learn a song.

There’s a general misconception with midis.

A midi (short for Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is basically a set of instructions send to the hardware saying what note to play in what way at what time. Depending on what hardware or midi soundset you have midis can sound extremely high quality or indeed low quality.

Musicians who write electronic music (like a digital symphony) usually write their sheets in a certain program that allows the sheet music to be played/saved as a midi. In this way, they have an idea how it will sound. Afterwards, they add high quality sound samples.
People who request midis might indeed be interested in opening it as sheet music and reading it that way, or just use it as ringtone. 😛

You’re wrong if you refer to the original song as an mp3 though. Each console has their own music file. The original nintendo has NSF’s for example, the Nintendo Sound Format (which just like midis contains instructions for the NES sound hardware).

If you listen to an mp3 of a Super Nintendo game song (like Guile’s Theme from SF), you’re listening to a direct audio recording of said song, encoded in a certain way that it’s fairly small in filesize.
I wrote this from memory but I’m pretty sure what I said is correct.

Crap, accidently double posted.

I use MIDIs for my Mobile Phone.
Only because its a Motorola and the Motorola phone tools program doesn’t seem to want to work with my phone to put MP3s on it.

Some people use utilities that create games such as RPG Maker or Zelda Quest, which has the abilities to use MIDI. They have a very low amount of space compared to mp3s, and sometimes they’re pretty awesome, depending on the composer of course. Secondly, of course, there’s the MIDI Ringtone Mobile stuff. Though I don’t use it, you know, the mobile thing.

Seeing as how I don’t have a mobile phone, I was unaware that it was possible to creat a custom ringtone through midis. I guess I’m just old-fashioned because I thought you either had to download from your service prvider, or you could only make a custom ring ON the phone itself.

Nah, I didn’t mean that the original format of (let’s say and arcade game) is an mp3, although that’s how soundtracks come out and 99% of the time get converted to from CD-DA format. I realize there’s multiple formats depending on where the original sound source comes from. But as far as sheet music goes … now that’s an interesting thought.

Drakenrai: you peaked my curiosity, do you have an example of a high quality midi so I can compare it to a standard midi? I’d be inerested to hear the differences.

the majority electronic music, from what you see in games to what you hear on the radio, used the general midi standard during its composition.

there’s no such thing as a high quality midi vs a low quality midi. the midi is just a set of instructions– what notes to play, etc. what can be of a higher or lower quality is determining which "virtual instruments" the midi controls. the song is then outputted in another format, because other people won’t have those same virtual instruments.

Drakenrai: you peaked my curiosity, do you have an example of a high quality midi so I can compare it to a standard midi? I’d be inerested to hear the differences.

I meant that the quality of midis depend on your sound hardware, so yeah, what Sarah said. 🙂

maybe we all like it because…in some way…sounds nostalgic.
when we where kids, on gameboy and other consoles back then had music that in midi way, and we liked that. sometimes i get very addicted on my sonic or castlevania midis. now i’m really addicted to the midi of streets of rage 2 "SOR remix"
MIDI IS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD 😛

using a midi to learn & remix a song is easier than playing by ear from an mp3.

i think some people don’t know how to embed mp3s onto their websites, so they use midis because most website builders incourage that.

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What’s cool about MIDIs was listening to your favorite VGMs with crazy instruments. Before everything just became General MIDI, sound cards had all kinds of different instrument sets. My favorite was the AWE 32. It made VGMs sound totally different but pretty cool. (Note: The Final Fantasy VII OST was composed with AWE 32 instruments.)

I love midis` because they were on most of the old games, and I love old games!

I use Midis for do Music Remixes xD