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Canyon.mid

canyonmid.com

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Re: Canyon.mid

#141

Post by brudgers »

timewizard wrote: post #128
brudgers wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no "correct" sound for a MIDI file In the case of canyon.mid there is because it was composed for a specific midi instrument with a particular set of timbres. Or to put it another way, it’s music and therefore complicated.

I can play the guitar parts on a banjo but it ain't going to sound right.

In 1900, QRS began making piano rolls. By 1920, they had invented a machine to capture piano players directly and over the years QRS captured many including Liberace, George Gershwin, and even Roger Miller playing Autumn Leaves.

QRS is still in business and some of its product lines use Midi conversions of piano rolls and last month I landed a mixed lot with a bunch of those Midi files on 3.5” floppy disks.

I had George Gershwin rocking a Yamaha XG clavichord and Liberace on a Sitar and similar shenanigans.

Re: Canyon.mid

#142

Post by b112 »

esafak wrote: post #139

I remember some of the songs that came with the Sound Blaster, like this one: https://youtu.be/eqU4CkbK1X0 What a step up it was over the bleeps that came out of the PC. Like going from B&W to color TV. Advances like that were commonplace back then.

Wow, almost a match for the C64. I miss early PC wars. Now it's all just the same.

Maybe we'll have fun again with quantum computing.

Re: Canyon.mid

#143

Post by saint_yossarian »

kelvie wrote: post #75

Could media player actually just play midi dumps like this back in the day? I've been on Linux for so long now, that being able to just play a MIDI file without making a bunch of decisions about soundfonts and synthesizers [1] just seems mind-blowing to me now. Part of me wishes that just by default, mpv or something would just pick a softsynth and just play it (like WMP here) rather than have me install a separate p…

Yes, there was even a HTML tag to play MIDI files, which was heavily used in places like Geocities.

Re: Canyon.mid

#144

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

stevage wrote: post #134
badc0ffee wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The PC speaker could only play square waves, and had only one voice. There is no "correct" sound for a MIDI file as it's just note and tempo data. But many people probably associate them with the OPL2 synthesizer chip on AdLib and early SoundBlaster cards. [1] Now that we have high fidelity digital sound output on even the cheapest computers/devices, at least 44 kHz, at least two channels, and at least 16 bits per sa…

I find it very painful that modern computers still have such terrible midi chips, and modern operating systems don't come with decent midi synthesisers. It's a real hassle trying to get reasonable sounding MIDI on either windows or macOS.

Modern computers do not have integrated sound synthesis hardware whatsoever, there has been no point in shipping that since the start of the 21st century. Unfortunately, that does mean that for playing legacy General MIDI content, users are stuck with poor quality software implementations like Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth and the (modern successor of the) QuickTime synthesizer, which were designed for slow computers with little memory in the late 1990's, and were trying not to compete with the high-end hardware of the time (because both license samples from Roland, who made such hardware).

General MIDI as a format basically died for serious computer use in the early 2000's. It's still a feature of some home keyboards and things, but it is a case where they genuinely do not “make them like they used to”. If you want the greatest possible GM support, you have to buy old hardware from e.g. the Roland Sound Canvas or Yamaha MU series, or obtain old software (no longer sold) like Roland Sound Canvas VA or Yamaha S-YXG50.

Re: Canyon.mid

#145

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

brudgers wrote: post #45
badc0ffee wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The PC speaker could only play square waves, and had only one voice. There is no "correct" sound for a MIDI file as it's just note and tempo data. But many people probably associate them with the OPL2 synthesizer chip on AdLib and early SoundBlaster cards. [1] Now that we have high fidelity digital sound output on even the cheapest computers/devices, at least 44 kHz, at least two channels, and at least 16 bits per sa…

There is no "correct" sound for a MIDI file In the case of canyon.mid there is because it was composed for a specific midi instrument with a particular set of timbres. Or to put it another way, it’s music and therefore complicated.

It was composed for at least two, the Windows 3.1 version uses Microsoft's weird MIDI format from that time that contains a simplified version of the arrangement alongside the full version, and which you would hear depends on the configured MIDI Mapper settings.

Re: Canyon.mid

#146

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

kelvie wrote: post #75

Could media player actually just play midi dumps like this back in the day? I've been on Linux for so long now, that being able to just play a MIDI file without making a bunch of decisions about soundfonts and synthesizers [1] just seems mind-blowing to me now. Part of me wishes that just by default, mpv or something would just pick a softsynth and just play it (like WMP here) rather than have me install a separate p…

Windows and macOS have both bundled similar low-quality licensed versions of a Roland GS sample set and low-quality software synthesisers since the late 1990's. Neither of them are as good as even the lowest-end dedicated hardware General MIDI synth from Roland was, but they're still better than nothing. You're unlucky because you happen to be using Linux. unfortunately the best in that field was and remains proprietary so this will probably never be solved on that platform.

Re: Canyon.mid

#148

Post by crtified »

glimshe wrote: post #73

I didn't like canyon.mid back in the day. I'd much rather play popcorn or axelfoley!

I agree - to me, canyon.mid (while technically neat) has a very Corporate 1990's Advertisement sound and feel. Not surprising since, in a way, that's exactly what it is!

So that particular track never gelled with me.

I listened the heck out of some of the other included sound and MIDI sample material however, back then. As one did, with sources being so comparatively limited in the pre- and early- Web years.

Re: Canyon.mid

#149

Post by fortyseven »

add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #55
fortyseven wrote: post #52

"Sign in to confirm you’re not a bot." Super cool, YouTube.

Hopefully no one does this. Enabling them gets us further into this mess.

Problem is, I'm already signed in. I'm never NOT signed in. But for some reason playing video anywhere not started on YouTube.com now hits me with that garbage.

Re: Canyon.mid

#150

Post by root_axis »

swat535 wrote: post #95
brookst wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is more commentary on the nature of personality and taste than of computers. It’s human nature to think of familiar things from our youth as the height of achievement. That was the time of the best music, the best movies, the best culture, the best sports, the best everything. No matter if you were born in 1950 or 1990.

To be fair, the quality of software has dramatically dropped, apps now take 10 seconds to load, memory usage is maxed, games crash and people needed to reinstall their OS so frequently that Microsoft literally added a "reset PC" option.. You can argue that software does much more than before, sure I agree but no one asked for so much bloat and features in every day apps. My note taking app doesn't need AI.

Software quality has massively improved across every dimension. Memory constraints are basically non-existent for most people. Software is more reliable, discoverable and portable than at any time in history. The idea that reinstalling your OS is more common today than 30 years ago is just obviously not true. We are currently living through a golden age of software.
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