Ableton Forum

Am I the only person that loves midi versions of commercial music?

I just downloaded a collection of dance music midi files and they're great. Loads of club tunes (mainly trance) and when played back through QuickTime they sound like some keyboard player in a pub knocking them out on a Bontempi organ. Reminds me of Phoenix Nights (Techno, Techno, Techno, Techno!).

They are (in general) so crap, they're brilliant.

Its a pity that Live doesn't support both midi file types properly and that there is no general midi instrument provided - then I could easily use them in Live. Anyone know of a decent general midi instrument I could get for use in Live?

What do you mean by "Midi Instrument"?

preview the MIDI files from Live's file browser and capture the output of your cue outs.
Wouldn't describe it as bontempi exactly, but I got nice results with this.

simply drag or drop the midi file and open it and edit it in piano view

audiojunkies wrote:simply drag or drop the midi file and open it and edit it in piano view

+1

Exactly! Whats the problem jonny72?

Fine if you want to do a remix I guess, couldn't ever see the need to use them though (unless you are learning).

Aequitas123 wrote:

audiojunkies wrote:simply drag or drop the midi file and open it and edit it in piano view

+1

Exactly! Whats the problem jonny72?

First problem is that there are two different midi file types and Live doesn't handle one of them correctly - rather than loading each channel as a separate clip it loads all of them in to a single clip. I did raise this with Ableton and they said it was working as designed, maybe it is but that doesn't mean it works properly.

Second problem is no support for general midi (as far as I'm aware). Load a general midi clip in to GarageBand and it loads each channel to a separate track and assigns the correct instrument to it. I don't think there is even a general midi instrument set in Live.

Obviously general midi is a bit crap to say the least and some implementations are better than others but it does make midi files playable at least straight away.

None of this is a major problem though, its just a bit of fun playing about with them. Some of the midi tracks I just downloaded are scarily accurate to the real thing though, one of them had the intro piano spot on (The Prodigy / Your Love).

where did ya get em ?

dj_huck wrote:where did ya get em ?

Google for "dance midi files torrent".

thanks. i guess i need to learn to use the internets

jonny72 wrote:
First problem is that there are two different midi file types and Live doesn't handle one of them correctly - rather than loading each channel as a separate clip it loads all of them in to a single clip. I did raise this with Ableton and they said it was working as designed, maybe it is but that doesn't mean it works properly.

Second problem is no support for general midi (as far as I'm aware). Load a general midi clip in to GarageBand and it loads each channel to a separate track and assigns the correct instrument to it. I don't think there is even a general midi instrument set in Live.

Obviously general midi is a bit crap to say the least and some implementations are better than others but it does make midi files playable at least straight away.

None of this is a major problem though, its just a bit of fun playing about with them. Some of the midi tracks I just downloaded are scarily accurate to the real thing though, one of them had the intro piano spot on (The Prodigy / Your Love).

I've opened a MIDI track in Ableton and it seperated all instruments to individual tracks.

How are you opening the file>?

Aequitas123 wrote:I've opened a MIDI track in Ableton and it seperated all instruments to individual tracks.

How are you opening the file>?

The problem is with type 0 midi files. These only have one track and Live loads it as one track in a single clip. If you load the same clip in GarageBand it splits it in to separate tracks. So technically Live loads it correctly, but in reality that ain't much help and it could be handled better.

Plus GarageBand automatically loads the correct general midi instrument for each track, the same functionality in Live would be good.