Hi All,
Have another question: What is the value of saving a song in the SMF format if it doesn't save rhythms, panel memories, or all the good stuff -- much less create a true usable MIDI file? As far as I can see, it's only value is playing a song using "straight piano". Unless, the SMF format means that I could save the song to disk, share it with a friend who has a Yamaha, Roland or a Technics that isn't compatible with mine and they would be able to play it on their instrument. Is that possible? Can somebody clear up this mystery for me please? I see it as being a useless function and sure would appreciate it if somebody could tell me it's value! Thanks
Carol

that's about it, smf is just a standard that is compatible between every make of keyboard. Songs need to be done in true multitrack, each track played from beginning to end. Voices have to satisfy broad criteria of sample manipulation.

Each manufacturer has its own standard of voices and easy play features. These are proprietary and non compatible, period.

Hi Technicsplayer,
Thank you for the answer! I will not waste any more time on the Save to SMF function! Kind of a waste if you ask me!
Carol

Carol -- Not an entire waste of time -- it is useful if you want to use customised orchestration and share with friends with different keyboards -- like a PR702 and a PR603 for example. -- Neil

Hi Jazzplayer,
Is that a big hint? I am not too sure your ears are up to hearing what I have to play!
Carol

Carol, don't write off SMFs too quickly. Many of the professional backing tracks used by professional musicians are done in SMF and when loaded into the keyboard, sound every bit as good as live musicians. Besides sounding good, SMFs take less disk space and are easier to work with then technics format. When loaded into the keyboard, you have the same full control over all of the instruments and parameters that you would have if you composed the music on the keyboard. If you use music software, I use Digital Orchestrator Pro, you can manipulate the SMF many ways to make it sound the way you want it. I currently have 658 SMFs on the hard drive of my KN6500. Being better at computers than keyboards, I use the computer software to put together my backing tracks. I find it much easier. All of my songs have the melody on track one, and track two is left open incase I want to play the melody with a different instrument later in the song. If you would like to hear one, just let me know what song you would like and I'll see if I have it. If I do, I'll email you a copy. Also, if you have any SMF questions, just post and, if I can help, I'll answer.

Peter

Hi Peter,
Thank your for the reply. It gives me a whole new way to think about SMF. And, yes, I would like to hear one of your songs. Please email me one. How about "The Rose" or "You Needed Me" or perhaps "Go Look High On That Mountain". If you don't have any of those, just pick one for me. I am happy to get anything. It might be interesting to play around with the SMF format after all. I have Cakewalk ProAudio 9 and HomeStudio 9.
Carol

Actually, there are three main types of SMF: Type 0, 1, and 2. Type 2 isn’t much used, but Types 0 and 1 are.

Type 0 has 1 track consisting of up to 16 MIDI channels. The MIDI events are in order of time, regardless of channel (meaning all channels are interleaved together into one MIDI stream, just as real live cable-type hardware MIDI is).

Type 1 has multiple tracks (no real limit) each consisting of up to 16 MIDI channels. While each track has its events in order of time regardless of channel, the tracks are recorded one after another in the file, and remain discrete units. In effect, Type 1 is simply a collection of multiple Type 0 streams, each one called a “Track.”

(Type 2 is to Type 1 what Type 1 is to Type 0. Not really very useful in real life.)

Most MIDI software wants Type 1, with one channel per track, because it makes editing the songs easier. If all the MIDI channels are in one track as per a Type 0 file, then the sequencer software has to spend time separating the events out on a per-channel basis to separate them into individual tracks for editing purposes.

Type 0, on the other hand, can stream-play right off of even an ordinary floppy disk without first having to be loaded entirely into memory, assuming the keyboard or other floppy-equipped device supports this feature (my Yamaha PSR-7000 does). This is simply not possible with Type 1 (let alone Type 2) because the entire file would first need to be processed before any of it could be played, to determine the proper order of MIDI events, since the tracks are placed in sequential order in the file, one after another.

Regardless of type, SMF files can contain any MIDI events, plus special SMF-specific “meta-events.” One obvious meta-event is timing information: since real MIDI streams are done in real-time, there is no need to specify when each MIDI event is to happen. It happens when the event comes down the wire. Not so with a disk file, which has all the events in one file. They may be in sequential order (per track in the case of Types 1 and 2), but that still doesn’t say how much time passes between any two adjacent events. These events are timed in terms of Measure, Beat, and Tick, where the number of Ticks per Beat is defined by the resolution (in PPQ), which is itself a value specified in a meta-event (in the SMF header).

Lyrics and other text information (title, composer, copyright, Track names in the case of Types 1 and 2, etc.) are other types of meta-events. Markers are another (basically text meta-events at specific time points that are general to all tracks), and are, for instance, used in Yamaha StyleFile Format files (which are themselves Type 1 SMF files with additional CASM [used to specify, among other things, how notes in the tracks should be transposed to adjust for the chord being played] information that follows the SMF Type 1 part) to denote where, for instance, Intro A, Intro B, Main A, Main B, Main C, Fill A, Fill B, Ending A, Ending B, etc. are.

While it is true that instruments have their own sets of voice sounds, some additional compatibility is made possible by the General MIDI Level 1 standard, and various extensions to that standard (mostly proprietary such as Roland GS, Yamaha XG, GEM/Baldwin GMX, and Technics NX, but now there is also an official General MIDI Level 2 standard as well). GM means that a part recorded for a timpani sound on one GM Level 1 compatible device or software will not wind up being played by a piccolo sound on another device. It will be played by a timpani sound, regardless of who makes the device (of course, the quality of the timpani sound can vary from device to device but at least it won’t be a drastically wrong instrument!), or, worse yet, a two-handed ragtime piano track won’t wind up being played by a drum kit, or vice-versa (imagine the drum solo to “In-a-Gadda-da-Vida” being MIDIfied and mistakenly played back as seemingly-random notes by some pitched sound like, say, an accordian!).

Hi COMALite J,
Wow, am I impressed. What a thorough explanation! In my Cakewalk software, I have the option to save as MIDI 0 or MIDI 1, and I never understood the difference. I have asked several people, but nobody seemed to know the answer. So, thank you very much for explaining it in a very understandable format.
Carol

COMALite J.
Thank you for your excellent dissertation on Midi. This will be very helpful to many of our members.

Carol,
I have over 3000 midi files in my computer if you are looking for anything in particular. I have recorded many and many others have been sent to me by others. Let me know.I might have it. It may be good, bad or otherwise depending on what year it was done. I Will try to reply to all emails.





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