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The Place Of Modern MIDI Music?
-1-Lone_Eagle writes "With the free availability of literally thousands of MIDI files on the Internet, and increasingly powerful home desktop systems and software, virtually anyone can take a MIDI file and using a program such as GarageBand or Reason create a near-studio-quality rendition of their favorite song. This opens up an interesting discussion, is a remixed MIDI file an original creation? Or is it simply a copied work with the rights belonging to the original author? Is it piracy? What do you think?"
It's not like these midi files are going to take away sales from the artists. "Oh, no, I'm not going to buy that cd. I've already got the midi." But, if I heard a really good midi song, it might get me to buy the cd.
... create a near studio quality rendition of their favorite song.
Maybe I've missed something big, but I didn't know such amazing vocal support was built into MIDI formats. I guess I could always put the lyrics in and let Microsoft Sam (tm) sing it for me, but I'd rather die a horrible, horrible death.
Even if the original work is out of copyright, for example Beethoven's works, the rights to the "notation or manuscript" is owned by whoever printed or published it, since classical music can be notated in different ways according to different interpretations. This goes for any piece of music. Also, the midi file, even of an out of copyright piece of music is the intellectual property of the author. I've created my own versions of several pieces of classical music, made them available on the internet and I've noticed in the years since I've come across those files under different names. It's the same midi I made, just someone has put their own name as author\tracker in the file. It's not cool.
1. MIDI files are often not produced by the copyright owner. Therefore, the underlying song composition is owned by the copyright owner(s) (i.e. publisher and composer); 2. The arrangement *might* be copyrightable by the MIDI programmer. 3. The US Copyright Office equates MIDI files with audio media(!); 4. If anyone remembers the Negativland / U2 debacle - one of the versions Negativland produced and was sued for was in fact running from a MIDI file; 5. Copyright owners were pretty strict about people distributing MIDI files: One webmaster states she received a letter from the Harry Fox Agency in December 1999 demanding the removal of offending MIDI files. The HFA also contacted the ISP which temporarily suspended the website until the files were removed. Web Thumper's MIDI Site, a popular source for MIDI files was permanently shut down following a copyright dispute.
In music you have copyright on a particular recording of a song, which is what you get sued for infringing upon when filesharing. In addition you have copyright on the song itself - the lyrics, melody, composition, etc. If you look at the liner notes for a CD you will see something like "Copyright CrooksR'US Records. All rights reserved". This is the copyright notice for the recording. You often see names listed by each song, or a note to the effect of "All songs written by Your Favorite Band". This is attributing who wrote the song. This person (people) get royalties on all performances (including bar cover-bands), and recordings of the song, not just this specific recording.
This would clearly be infringing on the second copyright (on the song), but not the first (on the recording).
MIDI, the Musical Instrumant Digital Interface, merely sends instructions for an instrument (could be a synthesizer or a sampler or any number of other devices) to then create sound. There is no actual audio. MIDI data can be represented in many different forms, be it a list of instruction in hexadecimal, a matrix of controller values, or even as printed sheet music. Asking whether or not a MIDI "remix" or re-writing is an original creation is similar to asking whether or not someone who takes previously written sheet music and transcribes it and changes it is creating a new work.
It all depends on the level of art and interpretation in the work (think about Cage, for instance, and his work in creating scores from astronomical maps) and the legalities. I cannot comment on the legalities of rewriting music, as I am just a musician and an engineer, not a lawyer.
As far as I know, it is not illegal to transcribe audio into sheet music, which is basically what one does when creating a MIDI file from digital (or analog) audio.
Shouldn't You expect more from your DJ?
There are free sequencers and samplers. However that's only half the battle, I mean if you get a Creative X-Fi you have a reasonable sampler right there. The real problem is in samples. I can take a MIDI and do two renderings for you using the same software. One will sound damn near real, the other will sound cheesy. The only difference will be the samples used.
Free samples that are any good are much harder to come by. There are plenty of free soundfounts, but many are quite bad and non I've seen are near what you get with good ample packs. Also, a large number out there that are free did no checking on the legality of what they are using. So you may get a free sample you like, but it may actually be ripped off from somewhere else and not legit.
Unfortunately in the good sample arena, I'm not aware of any non arm n' leg solutions. You just seem to get what you pay for. If you pay $200 for an orchestral set, it'll be pretty good. If you pay $2000 for one, it'll sound almost perfect. If you pay nothing for it, it'll sound fake and may not even be legit.
Greetings, Mr. Noculture. There's a such thing as music without vocals.
Just FYI.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
If I have a laser printer and a computer, and manually copy a book by typing it into my favorite word processor, i'll be able to print a nearly equal quality rendition of the book - but that doesn't make me the author. In the case of a MIDI it's the same, the author rights of the original composition still lie with the composer.
[v]irtually anyone can take a midi file and using a program such as Garage Band or Reason create a near studio quality rendition of their favorite song
Technically, that's true. If it's going to be any good, however, *still* depends on talent, sensitivity and hard work. Never mind great soundfonts, and great software, if you don't know how to use them or lack the patience to endlessly tweak things until they sound just right, it's never going to sound as good as the original.
The people at (formerly) Media Ventures do some absolutely stunning stuff with MIDI, software and synthesizers. Ever listened to the soundtrack of "The Thin Red Line"? Some parts are MIDI/synthesizers. Some are real orchestra. Can you tell the difference? Hint: no. Can you reproduce it in equal quality? Sure, if you have the correct soundfonts, enough sensitivity, stacks of equipment and a lot of time on your hands. But it won't make you the composer of the work.
That said, unless planning to unjustly rip off the hard work of other people, I don't see why one would want to call a MIDI rendition of an original work "their own composition". Why not simply give credit where credit is due?
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
This is not a complete list, but Reason and GarageBand are not free nor open source, so these links might be useful:
:-)
- ardour, Digital Audio workstation / http://ardour.org/
- Rosegarden, audio and MIDI sequencer, score editor, and general-purpose music composition and editing environment / http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/
- LilyPond, music notation / http://lilypond.org/web/
- MusE MIDI/Audio sequencer / http://muse.serverkommune.de/
- Audacity, music editing station / http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
- Music Theory (free, not oss): http://www.musictheory.net/ and http://andyvn.ath.cx/Software-Aquallegro.php
- general link: http://linux-sound.org/
Cheers
Animoog.org
< You have a MIDI. May I add the lyrics? >
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% Y
/ There she was just a-shouting to the street \
| Singing: I want Word from Office from Microsoft |
| Snapping her keyboard and shuffling her mouse |
| Singing: I want Word from Office from Microsoft |
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\ Want more?
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% No, kthx.
There are two proudcts for singing that I'm aware of that are pretty good. One is Yamaha's Vocaloid. That's for solo vocals http://www.vocaloid.com/en/index.html for info and demos. It's pretty good, generally needs to be masked behind some kind of effects to not sound too synthesized, but still pretty impressive. The other is the EastWest Symphonic Choirs. As the name implies, it's choir samples and is geared for classical, but damn, when properly programmed I challenge you to tell them apart from the real deal. http://www.soundsonline.com/sophtml/details.phtml? sku=EW-165 for info and demos.
If you are doing an orignal composition and you compose for your samples then it works well. I mean hell, the SNES songs were 64kb all said and done between music and (compressed) samples.
However it's one thing to be doing an orignal work, it's another to try and do a "studio quality" rendition of an existing peice. No matter how good a composer you are, a little 1MB piano sample is going to sound, well, fake. You aren't going to fool anyone for the real thing. without a couple hundred MB sample at least.
Both are laudable goals. I am a huge fan of music done on older technologies (espically game music, hence the remasters I do) and I have a big collection of MOD (and derivitive) files. However it's a real different challenge to try and make a rendition of a MIDI that sounds like it was done with real isntruments than to compose an orignal MIDI to sound cool using a given sample set.
It's a different kind of MIDI programming even. I find that often, some of the best sounding MIDIs on my SoundCanvas translate the worst when played with higher grade samples. They are designed with certian assumptions in mind that just aren't valid and would need ot be redone. However some of the ones that come of as cheesy end up sound pretty damn good when you throw a few GB of samples at them.
A lot of it depends how close your samples are to the ones the composer used. For example the Edirol songs sound the very best on my SoundCanvas. No supprise, that was the hardware they were composed on.
Audacity is good for simple things (cutting up parts of a song, etc) but if you're trying to do anything moderatley complex such as mixing a song, don't waste your time. Been there. Not fun. Use Ardour, which is also GPL. Don't get me wrong, I use Audacity for things like recording a riff or other ideas, but for a song it doesn't come close to cutting it. If you're wanting to do MIDI, Rosegarden (GPL) is what you want. I haven't messed with it much, though, so I can't rate it.
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
The law on MIDI files directly draws on Piano Roll legislation. In particular the Compulsary Mechanical License.
The original composer of the music holds all rights to the music until he signs it away to a music publisher. The original composer is important because copyright lasts for the entire life of the composer plus an additional 70 years. (Thanks to Disney and Sonny Bono)
At this stage the Piano Roll maker is not allowed to transcribe it into mechanical (digital) form until he gets permission from the publisher - or - someone else performs it first.
Once the copyright owner of a musical composition records and distributes the work to the public, or allows someone else to do so, anyone that wishes to record and distribute that same work may do so without permission (subject to certain limitations) by issuing the copyright owner a notice of intention to obtain a compulsory license. After that the only legal requirement is to pay a compulsory mechanical reproduction fee of 6.95 cents per copy to the publisher or their agent (Harry Fox - who license from 1,000 copies upwards).
So, how does this apply to MIDI? Those "free" MIDI files you can download off the internet are only legal if someone else performed them first and if the creator of the MIDI file pays 6.95 cents for every download made.
Orationem pulchram non habens, scribo ista linea in lingua Latina
It seems like MIDI discussion come up every so often on Slashdot.
First, a couple things to get cleared up:
MIDI is just a serial protocol, nothing more. It's been around since the early 80's. The protocol defines 128 MIDI notes, on 16 channels, and 128 controllers that have values of 0 - 127. That's basically it, along with a few other things like channel change and bank change messages. MIDI itself does not define any instruments, because MIDI is used to control non-instrument devices like effects boxes too.
Now, when most normal computer people think of MIDI, what they are actually thinking of is GM or "General MIDI." GM defines a standard set of instruments, for example instrument 1 is always a piano, instrument 74 is always a flute, etc.
It's up to the hardware or software to actually implement these instruments, usually done with wavetable samples. The idea is that a MIDI file played through any "GM compatible" device will sound roughly the same on any other GM device, although the quality of the samples varies widely. Roland's GS is an extension of GM.
GM used to be used for games primarily (think Doom1 and Doom2!) but has fallen by the wayside now that everybody is using full audio tracks for music.
But most of the music created for video games these stays was still created using MIDI! The file format is specific to the studio application, but MIDI is still used internally to communicate with various synthesizers and samplers including virtual synths that run on the local machine.
So if you were to get the original data files, you would need to also have the sample libraries-- which are VERY high quality, and can cost several thousand dollars. And you need to be using software that works with these libraries, which rules out free/OSS software-- you're gonna NEED something like Sonar, Logic Audio, etc.
Almost all video games and most TV shows that have symphonic music are actually MIDI based, but use enormous sample libraries like EastWest symphony orchestra. In fact I believe that the Return to Castle Wolfenstein soundtrack was created mostly with that sample library.
Other examples, the "fire baby" sequence in The Incredibles is created with Voices of the Apocalypse so even realistic choirs can be created using MIDI.
You don't have to spend THAT much though-- the libraries I use the most are Storm Drum and Garritan Personal Orchestra, both of which are very affordable but good enough that they are often used in hollywood. All of these are plugins that can be used in many different software packages on both OSX and Windows, but not linux that I'm aware of.
So, nowadays MIDI is still an integral part of even the most modern studios, but General MIDI is nowhere in sight. GM still has a place in cell phone ringers.
-CausticPuppy "Of all the people I know, you're certainly one of them." -Somebody I don't know
The only real advantage of MIDI over audio files like MP3 or OGG is that the actual notes being played can be learned when viewing the MIDI file through a notation program. The best notation software that I've used is MIDIsoft Studio4 even though it's ten years old.
Notation software takes the MIDI file and displays it as sheet music. If you can read music (and anyone who can learn C can learn to read music) then you can learn how to play really complicated songs this way. Guitar Tab text files usually only give you simple and often wrong chord changes. Anything beyond G-Em-C-D (I-VIm-IV-V - the progression used in thousands of 1950s-1970s songs) is going to be hard to figure out for non-professionals just sitting down with a guitar and a recording. Almost all older songs have their most complicated chord structures and arpeggios mapped out into MIDI by musically-proficient fans. All the songs played on 'classic rock' FM stations can be learned this way. This is also a great way to learn big-band era stuff from the 1940s and even how older European classical music works. Mozart and Tchaikovsky (the Nutcracker Suite, etc...) can be learned even if you don't have access to the sheet music scores from a library or music store.
MIDI files played into synthesizers, even newer GM synths, don't sound very good even when they have been expertly constructed. It's a fact. There are too many nuances to the playing technique that don't get encoded into the MIDI file. The synths aren't really all that great either. Purely electronic ambient music works like Brian Eno and Steve Roach have a much better chance of being recreated from MIDI files fed into advanced synths. But the idea that a modern pop song can be recreated by MIDI should not be taken seriously. Synths can't reproduce standard instruments like electric guitars and saxophones realistically.
A number of sheet music publishers are trying to get all MIDI files removed from the web. This is short-sighted and cruel on their part. MIDI files encourage people to learn to read and play music far more better than anything that the music publishers could do to develop this market. With music classes being dropped extensively from American public schools, anything that teaches people to interact with printed music scores is a positive thing.
It just sucks that music classes are being dropped by stupid uncultured brain-dead public school administrators (is there any other type?). And to drop music classes for more algebra? Insane. Most people listen to music every single day; very few people ever use algebra after high school. The priorities of the public schools are completely wrong. It's a tragedy.