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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.
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.
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.
< 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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\ O| |O|
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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.
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