Some midi's sounds better, why?

[eljoe]

Hi there,
I've been wanting to ask this question for a long time, why some of the midi's which we have sounds better than the rest. Is there any way of improving or to make it sound great?
There are some midi's which I have when played in my Yamaha S 900 keyboard, it sounds like an audio file being played and it creates a better mood than an another one which is not a good one. So I always wonder how to make it sound better. I have Cubace 5 and cake walk Music creator 5 in my laptop which I use for small editing, but dont know how to go beyond it like improving the tone of the instuments. I have also recently bought a good soundcard M-Audio Profire 610 which I want to use for my home studio later.
So any of you guys (especially John G and Frank)with their knowledge in midi please help on this subject, which can be a help to all others who may have thought about this same problem.
Regards
eljoe

[JohnG]

Hi eljoe,

An almost impossible question to answer without seeing some of the files that sound good (to you) compared with some that don't. The reason I say 'to you' is because all of this is strictly subjective.

Some reasons may be simply the choice of 'voices', the good use of velocity in a varying way coming closer to real playing. The note timing, they were played in rather than step sequenced, the use of FX like reverb and chorus as well as insertion FX e.g. distortion on a guitar voice. And many, many others.

Let me inspect one of your good files then I might stand a chance.

JohnG.

[eljoe]

Hi JohnG,
Thanks for replying. I'll send the files to your email for you to check.
eljoe

[moonie]

beyond the obvious things like the sound card or keyboard used to play them and the "correctness"(?) of the notes being played, note velocity and timing would have to be the biggest influences (apart from adding effects via sysx messages, but I'm not going there!)

Velocity is how hard each note is played or hit (drums) if you look in cakewalk there is an event list, the column to the right of the "data" is the velocity (values 0-127) and the next column is the time value the note is held for) midi's with all velocities set to 127 (reasonably common with home made midi's) sound terrible, imagine your drummer hitting every beat as hard as he can, a lot of sound cards and keyboards have different voicing s for different velocities, ie 0-64 a jazz snare drum, 65-101 a jazz snare mixed with a rock snare, 102-127 a rock snare so not only do you get a different volume but also a different tone.

It can get quite in depth but in general terms different styles of music accent different beats but for example a beat that goes kick snare kick kick snare may have values like...
101 105 85 105 100

have a look at a few of the good files and see what you find in this regard...

best of luck

[eljoe]

Hi Moonie,
Good to hear some expert instructions from you. See, I've given my sample midi files to JohnG for his opinion. Let me hear from him, then I'll decide what to do. Regarding most of the files which I have, more than the drums tone, I think its the quality and the clarity of the whole file which is lacking. Yes, to some extent the drums from some files are also bad.
Anyway I'll keep it posted regarding the improvements happening.
Thanks and regards
eljoe

[kenja]

Hi Eljoe
A very interesting topic this and I have the same thoughts. I have tried to edit some files and made some good improvements by changing just the voices and volumes. However my main bugbear is guitar sounds especially strummed rhythm guitar. On commercial midis they can sound brilliant (also they can sound terrible!) but most just do not sound like a human strumming. Perhaps it's because it is too strictly to the beat such that it just doesn't sound natural. However, apart from deflagrating (I think that's what it's called) chords I have been unable to implove then even with voice changes. To start changing notes and velocities seems to me to be line cutting a lawn with a small pair of scissors! If there is a simple way, I hope someone will be able to enlighten me.
Cheers........Ken

[frankie]

Could be gate times, spacing between notes,velocities of notes,chord inversions etc etc.

[JohnG]

Hi Eljoe,

Feeling very guilty here as I've had so little time to do more than have a cursory glance at the files you sent me. But let me make some general observations about perceived quality of MIDI files. Many, if not all, of the above comments from others can be true.

Here are some things that I've observed over the years.

First the physical. A good file played on one system say with a Yamaha module can sound mediocre on say a Roland based system, and with another file vice versa. Why? Maybe it's down to a particular voice being better implemented on one compared to the other, or the file has been optimised for XG or GS. And the same can be true for e.g. speakers, where the peaks of a speakers response can enhance one particular file.
Added later And home speakers usually sound considerably different to PA ones.

So this is usually the first thing I try to eliminate when listening. i.e. try the files through different modules and speakers as well as headphones. Perceived "loudness" can make a difference too, where tweaking the volume up or down changes the way a file sounds.

But there are files which sound either good or mediocre despite these things. One of the things I look for is just how much reverb and chorus are used on each voice. This too can be system dependant and there can be a particularly sweet spot.

And what makes them what they are can be down to so many things, and the genre e.g. classical or jazz or rock or pop has a bearing on that too. Many classical files entered using notation software can sound good, but often sounds better when "played" in. In my experience nearly all rock/pop/jazz files sound better played in.

There are two main areas in which played files sound better, assuming the musician is moderately competent. First, the note velocities vary quite considerably from note to note, and in terms of dynamics during the song. Second the timing of the notes can have a drive (before the beat) or can be laid back (after the beat) and can often vary from verse to chorus for example. It can also vary from first to third beat in a standard 4/4 song. This is often particularly noticeable in the drum track. It tends to be true that heavily quantised files sound somewhat lifeless, i.e. always spot on the beat. And step sequenced or notated files nearly always have little or no variation in note velocities or dynamics.

Variations in tempo often make a file sound better, possibly slightly faster for the choruses, or for the last verse etc.

Another trick often used on good files is the doubling of voices, the U2 file you sent has this feature, where the 2nd channel 1 is doubled on channel 8, but with quite a few variations of notes and/or velocity, and one panned left a bit (45) the other panned well right (125). One is played moderately loudly the other softly. Because one track, the quieter one, has it's timing slipped back a sixteenth it gives a slight echo effect and a spaciousness to the sound over using a single track. Muting either one changes the sound considerably although they sound similar. Careful listening first to one then the other establishes that they aren't the same.

Try to isolate those two tracks and look at them in detail in notation view and in List View. Both tracks however use the same volume, reverb and chorus. Cleverly done IMHO.

That's just two tracks of one file!

These are just some of the things done. Analysing all this, as you can probably imagine, takes some time.

Any good so far?
JohnG.

[eljoe]

Thanks JohnG, After long time I'm getting some ideas about the indepth of midi files and I know I've a lot more way to go. Hope I'll succeed in making my midi files sound better. Thanks guys for helping me out.
eljoe