!!! Important note !!!

This is the old official alt.binaries.sounds.midi FAQ as maintained by Vikram Pant. I've just included it on my site for your convenience. I don't maintain this FAQ! Also some or lots of the links and email addresses in this FAQ may be invalid, didn't checked them! Just removed some old navigation stuff and added an amazing/exciting background ,-)

Currently there's a discussion on a.b.s.m about re-newing the FAQ - you're invited to join us!

Download this FAQ as ZIP

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"Official" FAQ Maintainer: Vikram Pant (pant@sunsite.unc.edu)
"Previous" FAQ Maintainers: Viet-Tam Luu, Dave Williss (dwilliss@microimages.com)

To submit additions or changes, see Appendix B.

!!! FAQ last updated: December 14, 1996 !!!

Preface

A few points/thoughts I would like to mention:

• The abbreviation "a.b.s.m" has been changed to "a.b.s.midi" to avoid confusion with the group alt.binaries.sounds.mods (and possibly others).
• All sections marked with a pound sign (#) are being written, and all sections marked with an exclamation mark (!) have not been completed.
• Remember, this is the alt.binaries.sounds.midi FAQ; in other words, if you're reading this then this is your FAQ... CONTRIBUTE! See Appendix B for further information on how to do this.
• I, Vikram, recently took over as maintainer of this FAQ and will be updating it and changing it slightly, but most of the links might be out-of-date so I need YOUR help to weed out the dead and old information on this FAQ.

Index

• Introduction
• Changes
• 1. MIDI
  • 1.1 What is MIDI all about?
  • 1.2 What are "MIDI's"?
    • 1.2.1 What is GS and how is it different from GM?
  • 1.3 What are differences between sound files, .MOD-type files, and MIDI files?
  • 1.4 Why can't I convert a .WAV file to a MIDI file?
  • 1.5 What is a .KAR file?
  • 1.6 Can I convert a MIDI to a .WAV file?
• 2. alt.binaries.sounds.midi
  • 2.1 What is alt.binaries.sounds.midi all about?
  • 2.2 How do I decode MIDI files from a.b.s.midi?
    • 2.2.1 Can I get viruses from MIDI files?
  • 2.3 How do I send MIDI files to a.b.s.midi?
  • 2.4 Some guidelines for posting MIDI files
• 3. MIDI playback devices
  • 3.2 MIDI devices
    • 3.2.1 Gravis UltraSound / Ultrasound Max
    • 3.2.2 Turtle Beach Multisound Classic
    • 3.2.3 Turtle Beach Multisound Monterey
    • 3.2.4 Sound Blaster 2.0
    • 3.2.5 Sound Blaster 16
    • 3.2.6 Sound Blaster AWE32
    • (Add your favorite synth here) - Contribute
• 4. MIDI software
  • 4.1 MIDI sequencers
    • 4.1.1 Cakewalk / Cakewalk Pro
    • 4.1.2 Midisoft Recording Session / Studio
    • 4.1.3 WinJammer
    • (Add your favorite sequencer here) - Contribute
  • 4.2 MIDISCAN - MIDI OCR Software
  • 4.3 MIDI-file players
    • LOOKING FOR REVIEWS! - To submit review follow sample
    • (Add your favorite here) - Contribute
  • Links to MIDI player Collections
• 5. MIDI on the Internet
  • 5.1 What are some FTP sites where I can get MIDI and MIDI-related files?
  • 5.2 Where and how can I get the official MIDI spec's?
  • 5.3 Other MIDI-related addresses (WWW, etc.)
• Appendix
  • Appendix A - Off-line sources of information
  • Appendix B - Contributing to the a.b.s.midi FAQ
  • Appendix C - List of contributors

Introduction

This is the FAQ (Frequently-Asked Questions) document for the USENET newsgroup alt.binaries.sounds.midi (a.b.s.midi). Its objective is to answer questions that would be asked repeatedly (and answered) by users of a.b.s.midi (both new and not-so-new), and thereby free up the newsgroup to new discussion and MIDI files.

This FAQ document should be posted on a bi-weekly basis on alt.binaries.sounds.midi. In addition to this, the most recent revision may be found at any times at these addresses:

• FTP: (N/A)
• Gopher: (N/A)
• WWW:
  • United States - http://sunsite.unc.edu/pant/midi/absmfaq/ (HTML Version)
  • England - http://www.iprom.com/midi/absmfaq/ (HTML Version)
  • Russia - http://sunsite.cs.msu.su/Music/absmfaq/ (HTML Version)
  • Japan - http://SunSITE.sut.ac.jp/multimed/vmidi/absmfaq/ (HTML Version)
  • Australia - http://grissom.powerup.com.au/webmirror/midi/absmfaq/ (HTML Version)
  • Poland - http://sunsite.icm.edu.pl/midi/absmfaq/ (HTML Version)

Contributions to this document are welcome (and needed!). No credentials whatsoever are needed, though it might be nice if you know what you are talking about :-) . For more information on how to contribute to this FAQ document, see Appendix B.

Any opinions expressed in this document are solely those of their respective authors, and do not reflect in any way the views of the FAQ maintainer (unless if he is the author), or anybody else affiliated in any way with alt.binaries.sounds.midi.

Changes

• 17 Aug 96 - Vikram Pant took over as maintainer.
• 17 Jun 96 -- Changed extension from .shtml to .html and took out all Server Side Include things (counter and automatically upaded last mod date).
• 5 Jun 96 -- Broke down into smaller files.
• 13 May 96 -- Dave Williss took over as maintainer.
• 6 May 96 -- Moved the FAQ to a new home.