Hi Tom,
I'm in late but hope this helps:
1) QuickTime has been playing MIDI files since version 1, and still do, just
call your .mid file in by selecting "import" instead of the regular "open".
QT will then import in and set it as a movie player file, which, as
mentioned, you can then "Export" (with the Player Pro version) as an AIFF
file (or .WAV, etc.) be sure to select 44.1k sampling rate with a 16-bit
word length. If your QuickTime download doesn't play it, Apple may have
migrated that particular option to the "Pro" (i.e. You pay $29.95) edition
of QuickTime (which I've always had), but I doubt it. You should be able to
import, however, export is enabled only with the full Player Pro version.
2) MIDI files are not even made of notes; just code, a very efficient <32k
code at that, telling an awaiting device with set parameters (such as ROMs
or wavetables) to respond according to the instructional bytes being
broadcast by the engine (traditionally called the sequencer). The QuickTime
sounds (which used to be the OS 7.x "QT Musical Instruments" extension) are
a wavetable of sampled aura parameters, preconfigured in such a way as to
tell the CPU to oscillate "just so" to create just the right blend of wave
pattern at just the right frequency with just the right % of strengths for
each sympathetic partial (and just the correct partials too) to emulate a
tone color that our ears recognize as an instrument; other bytes of MIDI
data will tell this "instrument" (as mentioned, also called "patch" or
"program" or "tone", with a patch bank also sometimes called a tone table)
to play at a certain pitch, for how long, at what volume, located at what
pan setting, how much modulation, and at what clock speed (metronome). Quite
cool. Basically, QT is your sequence (the file), and when it is playing, QT
is also your sequencer; the CPU is the instrument's "brain" with the
resident wavetable being its "brawn", so to speak. IIRC, Opcode was the
first in Mac worlds to coerce/convince Roland to sell them the MT-32
algorithms so that they could create a wavetable for use with their early
sequencing applications, which eventually became the QT Musical Instruments
extension in QT 2. Nowadays your better wavetables would use samples,
digital mappings (ADC) of actual instrument tones; even better wavetables
use multi-samples, combining separate samples of each of the instrument's
registers to assemble an even more accurate instrumental character. If you
want even better sounds, get a good synthesizer.
3) iTunes can indeed play and export in AIFF files; I do it all the time.
Just go to "Preferences" and select the "Importing" button. Open the "Import
Using" menu and select AIFF Encoding. Choose "Custom" instead of automatic,
and you can select your own sample rate and bit depth (word length). Choose
44.1K and 16-bit for CD format.
Hope this helps a bit (no pun intended).
Best regards,
Dana
On 12/10/04 1:47 PM, Tom Baker of [EMAIL PROTECTED] sent
> Thanks Brandon. I went to the Apple site and bought QuickTime Pro, and
> used it to convert the MIDI files to AIFF. Then I thought iTunes would
> play them, but it won't, only QuickTime Player will. iTunes they are
> grayed out.
>
> I burned all the new AIFFs onto a CD using Toast and popped it in the
> Mac, but iTunes won't play it, nor will it import anything off it
> (they're still grayed out).
>
> If I double click any of the songs, QuickTime Player opens up, and
> it's the only thing that will play them. QuickTime Help is a confused
> mess to me (oh, for a real manual!) so I can't figure out how to get
> iTunes to play these newly converted AIFFs.
>
> Anybody know how I can get iTunes to play or import them? Why should
> these AIFFs be different from any others?
>
> TIA
>
> Tom
>
>
>
> On Dec 10, 2004, at 5:38 AM, Brandon Wise wrote:
>
>> Those are MIDI files. They contain basic information about the song
>> such as the patches (instruments) used, the notes played, the
>> velocity, etc. You have to have a MIDI sound source to play these
>> files back. In some cases that could be a musical keyboard, or
>> QuickTime since it has a MIDI sound system as part of its framework.
>> iTunes, won't recognize them becase they aren't digital audio, they
>> are data files.
>>
>> You might be able to use QuickTime Pro to export them to a digital
>> audio format: AIFF, ACC, etc., but I'm not 100% on that. There are a
>> number of MIDI packages for the Mac, as music has always been one of
>> its fortes. Google away and good luck.
>>
>> Hope this helps,
>> Brandon in Durham
>>
>>
>> On Thu, 9 Dec 2004 23:50:47 -0700, Tom Baker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>> I have a bunch of piano music pieces on my hard drive with the suffix
>>> .mid. I don't remember how they got there, but I like the music.
>>>
>>> However, iTunes won't play them, import them, or convert them, unless
>>> I don't know how to make it do it. I can navigate to the folder
>>> they're
>>> in, but iTunes shows them as grayed out. I thought maybe I could use
>>> iTunes to convert them to aiff, so that I could drop them into iMovie,
>>> but you can't choose something that's grayed out.
>>>
>>> So I thought I'd try to burn them to a CD with Toast 6, then see if
>>> iTunes would import them from the CD (as well as have a nice music
>>> CD),
>>> but Toast won't accept them ("not in a supported format").
>>>
>>> I tried to drop one into iMovie, but after the colored wheel spun for
>>> awhile it disappeared and there's nothing in the sound track.
>>>
>>> If I double-click on them, Quicktime will play them, and they sound
>>> great, but that's about all I can do with them.
>>>
>>> So, what are these weird .mid things, and does anybody know how I can
>>> convert them into something that iTunes, Toast, and iMovie will
>>> recognize?
>>>
>>> This is iTunes 4.7 and iMovie 4 on a G4 running 10.3.6.
>>>
>>> Any help appreciated very much!
>>>
>>> Tom
>>>
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>>
>> --
>> Brandon Wise
>>
>> "A wit has said homo sapiens can be distinguished from the other
>> primates by the fact that whenever two or three of them are gathered
>> together, there you will find theological argument and fermented
>> liquor."
>>
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