I Love Spotify, But I Miss My MIDI Trove

As a high school student in the late '90s, I relied on a lovingly currated selection of pop, alternative, video game and techno tracks to endure the tedium of homework. From early afternoon to late evening, WinAMP kept my beige Micron Millenia's 233Mhz Pentium MMX occupied, pumping tunes through its SoundBlaster Live! and out a pair of nubby Altec Lansing speakers. I wasn't listening to CDs and, even with the advent of Napster, I didn't have much in the way of MP3 files, which proved a bit too much for my anemic dial-up connection. So, for the most part, I listened to MIDI files. And I loved it.

The Music Instrument Digital Interface (aka MIDI) standard was established in 1983 to enable musicians to connect electronic instruments such as keyboards to computers. The standard also defined a file format to store performances and compositions for editing and exchange. Although not intended as a delivery format for music, a lively scene producing MIDI files for our listening pleasure nonetheless emerged in the 90s. In addition new music, these amateur and occasionally professional MIDI composers covered everything from pop hits to TV themes with, let's say, varying degrees of success. You see, unlike other digital audio formats, MIDI doesn't store representations of sound waves. MIDI directly encodes notes and some pre-defined characteristics of their expression such as tempo and vibrato. When you play a MIDI file, those notes are played back by a suite of synthesized instruments defined either in software or on the hardware itself. As a result, it's virtually impossible to recreate vocals and non-melodic sounds in MIDI. Even orchestral and piano scores where MIDI shines could sound like absolutely garbage depending on your computer's playback configuration.

Amassing a library of MIDI music devoid of earsores was no mean feat back in the 90s. I spent countless hours clicking through MIDI webrings on Tripod and Geocities for suitable arrangements and, along the way, was introduced to many new genres and artists. That experience, which combined hyperlinked discovery with instant playback, was in some ways quite similar to modern streaming services like Spotify. As impressive as those services are, however, there are a handful of things about the now defunct MIDI scene that I miss.

Negligable File Size

Your average MIDI rendition of a three-minute song weighed in at a miniscule 50kB. That's considerably less than the logo image in the top-left corner of this page. And that's uncompressed. Zip it and it became the digital equivalent of a mote of dust, perfect for sharing music in the early days of the Internet. Even if you were stuck on a 14.4kbps connection playback from a website was instantaneous and you could tack a favorite track onto an e-mail without a second thought. You'd think that decades of advances in compression, storage and bandwidth have negated these advantages over more complex representations such as MP3 and AAC, but I find myself seeking out ever larger SD cards for my Android phone's library whereas my entire MIDI trove never exceeded the boudns of a 100MB Iomega Zip diskette. Sadly, my choice of storage medium sealed the fate of my beloved MIDI trove which succumbed to the infamous Click of Death not long into the new millenium.

Artistry in Arrangement

The limitations of the MIDI format required composers to reinterpret the songs they covered, adding their own unique artistry to the mix. For some this meant little more than changing Gwen Stefani's iconic vocals into a series of trumpet blats, but others really went the extra mile to produce arrangements that were both pleasing to the ear and an intriguing commentary on their source material. Instruments were swapped out, solos augmented or redacted, original melodies and countermelodies woven in. It was extremely easy for amateur composers to iterate on each other's work with applications such as Cakewalk, which could render the contents of MIDI files on-screen with standard musical notation. With just a few clicks you could add a sick new bassline to the pop hit of the week, post it on a message board and get feedback. Try doing that on Spotify.

A Learning Tool

MIDI files were a godsend for aspiring musicians, or anyone who just wanted to learn how to play their favorite songs. As I mentioned earlier, readily-available applications like Cakewalk could present the various instrument parts encoded in any MIDI file in standard musical notation. I'm sure I'm not the only one who taught himself to play the Final Fantasy theme on piano by opening up a MIDI file. Jazz soloists have benefited immensely from software such as Band-in-a-Box that uses MIDI to provide synthesized accompaniments that tirelessly play any set of chord changes at any tempo they desire.

Inconsistency and Surprise

MIDIs have no embedded waveform data - the sounds heard during playback are determined entirely by the hardware and software configuration of the playback device. Although the General MIDI standard specifies what physical instruments its tracks are meant to represent it gave no guidance as to what they should sound like. On top of that, many proprietary extensions to General MIDI, such as a Yamaha XG, were in common use and challenged compatibility. What this meant in practice was that a file that sounded gorgeous on your computer could be comically bad on another. But to me, that was all part of the fun. Having the epic synth riff you thought would blow your friend's mind come out of his speakers as a farty trumpet or bovine sax... oh how I miss those little moments of unexpected levity.

More to Come

I'll soon be launching a series of MIDI mixtapes for your nostalgic enjoyment so, if you enjoyed this article, please come back and check them out.