Hi all,

I was just wondering do any of u guy know where I can find a FREEWARE which can convert MIDI files into WAV files?

Thanks in Advance

Al

You may have a hard time with that one.
MIDI files do not contain any music, only data. A wave file on the other hand does not contain any DATA, only music. The two are not the same animal. One (midi) will tell your keyboard or computer what notes to play on what instruments at what time, and the other is just a song.
Having said that, I just tried QuickTime 6 and opened a Midi file and chose "export" and then chose "music to AIFF". It worked fine and from there you can open the new AIFF file and convert it to a wave file if you want doing the same thing.
The other way is to play the midi on your keyboard and record it on your computer or mini-disk or whatever.

Have you tried just looping back your sound card's output to its input, playing the midi, and using a wav recorder to capture the sound?

http://www.midi2wav.com/

http://www.nmt.edu/tcc/swinv/timidity++/2.9.2/man/timidity.1.html

I have always used "mp3 to wav studio". It is free, and converts most formats. Can't remember where I found it, but it was out there. Just do a google search.
Keith

The actual name is, Remixer MP3 To Wav. It can be found at www.remixer.com . Great program, best price :)

There are several free online services, like media-convert.com, that allow converting files without any sound card. But I don't use them, as my internet connection is not quite perfect, and I have quite a number of midis. Such free programs offer a very limited number of soundfonts and slow down conversion. That's why I use a special program-converter that is called MIDI Converter Studio (http://www.maniactools.com/soft/midi_converter/index.shtml). I am very satisfied with it and will recommend it to everybody.

Check your sound card mixer. Some sound card in the recording mode has a "What-U-Hear" device. That will be the easiest way to record MIDI to wave format. That is digital to digital copying the audio data output from the sound card into wave format.

Rhett hit it - everyone else kind of passed. Midi data as some point is converted into audio. Once it's audio it can be recorded however you like. Mp3 to wav is just one kind of audio to another.

The problem with midi is that imagine a simple piano sound. The $15 soundcard produces something vaguely like a piano, but it wouldn't convince the most tone-deaf person it was a real piano. However, for $1000 you can create in your computer something almost, but not quite indistinguishable from the real thing. Most midi synths in sound cards follow the GM original soundset - so piano is always program 1, a nylon strung guitar being 25, with a bass guitar on 34 etc. A common system for types of sound, but no common ground on realism. Everybody who uses midi have their own favourites. I, for example use a Roland synth for some sounds, but the trumpets are really horrible, so I use an EMU unit for those. A yamaha provides a nice bass or two, and lots of samplers and synths exisit for other instruments.

So it's easy to convert a midi file into a wav file - but the end product depends on the quality of the synthesiser in the sound card. Better audio quality sound cards don't even have the midi synth in them, because it's not economic or practical.

If you give a midi file to people who work with them, what you would get back from everyone would be the right notes, but very different interpretations of what perhaps a distorted electric guitar should actually be.

So basically quite simple, but to get good results, then a lot of time and kit are needed - but that depends on what it's for.

An audio file is worth a thousand words.

Here's a MIDI file of Queen's "Killer Queen" that I found on the Internet. If you have Quicktime installed, it should play it from your browser:

http://p3pictures.com/BadMidi/KillerQueen.mid

And here is the same MIDI file rendered from a high end sampler with a General MIDI library loaded. It's still stiff and cheesy, but the choir sounds quite different.

http://p3pictures.com/BadMidi/KillerQueen.mp3

On the other hand, with a high end library, time and talent, MIDI can do amazing things. Check out the following version of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring performed and programmed by Jay Bacal. This requires thousands of dollars worth of samples and either many computers or many layered renders. The programmer might select different samples for notes from a single line of a single instrument (sustain, legato, staccato, portato, marcato, with and without vibrato). If they are really good, they can select the sample with one hand while playing the melody with the other hand and controlling expression with foot pedals or a wind controller. In essence, one plays the MIDI samples as its own musical instrument.

VIENNA SYMPHONIC LIBRARY > COMPANY > NEWS > The Rite of Spring (http://vsl.co.at/en/65/71/1590/1242.vsl#)

If you're more into rock and roll, check out this video from Prominy. They sampled a Les Paul Custom playing every note and technique that you can think of. Here, the creator of the lib is playing the guitar part of this song live, selecting each "articulation" on the fly:

http://www.prominy-ss.com/LPC/LPC_super_p_multi.mov

Anyway, MIDI can be used to do amazing things, or to make really cheesy "music". A General MIDI converter is almost always a cheese generator. :)