Music

My Music

Welcome to the music section. I use the computer to compose original video game music, as well as to sequence music from other video games.

This music is available in MIDI or MP3 format. The MP3s are recorded with a high-quality orchestral soundfont, and may contain customized instruments that do not play in the MIDI version.

All music, unless otherwise stated, is the legal property of Rob Diaz-Marino. Please do not distribute, modify, or remix my music without my express permission.

Enjoy!

What's a MIDI?

MIDI is an acronym for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, and the term is generally applied to any software or hardware involving computer-synthesized music. Basically, MIDI music files store the information about what musical note to play with what instrument, and at what time during the sequence. Also, it can store changes in volume, modulation, pitch bends etc. known as Controllers.

When a computer plays a midi sequence, it's actually up to the computer's Sound Card to interpret the data from the MIDI file, and play the appropriate sound, allowing you to hear the music. In this way, MIDI files are extremely efficient when it comes to file size, because the bulk of the information needed to produce music is already provided on your Sound Card.

The compromise is that MIDI music can sound completely different when synthesized by different brands of Sound Cards. Because of this discrepancy, I have provided MP3s, which are guaranteed to sound the way I intended them.

What's an MP3?

MP3s are the latest thing in music on the internet. MP3 stands for MPEG layer 3, a technical-sounding name which I won't get into. Unlike MIDIs, MP3s store all information necessary to produce music in an amazingly compact format.

As a contrast to the standard WAV sound files, a song of average length recorded in CD quality can easily reach 50-100 Megabytes, but an MP3 file can store the exact same song as 3-7 Megabytes with an almost inaudible reduction in sound quality!

Needless to say, music producers world wide wish to eliminate this format because illegal distribution of their music on the internet reduces CD sales. There will be none of that on this page! The MP3's I provide are strictly of my own compositions.

What's a SoundFont?

MIDIs and Sound Fonts work closely with one another. A Sound Font allows you to use your own custom instruments when playing MIDIs, in the place of whatever default your sound card may come with. Unfortunately, not all Sound Cards support Sound Fonts as they require large amounts of onboard memory to store.

If your Sound Card supports sound fonts, you can try out the compact version of the custom sound font I used before I bought a better one. I've eliminated several instruments that I seldom use in my compositions, reducing the size of the file to 6 Megabytes. Before downloading, be sure that your sound card actually supports Sound Fonts of this size!

A long time ago I had a Sound Blaster AWE 64 which only supported Sound Fonts under 500K. Now I have a Sound Blaster Live which has a spacious 46 Megabytes of onboard memory. But naturally, Soundfonts can get much larger than that...

© 2000 Rob Diaz-Marino. All rights reserved.