- 1. Who is Veky?
Vedran ~Ca~ci~t, UCID (HR-JMBG) 11*13*239*44093407,
mathematician from Croatia (of course, veky@math.hr ),
weird man in many ways, and MIDI fan among other things.
- 2. What is VMA2002?
Veky's MIDI Archive, frozen at 2002-06-08T20.
Contains 979 karaoke and 766 pure MIDI files, total 1745 files.
(If you like numbers, it's more than 108 hours and 42 minutes,
that is, more than four and a half _days_ of continuous playing
- you can't even stay awake that long...)
There are no exact duplicates, but in some cases there are
multiple (at most 4) versions of the same song/melody.
It is not perfect and it will never be, but it's
probably better arranged than anything of that kind you'll
encounter in the wilderness of Internet.
- 3. What do all these ^#=+-%$&()[]... mean?
These constitute concise notation for common phrases describing
musical files (like some kind of ID3 encoded in filename):
^ by
$ featuring / alternative artist
& and
# version (1..4) - less is usually better
- the song is originally instrumental
% from (movie or something) / theme
~ unknown (usually in %~)
= mark - nothing important to wider public
+ link to lyrics database - shouldn't mean much to you
(xyz) note about language / theme / alternative genre, eg:
(ita) Italian
(aus) Australian
(xms) Christmas
(par) parody
(dpt) adapted
(rmx) remix
(bgr) blue grass etc.
(...) alternative name for the song
[] for distinguishing different songs with the same main name
.mid The file is pure MIDI file
.kar The file is in karaoke format (has lyrics embedded in it)
and so on... if you don't know what something is for, you can
always ask me via mail.
- 4. Some data about songs is incorrect!
What should I do?
First, ask yourself: "Do I think it's important?". If the answer
is negative, continue living happily - I will, too...
If the answer is positive:
- change it if you want, just leave the format (^%#$-stuff) the same
(of course, you can add data, but don't delete some tags just
because "you are sure that guy doesn't sing that" (and you don't
know who does) - some information is better than no information)
- notify me via mail about it. I'll be grateful.
- 5. Are there any eastereggs in VMA2002?
Yes. Here is a hint for one: Fox Mulder.
- 6. What do you mean by "clean" archive?
If you have seen archives on the Internet, you know what I am
talking about.
- There are no exact duplicates.
- Versions of the same melody are clearly identified with #1..#4.
- There are no fake-length files (files of eg. 30 minutes, with
only 4 minutes of play - in many cases I have hex-fixed them
myself!)
- Every file can be played via any MIDI player (I hope, if you
see a counterexample please mail me!), even Windows Media Player,
and it won't crash your OS down (this may sound like an
exaggeration if you haven't seen it yet, but it can happen)
- I have done my best to normalize the volume, but there are still
some too loud/silent files - it's a lot of work to do, and it
cannot be automated, because human sense for volume is fairly
subjective.
- Most (although not all) files are classified by artist.
- ^%#$-naming enables you to see much from the filename only, and
still the sorting preserves natural order of songs & versions.
Also, you can determine if a song has lyrics in it just by
looking at file extension.
Moreover, you can do nice things by searching with wildcards.
- The best argument I have: I listen to all these MIDIs almost
every day (of course, I need approximately two weeks to cycle
through all of them)!
- 7. What are karaoke (.kar) files?
These are like ordinary MIDIs (and can be played via any MIDI
player, although for some players you might have to change the
file extension from .kar to .mid - usually, even if the player
doesn't recognize .kar extension, drag&drop works), but which
have a few (usually one) MIDI tracks reserved for displaying
lyrics of the song synchronously with playing. Of course, to
enjoy them fully, you have to have karaoke-enabled player.
- 8. MIDI files sound awful on my computer!
What should I do?
Get a better soundcard. Allright, you don't have to, but it's the
simplest way. The quality of MIDI files played can be drastically
affected by some settings on the soundcard. See your soundcard
manual for enabling "wavetable", "polyphony", and other parameters
connected with MIDI output. After some playing, you will probably
be surprised how one music file can sound in so many different
variations...
- 9. Why MIDI? (Why not MP3?)
- MIDI files are smaller. A lot.
You know about image formats?
This comparison might help you:
.wav .bmp (dumb sequence of bytes)
.mp3 .jpg (lossy compression, good ratio)
.mid .tif (vector graphics - forms, not pixels)
Average song in .wav is about 50 Mb. MP3, ingenious format for
compressing digital music, shrinks that to about 5 Mb. Yet, MIDI
file for the same song is about 50 Kb. How?
- MIDI is like vector (vs. bitmap) graphics - it doesn't encode
sounds, it encodes musical notes. This way, music is reppresented
as something it really is - and not what the human ear hears of it.
- MIDI doesn't care about the most important reason why .mp3 files
must be so big - human voice carries so much information (much more
than you are probably aware of), and that is why it is so hard to
compress it. MIDI files don't have human vocals in them (and that
is the reason some people hate them - for me it is the reason to
love them), and so that problem doesn't exist for MIDI.
- For many things, MIDI assumes your soundcard already has them, and
contains only pointers to these sections of "music code", which your
soundcard usually just skips if it doesn't know anything about them.
So, if you have good soundcard, you MIDIs will probably sound even
better than MP3s, but on awful soundcard, they will sound... well,
awful. Even more, MIDI files that were made 20 years ago (if they
were made in smart way, which many of them were) get better and
better with every new generation of soundcards.
MIDI files are free. Well, not all, of course, but a non-free
MIDI is harder to find than a completely free MP3, for example.
No more feelings that you steal something from somebody, no more
hiding your best music "just in case", if you switch to MIDI
completely. The world would be much happier place if we could in
any situation look each other in the eyes, without feeling of guilt
of any kind. If you use free software, you know my point.
MIDI files are customizable. To do many things mentioned here,
you have to know more about MIDI, but you will learn about it,
if you are interested enough.
Want to mute that sax over there? Want louder drums on channel 10?
Want to hear that guitar solo? Want to change key from E to C?
Want to know how some instrument of exotic name sounds alone?
Want to know the name of that exotic-sounding instrument?
Want to change some instrument to another, which you like better?
Want to have louder echo/variation/chorus effect?
Want to slow down (or speed up) MIDI reproducing, to fit your
current mood? Want to play MIDI file in reverse?
Want to convert MIDI file to note sheet?
All this (and more) can be done relatively easy.
MP3 players have equalizers. And that's about it. Most MIDI players
have much more.
MIDI files don't have human voice in them.
Although some people see this as the biggest MIDI drawback, there
are some good points associated with that:
- You can more easily concentrate to your mental work
when you listen
to music only, without words (at least I can). Many things you
previously had to turn off music for, you can do now while listening
to MIDI - try it.
- For songs with lyrics you don't like, you can sing your own,
without interfering with "real" lyrics. You can even save them to
.wav or .mp3 and reproduce in parallel with accompanying MIDI...
or save them with MIDI as karaoke file.
Many very humoristic parody songs were made that way - some of them
are in VMA2002, too (search for "*(par)*", if you have
karaoke-enabled player).
- It is much easier to manipulate melody without voice. If you play
MP3 file in reverse, you usually get garbage. If you play MIDI file
in reverse, you get... well, something you can listen to.
- 10. How can I get most of MIDI?
- vanBasco - homepage
for the best free karaoke player
in the world - in my opinion, of course. It's not too complicated for
beginners, and has some very interesting options... It is skinnable,
contact me to get a skin I consider more useful than the default one.
- MIDI Explorer - the best
(again, IMO) MIDI files search
engine on the Internet - about 20% of VMA2002 is located via it.
- Google
Search - recommended starting place
for learning about MIDI.
- mail - contact me
to get some useful files,
especially (if you are power MIDI user and are not afraid of
scripting)
m2t tools,
which enable you to edit MIDI files as text.
Note: Although this may sound interesting to you,
don't do it if you don't
know much about MIDI (for example, if you didn't know what MIDI was
before you saw VMA2002).
- Yamaha - excellent
soundcards...
- 11. This archive is great! How can I thank you?
- Significant part of my life was spent organizing these MIDIs.
Please appreciate that. Don't rename the files unless some details
are wrong. Also, be thankful to sequencers, people who made these
MIDIs - don't delete their messages embedded in files, even if
you know how to do it - they mean something to these people, even
if they don't mean anything to you.
- If you plan to put these MIDIs on the web, don't put whole archive.
Put at most 200 songs you like the most. Show that you have at least
seen all these files and said "I like it." or "I don't like it." for
all of them. Also, not only for files from VMA2002, it is considered
polite to say where the files on the web are from.
- Unless you got this archive directly from me, please email me
saying who gave it to you. I'd like to keep track of where that MIDIs
go from me.
- This archive is distributed under "Careware" concept.
You can read more about Careware on
Arachnoid
- please do, it is certainly worth reading...
That's about it. If you have any further questions, mail me.