MIDI stands for Musical Instruments Digital Interface. It is a cross-platform standard for interfacing musical instruments to a computer, and for playing music through a musical synthesizer such as that found on a computer sound card. The main benefit over other music files is the relative size, with the average MIDI file being between 20-50 kb.

To play MIDI files, you need the appropriate software (such as the Media Player in Microsoft Windows), a sound card (some computers, such as Macintosh, have this capability built in), and stereo speakers or headphones. On an IBM compatible PC, you need as a minimum a 16-bit sound card. Although you can play some MIDI files on the old 8-bit sound cards, the results are far from satisfactory.

You will get VERY SIGNIFICANT SUPERIOR SOUND with a "wavetable" sound card. With a standard sound card, the music will be satisfactory, but will definitely sound like it is coming from a synthesizer. With a wavetable card, it sounds like you are listening to the real thing. This also of course depends on the author of the MIDI file. A file 3 minutes in length with a size of 70kb is obviously going to sound more realistic than a file of 10kb.

 

 

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