So you’re probably thinking “Great I finally found a page that will help me get started using MIDI. Errrk Wrong, not yet sorry. But that certainly is my goal. So in the classic case of the blind leading the blind Here we go I’m going to try to distill that antiquated mountain of MIDI information into something a mere mortal can leverage into making (good sounding) music from MIDI files. So to be clear I have lots of resources and experience as a product manager so while I may stumble or leverage some pretty high end equipment the goal is to enable you and I so I’ll list details of what I use and the general terms of what you’ll need when sourcing the alternatives.

Let me be clear about my objectives to confirm we’re on the same path with common goals. I’m a musician and so my goals with MIDI are as follows:

1. To be able to download and play midi files in high fidelity clearly hearing every instrument and sounding as close as possible to the original recordings.
2. To be able to isolate any instrument or combination of instruments adjust volume from mute to full volume.
3. To be able to edit any given instrument to make it more appropriate for my arrangement which tends towards acoustic covers of the song.
4. Be able to create my own MIDI accompaniment from scratch or leveraging parts of other MIDI files.

So with that as our agenda I’m off to the races. Next step, MIDI Building Blocks detailing what you need to play with MIDI.