Turn my house into a Nordstroms!

May 24, 2007 7:20 PM

MIDI-playback on a Yamaha Digital Piano: How do I get downloaded midi files to sound good?

I bought a Yamaha Digital Piano (YPG-625) to relearn some of my childhood piano skills. However I see another use for it, as a semi jukebox.

The preloaded MIDI songs sound awesome. Ditto for the ones that are provided on the Yamaha CD. But they are like 30 second demos.

The MIDI's I've downloaded thru the net however don't sound as good. (I've only tried the ones from www.classicalarchives.com). They sound decent, exactly like how it sounds on my computer. It doesn't seem like the Digital Piano is playing back with the Grand Piano sound set it comes with, but something generic.

I'm thinking that I need to modify the midi so that the piano part maps to the Grand Piano sound set, but I have no idea how to approach this.

Side topic question: Any suggestions for background music, a la what the pianist plays at Nordstroms?

posted by mphuie to sports, hobbies, & recreation (3 comments total)

Chances are the MIDI files you've downloaded off teh interwebs don't have much going on in their CC Events (Continuous Controller Commands). The CCs are things like volume, aftertouch, velocity, modulation, pitch bend, etc. Not all of these will be applicable to piano, but a lot of them will, especially volume, velocity and aftertouch.

What you've likely downloaded is a bunch of on/off commands for specific notes. That's pretty dry and mechanical. Messing about with the CCs can breing a "human" element to the music.

Here's an article that can explain it better than I can.

You're likely going to have to find an application that will allow you to make the modifications, if you don't have one already.
posted by lekvar at 8:21 PM on May 24, 2007

The midi files you downloaded are designed to play with the General MIDI soundset. When you upload them to the piano, they use this set rather than the enhanced Yamaha sounds.

What you need to do is find the program and bank numbers for the sets you want to use, then add program change and bank change messages to the beginning of the MIDI files.

This will require a Midi editor like Cubase or some programming skill and a copy of the MIDI spec. (There is a Perl module for MIDI that may work, if you know perl)
posted by b1tr0t at 8:23 PM on May 24, 2007

Yamaha's XG MIDIs kick total ass over GM. I found a website in Japan that sells them for 5 for Y500, and I'm in heaven. 80s synth pop (like "Here Comes the Rain Again") is VERY hard to tell from the original, until the flute-as-vocal comes in.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 8:38 PM on May 24, 2007