There's a nice (if rather breathless in tone) introduction to it at: (see screenshot far left). One term for a new type of format that does exactly this is 'Structured Audio', and that's what I'm looking at this month. So, what if there was a new standard, a compact audio file format that, like a MIDI file, described the behaviour of the music (with note events, controller and tempo data, and so on), but which also described the sounds that should be used in conjunction with the MIDI‑like file? Files in this format could be transmitted over the Net reasonably quickly, and would always sound the same. Compressed audio formats such as MP3 help with the file‑size problem, but audio quality can suffer. Uncompressed CD‑quality audio results in file sizes that are too large to download practically, even with the fastest computers and modem connections. Now that the Internet is taking off so rapidly, there are new demands on the creators of audio formats and standards - people want to be able to place music on the web for others to download (and, of course, they need to ensure that it always sounds the same, irrespective of who is playing it back). That's what General MIDI is for, of course, and as demands have grown for greater control possibilties outside the GM spec but retaining the same degree of standardisation, so 'extended standards' like Roland's GS and Yamaha's XG have been developed. To ensure that what you record plays back in a similar way on someone else's setup, you need a standard soundset. Problems can arise if you want to be able to give files to others to listen - if other people cannot replicate your sounds, the file could sound completely different on playback. And I can show you why! From MIDI To Structured AudioĪs an SOS reader, you'll be aware that MIDI files are 'descriptive' representations of music - they contain a 'recipe' for the music, but the sounds themselves are stored and generated externally, in a synth or other sound‑generating MIDI device. In five years time, you won't be downloading MP3 files for audio music, MIDI Files will be part of a larger standard, synthesizers may well share a common language for describing the synthesis techniques they use, and even sample CDs will be very different in how they work. If you had told most people 10 years ago that musicians now would be collaborating over a computer network, publishing pages about their bands on a medium which more than a hundred million people could read, and that you would be able to download CD‑like digital audio via a computer - well, they'd have laughed. This has two effects: firstly, things get done faster (although often the programs expand to utilise all the extra speed and there is no net gain) and secondly, things which were impossibly slow to do become possible. Is MP3 the ultimate audio file format? No! Martin Russ looks at net resources dealing with what lies beyond.Ĭomputers continue to get faster and faster.
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