mfiles file types

mfiles provides free music files to download. If you are new to the world of music files or to downloading music files from the internet, then this is a guide to the different formats available and how they are produced for mfiles. To download a file in Internet Explorer you should normally just click on the link. To download the same file using Netscape Navigator you should "right-click" on the link and choose "save link as" to save the file to your harddisk before playing it.

MIDI Files

MIDI is a language that was developed to allow electronic musical instruments to talk to each other. That communication might be real-time, but equally it can be via a file. Such files are great for downloading over the internet because they are very compact. This is because MIDI files don't actually contain sounds but time sequenced instructions for playing music such as "play middle C quite loud now" and "stop playing middle C after 2 seconds". Because of this compact method for describing the music, a few pages of piano music will download very quickly, and it's only if you are downloading something like a large orchestral symphony that it might take several minutes to download using a standard modem.

The drawback of MIDI files is that the same file will sound very different played on different PCs. Since the file doesn't contain sounds but instructions, your PC's soundcard has to follow these instructions and generate the sounds using its own library of instrument sounds. Just as different musicians might play the same note in different ways, different makes and models of soundcards can vary in the sound they reproduce to emulate a musical instrument. Most soundcards follow the General MIDI standard for identifying musical instruments, and this standard is followed by most of the MIDI files on this site.

MP3 Files

Audio CDs contain high quality digital sound sampled at a very high rate, and you are probably aware that a CD can hold a vast amount of information or only about 70 minutes of music, so audio or "WAV" files are very big compared with the duration of the music they contain. MP3 files are simply digital music which is compressed in a form that compromises very little in quality by only removing the least noticable sounds. Even though MP3 files are compressed, they are still huge when compared to MIDI files. So if you are using a standard modem, be prepared to wait a while when downloading MP3 files. MP3 files are fine for downloading pop songs or short pieces, but can be a bit impractical currently for longer works. mfiles only provides MP3 files of shorter works for this reason.

Many MP3 files on the Internet are actual recordings played by real instruments and singers. The MP3 files on mfiles are created electronically simply by recording the sound output from playing the equivalent MIDI file. However, the MP3 files can be a convenient alternative to the MIDI files if you wish to play the music using an MP3 player, or if your soundcard isn't very good at rendering MIDI files. For many people, the easiest way to play MP3 files is using Windows Media Player which comes free with Windows. But if you don't have this or are looking for something a little more sophisticated, you can download a jukebox type application to play these files, such as Winamp or FreeAmp.

Sheet Music

mfiles provides Sheet Music in two formats. There is online sheet music which can be played using the Sibelius Scorch Plug-in. This is easy to download and install and is well worth the effort. In terms of the sound it sends MIDI information to your soundcard, so it has all the advantages and disadvantages of a MIDI file, but it also allows you to see the score on your screen and follow the music at the same time. You can start the music at any point just by clicking on that position in the score! The other format of sheet music provided allows you to download and print (for your own use only since this is not public domain). The printable music on the site is was previously in GIF format but has now been converted into PDF format allowing you to print better quality music with less effort. You need to use the free Adobe Acrobat Reader (from Adobe) to print the Sheet Music.

File Creation

The downloadable files within mfiles are in general all created in the same way. Firstly a sheet music version is created using the Sibelius music editing software. On its own this provides reasonably good playback using the Scorch plug-in and a Sibelius feature called "expressivo" which makes the music less mechanical sounding. Usually, though, hidden codes are added to vary the tempo and dynamics subtly to make the playback appear more natural. Sibelius export facilities are used to create:

• A scorch web-page using the mfiles template,
• The Sibelius file is printed using the tool "FinePrint pdfFactory" to create PDF format output
• A midi format file, though currently repeats and "da capos" have to be added manually,
• An MP3 file is then created by capuring the WAV output when the MIDI file is played through a Yamaha SW1000XG soundcard. This WAV file is then compressed into MP3 format at 32 kb.

So in other words, with a few exceptions, the Sibelius sheet music is the source material for the creation of all the other file types. As new features are added to Sibelius, if they enhance the formatting or playback of mfiles music then we will use these to improve the quality of our music files, updating our Sheet Music, MIDI files and MP3 files.

This website and all the music files it contains have been created on a specialist music system from Carillon.