End of an Era

That's it.

I think the time has come for us to officially blow the whistle, for the general threat of the embedded MIDI file has been eradicated.

Sure, it pops up now and then where it shouldn't, what good virus doesn't? But mostly it has been contained to the uber-beginner, fresh off the htmlgoodies train and comfortably declaring themselves 'under construction' over on Angelfire. (which by the way, is now owned by Lycos. And I can't tell if the girl on the front page is excited, or having the worst migraine ever.)

Yes, the MIDI, a format first proposed in the early 80s so synthesizers could talk to computers is now mostly confined to recording studios and cell phones.

It wasn't always like that...

For those that may not have been into MIDI at all, it was the MP3 of 1992. You could download any song to hit the top 40 at about 50 to 100k each, a lot of which were horribly transcribed by Joe "I have no musical talent". Also, trying to organize them with the 8 character filename size limit at the time was impossible. you also needed a top of the line sound card if you didn't want your MIDI's to sound like a nintendo game. As much as MP3 completely destroyed most of the underground MIDI market (starting around 1995), it was hard for anyone interested in the format to switch, as 100k on a 56k connection seemed reasonable, while 3MB on the same connection did not, especially for one song.

Seriously though, the MIDI has it's time and place. It's still a popular and excellent tool to help young musicians learn through example. You could even say that it makes learning some songs a 'cakewalk'. /hahahah *tears*

...

/composure

But please, for everyone's sake, keep MIDI off your awesome web page.