Recommendations for software on MIDI playback?

[ajmas]

I have been given some midi files, but I have no hardware synthesizers. Can anyone recommend any software only solutions for playing back MIDI files on the Mac?

[DeltaMac]

What have you tried, so far?
I have several hundred MIDI files. Most will play with the default Quicktime Player, either the Quicktime 10 that is now part of OS X, or the optional Quicktime 7 player.

I also use Qmidi - which seems to continue to be supported. It provides options to play other types of midi files, like karaoke, etc.
There's others that will give you an interface to play MIDI files, such as VLC.

[benwiggy]

The QuickTime X Player hands MIDI files over to QuickTime 7. If you haven't installed that, then you'll need to. I think you should get asked if you want to install it from Apple when you try to run a MIDI file in QT X.

[WillyT]

You can get much "better" sound from Quicktime if you add Soundfonts to the synthesizer banks.

Some of my free favorites are Musica Theoria and Unison.

Soundfonts

Put these in /Library/Audio/Sounds/Banks

Then select the bank you want to use in Preferences->Quicktime.

You need to quit Quicktime for a bank change to take effect.

[benwiggy]

Thanks for the link (though very slow at their end). I can't find the Preferences option to switch soundfonts, in QT 7, QT X, nor in System Prefs > QuickTime (which doesn't exist anymore). Can you explain where it is? Might it be a Pro setting?

While we're making recommendations: SimpleSynth is a freeware app that lets you use the system samples from a MIDI keyboard. Highly recommended.

[DeltaMac]

That's my experience, too, benwiggy.
The sound banks for QuickTime must be for QuickTime Pro only, which I don't have.

I put the soundfont file in my root Library, and that did show up after I restarted my Mac, in System Preferences/QuickTime.
That's in 10.5 - not sure where you need to go when the QuickTime prefs don't show in System Preferences now.

[benwiggy]

According to this venerable hint, it's in the System Preference pane for QuickTime, but that seems to exist no longer.
http://hints.macworld.com/article.ph...20607084544928

First time I've noticed it missing, though it seems to have been removed with the introduction of Snow Leopard! Perhaps a defaults write command can still do it?

I do have QT Pro for v7, apparently.

[WillyT]

Yeah I'm kinda slow 0.6Mbps upload.

Also I'm on 10.5.8 so pre Snow Leopard.

You might look in /System/Library/PreferencePanes and access it from there if it exists.

[benwiggy]

Quote: Originally Posted by WillyT You might look in /System/Library/PreferencePanes and access it from there if it exists.

No, it's gone. It was removed with Snow Leopard.