MIDI Connections Lite

The easy to use, low cost, music computer program.

See the instructions on how to use MIDI Connections below and follow them with your free Demo program.

Fancy using your PC to edit MIDI files? The following article shows how to use the MIDI Connections program to transpose, edit tracks, change tempo, alter balances, add MIDI karaoke lyrics, and print your song. To help you understand these instructions, BCK are giving away a free demonstration version of the program for you to download. Now you can really get the most out of your MIDI files.

This free demo version is exactly the same as the full version, except you can not save alterations, and you can only print the first page of music.

To download click on the gold button (above), you will be given a choice to open or save to disk (your hard drive), chose save to disk. Once downloading is complete you will be given the choice to open, click on open and follow the on screen instructions to complete the loading process.

Starting MIDI Connections Light. Click on the MIDI Connections icon to start the program. You will see a Windows style panel with three buttons named "Band", "Tape", "Exit". To play and edit MIDI files you need to click on the button named "Tape". The main Window appears. Take a moment to look around the Window. At the top you will see MIDI - Tape : Noname.tsn, immediately under this is the line of menu items reading from the left File Edit Tools etc. The next distinctive features are red and yellow horizontal lines. These are the tracks that will contain the music information on your MIDI file. To the left of these, under the box that says MIDI Connections, you will see a section that will contain information about the instruments used, volume settings, MIDI channel numbers, track numbers, etc. At the moment, all but the top track is blank. Another feature to notice is the 'tape recorder' style controls at the bottom of the page. The green triangle starts the MIDI file running, the red square stops the MIDI file. You can press the start now and see the cursor line move from the left of the track towards the left, but you will not hear anything because we have not yet loaded a MIDI file.

Loading a MIDI file. Strictly speaking, you don't load a MIDI file, you Import it. To do this, put a MIDI file disk in the floppy drive (the following assumes the floppy drive is drive A). Go to the menu section at the top of the page and click on File. From the drop down list choose Import MIDI file. A panel will appear. with two lists. the left hand one is called file, the right one is directory. Go to the directory list and double click on the [-a-] after a few moments. a list of MIDI files on the floppy disk will appear in the left hand file list. Choose a song by double clicking on the one you wish to load. Another option panel will appear. At this stage you do not need to select any options, just click on the button that says GO. The chosen MIDI file will now start to load.

Playing a MIDI file. Now that the song has been imported, listen to it by pressing the green triangle start button. If you don't hear anything, don't worry. On many sequencer programs, setting up the sound card can be a real pain, but MIDI Connections has a really neat method of doing this. Instructions for setting up your sound card are included with the full and demo programs.

Exploring the tracks. You will have noticed that after you imported a MIDI file, the screen has changed. You now have long grey stripes where the yellow stripes were, only the red stripe remains at the top (this is reserved for recording). Each grey stripe represents a track, and contains the note information for the instrument sound used on the track. Follow the line of the top grey track to the left. You will see a black rectangle: this becomes a level meter when the song is playing. To the left of the meter you can see the volume level number. Continue looking to the left and see an icon that represents the instrument 'family', then the all important MIDI channel number, followed by a grey rectangle (you can enter a track name here), and finally the track number. Each track has it's own individual settings as described above.

Removing a track (instrument). Because track one is reserved for recording, it's usual to find that the track number is 1 higher than the MIDI channel number. If you want to remove the melody track, go to the MIDI channel number that contains the melody notes (on all BCK MIDI files, the melody is on MIDI channel 4), double click on the grey rectangle to the left of the MIDI channel number, and a panel with a volume control appears. Slide the volume to 0 to mute the track. This can be done to as many tracks as you wish. Alternatively, adjust the virtual mixer to zero volume on the track you wish to mute. Note, it is better to reduce the volume of a track as opposed to deleting it, as a deleted track can not be printed.

Transposing. MIDI Connections Light lets you either transpose individual tracks (great when printing parts for Bb instruments), or the entire song. In most instances you would transpose the complete song. Go to the top menu items and select Edit, then chose Global Transpose from the list. A panel with a slider lets you move a song up or down in semitone increments.

Altering instrument sounds. Click the instrument 'family' icon (next to the MIDI channel number). A list with instruments belonging to this family appears in the right hand box. Alternative families appear in the bottom left hand box. You can audition the sounds by clicking on the little keyboard picture. Once you have chosen the new instrument, click OK. All notes on the selected track will now play with this new sound. Alternatively, you can choose a sound on the virtual mixer

Viewing the tracks as music notes. Keep the mouse cursor over the long grey tracks (parts), then click the RIGHT hand mouse button. A 'tool box' will open. From the tool box select the button that looks like printed music. Double left click on the track (part) you want to view. Once in the notation Window, you can see the notes, delete them, or add extra with the insert & delete key of your PC keyboard and mouse pointer.

Add MIDI karaoke lyrics. The lyrics must first be typed in a word processor program, or Windows notepad. Each lyric word is typed with a space between syllables, and when complete, saved as a .TXT file. Open the songs melody track as notation (see above). From the menu items select tools then ASCII file import. Use the panel that appears to navigate to the .TXT file you prepared and select it. MIDI Connections Light automatically places each syllable to a note of the melody, thus following the rhythm of the song. Lyrics can then be edited or entered after pressing the 'T' button at the top of the page. Lyrics can also be viewed in the karaoke Window. Select View from the menu items, then Lyrics. The words are highlighted while the song is playing. If you would like to print the lyrics, go to the beginning of the first word, hold down the left button, and drag the mouse to the end of the last word to highlight all the words. Press and HOLD the keyboard Ctrl key, then press the C key, release Ctrl. All the words are then placed in Windows clipboard, and can be pasted to a word processor, or notepad for printing by pressing Ctrl and V.. Note, once lyrics have been added to a song, they can be exported to a disk and used on keyboards or MIDI file players that display MIDI lyrics.

Adding chord symbols. MIDI Connections Light is one of the few sequencers that can automatically analyse a MIDI file for a chord sequence. From the menu items, choose Tools/analyse song. MIDI Connections then checks every note and calculates the chord sequence. Once complete, chords can be seen and edited in the notation page, and the chord karaoke Window. Note, if you transpose the song after analysing, you must analyse again.

Guitar 'tab' chords. After analysing for a chord sequence, you can choose to show/print guitar tab chord symbols. Click Tools/set guitar chords. You can view and edit these in the notation page.

Printing music. Keep the mouse pointer over the long grey track (parts) and press the RIGHT mouse button to open the toolbox. Select the button with the printer icon. Double click on the track (part) you want to print. A preview screen appears for adjusting the way it prints. Note, the demo version only prints the first page. You may find that an excessive amount of sharps and flats appear, this would indicate that the key signature needs changing. This can be set up in the menu item Edit/Key signature. You can choose to print with a treble clef, bass clef, or both. This is set in the track properties, and can be different for each track.

For further instructions you can down load the full owners manual here (Acrobat reader program required)

The full working program of MIDI Connections Light Verion 5 is just £59.99.

Why not choose your OWN midifiles - and hear them BEFORE you buy! - CLICK HERE!