How to convert midi files to audio

[melanda]

Hi,
Could someone please help me. How do I convert midi files to audio so that I can listen to it on my CD player?

[jack50]

hey melanda. i've used 2 methods. the first is to download midi to wave (or mp3 ) software. i have used midi2wave and another program called ease midi converter. what i found was these programs usually use your computer's internal sound cards sounds. i use a roland sc-88 and a casio keyboard which connect through the usb.
in order to get the sounds from my external devices, i took the 2 outputs on my roland (red and white rca on the back of the roland for right and left) and put them into the aux input on my sound card. next i turned on my sound forge program from sonic foundry. next i start the recording on the sound forge and press play on the midi compilation on sonar. the song is recorded and can be saved as mp3 or wave.
there may be better ways out there , but these methods are solid . they've worked for me every time.

[Cookiemuncher]

Bumped into this thread when searched the solution for the same problem and it helped me. Thanks for suggestions!
BTW I'd like to share what I've found about MIDI conversion and this tutorial might help you as it helped me too.

[Origami]

yup all of those methods work (well, kinda). The short answer is that you can't. MIDI isn't sound, it isn't audio. What it is -is a bunch of information that tells a synthesizer which notes to play, when and for how long. It's very similar to sheet music. You can give sheet music to a piano player and they all can play it, but every single one is going to sound a little bit different. Same with MIDI, because every piece of equipment has it's own audio device / sound card. MIDI in and of itself is nothing but information, once that information is given to the synth- it can be played. That can then be recorded, but in all honesty, I've found that it's almost always a disappointment. Hope that helped just a little.

[Angkhana]

Thanks a lot The Shares

[merababa]

Thanks a lot for sharing the excellent Information..............

[skowix]

yup all of those methods work (well, kinda). The short answer is that you can't. MIDI isn't sound, it isn't audio...

You're absolutely right. I guess however since this is a beginner forum, people might use inappropriate words to say what the would like to learn. Still you're right again that recording a midi output is almost always a disappointment.

For an alternative solution, I'd recommend using sound samples for midi notes. There are even some great multi-samples out there. The difference between multi- and ordinary samples is that in the first case each sound of an instrument is sampled and you almost get the feeling and sound of a real instrument.