Since 5/12/98, MIDI is pretty useless really, you need an expensive soundcard,
the music will sound different on different cards, and most of the
time you're lumbered with the instruments on the card. Having said
that, if you have a wavetable soundcard or a really fast machine with
a rubbish soundcard and something like the Yamaha wavetable software
(your computer does the hard work that a wavetable card normally
does). Look for it at
http://www.yamaha.co.uk but be
warned, the recommended spec is a P166MMX! If you really want MIDI,
visit the MIDI farm.
As you may have noticed on my other pages, I'm a bit of a Salamander
nut, and it had some of the best music in an arcade game. MIDI versions
of these tunes are available from
this
fan site it's from the US version of Salamander called Lifeforce.
A better system is the SoundTracker type music 'modules' that originated on the Amiga in the late 80's. These contain all the information required to replay the music almost exactly on any system that has a player, the instruments (samples) are included in the module. The drawback to the original .mod format is that it only allowed 4 samples to be played simultaneously (4 channels of sound), 2 channels for left and 2 for right. On the PC, .s3m, and .xm formats allow many more channels and stereo panning. All you need is a below average soundcard (or better), and your processor does all the hard work of creating the music for it to play.
Get a module player for your PC at these sites:
Castle X Mod player, browser plugin and tracker (composer) available here.
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Old Amiga module |
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Likewise |
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As above |
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Plinky |
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Cunning remix of the Auf wiedersehen Monty tune from the Spectrum |
You can get lots more modules from these sites:
The Mod archive
Castle X
Since 5/12/98, 
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