I'm wondering whether reMidi is worth it just for the royalty-free midi ("Baroque, Classical, Folk, Hymn, Jazz, March, Renaissance, and Romantic"). Can't examine the midi velocity closely in the trial version but there's definitely variation. Nothing sounds remotely virtuosic, though (so far). The trial doesn't include midi drag, but apparently that's the only way to get the midi files out of it, which is a bit annoying.
(It's on sale for $19 until February 9th, then going up to $40.)
Where to buy (or download from reputable source) genuine royalty-free classical midi?
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- KVRAF
- 2066 posts since 11 Aug, 2012 from omfr morf form romf frmo
Are you having trouble with Google searches? "Classical Music MIDI" turns up many good results, some free (with limits). But you also mention "virtuosic" so are you asking for MIDI with artistic license applied? The trouble with that is its dependence on a specific MIDI playback system.
ReMidi looks like they curated public domain stuff to create a database of melodies it can chop up. The curation is certainly work but the resulting tool is halfway between plagiarism without understanding and randomization. It's the worst of both worlds.
ReMidi looks like they curated public domain stuff to create a database of melodies it can chop up. The curation is certainly work but the resulting tool is halfway between plagiarism without understanding and randomization. It's the worst of both worlds.
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- KVRAF
- 1818 posts since 10 Jul, 2018
As OP noted, the vast majority of sites (Kunstderfuge, etc.) either say the midi is not for commercial use or are under a share-alike creative commons license. Granted, it's easy to use randomization, changing velocity, and checking against public domain scores to make it unlikely they'd be able to make a copyright claim, unless you say you used their midi.
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- KVRAF
- 1818 posts since 10 Jul, 2018
Went ahead and bought reMidi; it seems the vast majority of the midi notes are at the same velocity. Disappointing, since variations in velocity and timing provide a bit of humanization (especially if they're based on human playing).
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- KVRAF
- 1818 posts since 10 Jul, 2018
I don't think there could be legitimate copyright claims over midi that don't have variations in velocity, timing, or other aspects that could be considered "creative", since publications of public domain musical scores have been ruled non-copyrightable because they're not sufficiently "creative" additions. So, in copyright terms, it should be fine to set Kundsterfuge or other files to a constant velocity, particularly one different from the Kundsterfuge file, and then use them in commercial works. However, that would violate their terms of service....
In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have wasted $19 on reMidi. It could turn out to be slightly convenient, though.
In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have wasted $19 on reMidi. It could turn out to be slightly convenient, though.