Piano Roll MIDI Player

Why??

Since there are already myriad MIDI file players available for playing standard MIDI files, why bother to write yet another one?
My main reason for taking the plunge was to create a player that could also give me a vehicle to embed a high quality piano sound sample set. That way, the player could also be used to render the playback audio to WAV files for creation of CDs and MP3s.

As long as I was going to do it, I figured I would also include the capability to view an accurate image of the piano roll scrolling by, along with any embedded lyrics. In addition to being a player and viewer for the lyrics, this software (eventually) will also allow a user to enter the lyrics and align them with the proper song notes, as they were on the original piano Word Rolls. The software development will proceed slowly, but from time to time I'll post alpha or beta test versions on this page for brave users to try.

The currently posted version, from January 11, 2005 is a very early result. It does play most of the files from my own MIDI file rollscan page on this site. Even with my own files, this player locks up occasionally. If you have MIDI files from other websites, you may experience unusual and unexpected behavior.
Try it at your own risk. I refuse to accept any responsibility for anything that might go wrong.

THIS PLAYER REQUIRES DIRECTX-8 OR HIGHER

Known Issues With This Version

• If the MIDI file you are trying to play has the "Read-Only" property attribute, the player complains and won't show any display.
• The roll image is not tightly synchronized to the audio
• Font used for lyrics display is not optimum
• Spurious long note holes may occasionally appear in the display
• Uses existing soundcard, not my piano sample set
• Doesn't remember recently used directories/files
• Can't "Drag & Drop" files - use File Open Menu
• Can't Scroll/Seek to an arbitrary point in the roll

Issues With Prior Versions That Should Now Be OK

• Graphics improperly sized in anything other than 1280 x 1024 screen resolutions. - Fixed in Jan 11 ver.
• MIDI files containing Sysex commands will crash the program. - Fixed in Jan 11 ver.

Warren Trachtman

Installation

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Installation!!!
Just unzip the file and run the program.
As long as you have Windows Direct-X installed on your PC, it should work.

Download the current development version

click on the image to download