Check out this amazing (and free) soundfont of a Steinway grand piano (link all the way at the bottom of the page). I was blown away when I loaded this into my soundcard.

http://www.trachtman.org/pianosounds/

I got about halfway through the first sample before realizing I was using my laptop speakers and the comparison would be useless. Once I get back to my extigy and klipsch speakers I'll have to try this out. I've never been a midi fan, and associate them with really bad computerized music...

Matthew

I do too, but man, if you listen to the MP3 of that comparison, it's pretty impressive. I'm not saying you can't tell the difference, but it's pretty damn good ... However, they made the comparison using the _2 GIG_ version of sample data (as opposed to the 25M one that is for download).

You may have been using software synthesized MIDI - real MIDI using hardware synthesis or soundfonts sounds very, very good. I have a Creative SB Live and it is very good. I used to have an AWE 32 and that took 32 pin SIMMS to load soundfonts.

Besides, some of the coolest game music in history was MIDI! [attached]

Gareth

I don't know, I think the top MIDI tracks of all time would have to go to Final Fantasy VII over Doom.

So wait, that's a 2 gig MIDI sample set? I've heard about how those things are sampled sometimes for digital pianos. Something like they sample each note and like each overtone and harmonic of the note in seperate samples. They they are overlaid in real time. That or they sample each note for each of like 16 different dynamic levels. I forget the jargon that the sales man threw at me, but that digital piano I tried sounded damn good. Too bad speakers can't replicate the feeling of a piano; leaving us piano players totally unsatasfied.