MIDI files are generally restricted to a maximum of 16 channels of data, which can make reproducing orchestral pieces quite tricky. Orchestras might have about 60 - 100 musicians in them, all playing in a coordinated manner. One way of reducing the need to have one MIDI channel for every musician, is to have one channel per "group of musicians who play similar instruments", for example, one MIDI channel for the "Violins 1" section, another MIDI channel for the "Violins 2" section, etc. Orchestras still typically have more groups than the 16 MIDI channels allow, so some reductions have to be made.

Danse Macabre, by Camille Saint-Saens - uses all 16 MIDI channels, and Roland 'Hyper Canvas' instrument voices.

It, by George Frideric Handel - uses all 16 MIDI channels, and Roland 'Hyper Canvas' instrument voices.

Jupiter, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - uses all 16 MIDI channels, and Roland 'Hyper Canvas' instrument voices.

Canon, by Pachelbel - mainly strings and harpsichord only, using Yamaha TG-33 sound module.

I now really want to present some fabulous files that my father produced, back in 1999 to 2001. As I said earlier, my father, Ray Huggett, was very keen on classical music. He had been a professional music director working at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in Sydney, so he was very used to going to classical music performances and recording them for television. He was used to hearing and enjoying the way that symphony orchestras sound. Privately, he had an extensive collection of classical music CDs, and he was also keen on editing and playing MIDI music files using MIDI sound modules. He owned both a Roland SoundCanvas SC-155 sound module, and also a legendary Roland SoundCanvas SC-88 sound module. He found the orchestral instrument voices on these sound modules to be very good.

My father was a fan of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's work, and he eventually got a copy of the complete orchestral score of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture (it runs for over 16 minutes, and includes parts for real canons, and church bells, as well as the parts for the different instruments of the symphony orchestra). From the score, he entered each note of each instrument group manually, to eventually create a large MIDI file with about 43 individual MIDI tracks. Each musical note required an appropriate 'velocity' value, instrument voice value, instrument 'volume' setting, and many other values. He needed to input the musical keys being used for each instrument. It was obviously a massive job with an enormous number of values to be entered, but for my father, it was also a labour of love. He did all of this on an Amiga computer running "Bars and Pipes Professional" software (written by Blue Ribbon Software). As stated earlier, MIDI files can generally only play out to 16 channels. However, my father had purchased some special hardware with drivers (also produced by Blue Ribbon software) called "Triple Play Plus". This hardware/driver combination was a set of special MIDI output connectors that allowed their "Bars and Pipes Professional" software to output to 48 MIDI channels (or 16 channels through MIDI connector number one, another 16 channels through MIDI connector number two, and another 16 channels through MIDI connector number three - Triple Play Plus). He connected one of his Roland SoundCanvas sound modules to connector one, and the other of his Roland SoundCanvas sound modules to connector two (he only had the two Roland sound modules). He could now pump data out to 32 channels, each with their own instrument voice.

To create the MIDI file for this one symphonic piece took him several months. He needed to check his input constantly for errors, etc. The tempo map (which controls the speeds of the playing) for the whole piece is very complex. He worked on the 'phrasing' within individual instrument groups, and was often amazed by the combinations that Tchaikovsky used in his score. By entering all the score in this way, my father could play every instrument voice the way he wanted to. He could select the most appropriate instrument voice(s) for each required instrument group. He was playing every instrument. He was coordinating the playing of all instruments. He was conducting the whole piece. He was making sure that the levels of volume of every instrument was controlled as he wanted (which was based on the information in the score, and from the examples of the music he had heard).

The following file is a recording my father made of the outputs from both sound modules. Inside the Amiga file itself is a note about setting the volumes of both sound modules to specific settings before playing the file, and then "sitting back to enjoy the performance".

1812 Overture, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - combination of 43 instrument tracks, played through 2 Roland Sound Canvas sound modules (32 MIDI channels).

After getting Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture to a satisfactory result, my father then started on a similar production of Capriccio Italien. I remember my father describing a time when he and my mother (probably in the early days of their marriage) were at a cinema with one of my mother's sisters and her boyfriend (who later became her husband). They were all watching a short film before the main one that they had come to see. He remembers that the soundtrack to this short film was Tchaikovsky's Capriccio Italien. Apparently, the visuals were centred around a steam train making its way through the rambling countryside. My father said that this short film had an amazing impact on all of them. It may have done, but all I really know is that it certainly had a big impact on my father.

Capriccio Italien, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky- combination of 34 instrument tracks, played through 2 Roland Sound Canvas sound modules (32 MIDI channels).

The next Tchaikovsky piece that my father put together was Tchaikovsky's overture to Romeo & Juliet. By this time, my father had purchased a music score scanner that aided the long process of entering some of the MIDI information from the orchestral scores that he had obtained. Apparently, this scanning process was not always 100% accurate, so he still needed to check all of the values obtained. And he needed to enter some values for each note that the score didn't contain explicitly.

Romeo & Juliet, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky- combination of 41 instrument tracks, played through 2 Roland Sound Canvas sound modules (32 MIDI channels).

My Version of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture

Even though I have copies of my father's Amiga files (and I can load them into my copy of Bars & Pipes Professional, that I run on my virtual Amiga), I have never had the "Triple Play Plus" hardware/driver combination to allow the output of up to 48 MIDI channels. My setup is restricted to a single set of 16 MIDI channels. I wanted to reduce the number of instrument groups used and combine several tracks together to come up with a version that I was still happy with. Interestingly, I found that the more work I did on this piece, the more I felt that I appreciated and enjoyed this piece.

I don't have a Roland SoundCanvas sound module, and I have found it difficult to get MIDI controlled orchestral instrument voices of a similar quality to those of the Roland SoundCanvas sound modules. I started with a free version of Roland Virtual Sound Canvas (VSC, which sounded promising, and apparently engineered by the Roland sound engineers), but found the instruments sounded quite 'flat' (or thin) compared with those on my father's recordings. The next product that looked promising was Roland's "SC-VA" VST (apparently, the "gold standard" for virtual SoundCanvas emulation), but this product needs to be purchased. I also found online, a demo version of Roland's "SC-VA" software, which could be trialed for a 2 week period only (and only allow for sessions of 10 minutes maximum). I found this software to give very similar quality results to the instruments on my father's recordings. The following file was created from recordings using this trial software. At the time, I didn't tweak the output too much, thinking that I can adjust the levels and voices and other things once I get the full software. After purchasing the full software, however, I found that it refused to 'activate', saying that the trial period was over. I asked the technicians at Roland to help sort this out, but the technician that I dealt with was not helpful. In the end, this is the only recording I have using the trial Roland "SC-VA" software.

1812 Overture, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - my arrangement (using just 16 MIDI channels) of my father's extensive file, played through a computer VST host program.

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