General MIDI files live on

The General MIDI file format was created in the late 1980's by Roland (correct me if I'm wrong here) and it was essentially a way for music files to be made "interchangeable" between different music playback equipment. By agreeing that certain instruments / sounds were located at certain "slots" in the various keyboards and synthesizers around the world, it was made possible for a composer to have his music played back by somebody with different equipment, and still have the music sound, more or less, the same on that other equipment.

Now almost 30 years later, digital audio is all the rave and the General MIDI file format seems to be going out of fashion, but it's not dead yet. Some platforms still use the MIDI format and MIDI files, for example hand held game systems and mobile phones. If you are developing a game for mobile phones or other hand held game system, you may require MIDI music that can be legally downloaded and used within your game. The place to get that would be at the MIDI music area of the royalty-free music licensing site Shockwave-Sound.com. Here you can legally license and download MIDI music files that you can implement into your own media projects, such as games, videos, websites and more.

We just added 16 new MIDI tracks today, by Piotr "Jazzcat" Pacyna. These are actually more than just regular MIDI files, because in addition to the normal General MIDI file, you also get specially tweaked versions of the same MIDI music that's made to play back perfectly on various formats, including Alcatel / LG / Sagem phones and systems, MMF files, OTT files, Siemens phones, Sony Ericsson phones, SP-MIDI (that's the "regular" MIDI file) and SPF midi. All these different files and versions come included with any purchase of the Mobile phone MIDI music by Piotr "Jazzcat" Pacyna from Shockwave-Sound.com.