1.What is MIDI? 2.MIDI Notes & Velocity 3.Quantisation 4.What is a DAW? 5.MIDI vs Audio 6.Using MIDI Files
Lesson 6

Using MIDI Files

How to use MIDI files in your productions - importing, editing, changing instruments, and learning from other people's patterns. Free interactive lesson.

By the end: You can import a MIDI file, assign an appropriate instrument, edit its notes, and adapt its pattern into your own production.

Using MIDI Files

MIDI files are packages of musical data - notes, timing, velocity, and sometimes multiple tracks. They're the standard way to share musical ideas between producers, DAWs, and tools. When you download a MIDI file (including from this site), here's what you can actually do with it.

What's Inside a MIDI File

A MIDI file can contain one or more tracks, each with its own notes and channel assignments. A typical MIDI file from a chord progression generator might have a single track of chords. A full arrangement might have separate tracks for drums, bass, chords, and melody.

.mid MIDI File ~5 KB Contents Header: tempo, time signature, track count Track 1: Chords (Ch 1) - note on/off, velocity, timing Track 2: Bass (Ch 2) - note on/off, velocity, timing Track 3: Melody (Ch 3) - note on/off, velocity, timing

Importing into Your DAW

The process is similar across all DAWs, though the exact steps vary:

1

Drag the .mid file into your DAW's arrangement view, or use File > Import

2

The DAW creates MIDI tracks for each track in the file

3

Assign an instrument plugin to each track (piano, synth, bass, etc.)

4

Press play - the MIDI data triggers your chosen instruments

5

Edit, rearrange, and build on the imported material as needed

What You Can Do With Imported MIDI

Once MIDI is in your DAW, the note events can be edited because they are data rather than a fixed recording. You can change the instrument, pitches, timing, velocity, note lengths, and arrangement, subject to the capabilities of the DAW and instrument.

Change Instruments

Swap the plugin on any track. Turn a piano chord progression into strings, or a synth lead into a flute. The notes stay the same.

Edit Notes

Move, delete, add, or resize individual notes. Change the rhythm, adjust the melody, add passing tones, remove notes that don't work.

Transpose

Shift everything up or down to a different key. Most DAWs can do this with a single command - select all notes and move them.

Change Tempo

Speed up or slow down without any quality loss. MIDI is just timing data, so it scales perfectly to any BPM.

Learn From It

Study the notes in the piano roll. See which notes make up each chord, how the melody moves, where the bass sits. MIDI is transparent.

Use as a Starting Point

Keep what works, change what doesn't. Use a chord progression but write your own melody over it. Keep the rhythm but change the notes.

MIDI File Types

Type 0

All data merged into a single track. Simple, but you lose the separation between instruments. Channels still distinguish parts.

Type 1

Multiple tracks stored separately. The standard format - each instrument gets its own track. This is what most tools export.

Making MIDI Your Own

MIDI files are starting points, not finished products. Inspect the chord choices, rhythmic patterns, melodic shapes, voicings, and velocities. Then change the material to fit the key, tempo, sound palette, and arrangement of your track.

Try it

Import a MIDI file and make three deliberate changes: assign a different instrument, transpose the notes to a new key, and change the tempo. Before each change, predict which musical data will change and which will stay the same.

Finish by keeping one part, such as the chord rhythm, and replacing another part with your own melody. This turns the file into a starting point rather than a finished product.

Key takeaway

MIDI files are a learning and production resource. Import them into any DAW, study the patterns, edit freely, swap instruments, and use them as starting points for your own music.

You've completed all the lessons! Head to Starts to put everything you've learned into practice.

Generate MIDI to use

Starts creates MIDI arrangements you can download and import into your DAW immediately.