Over a year ago when I redesigned the website I stopped posting MIDI files which left many arrangements without any audio demos. I completely forgot about it until recently a subscriber asked for a demo for a hymn and I thought “why isn’t there a demo?!”
I’ve just added new MP3 demos for 25 HymnCharts arrangements. These reference demos are either piano, piano/vocal or piano/vocal/drums to give you an idea how the arrangement sounds until I create full demos. These are some of my first arrangements and fit a more blended style of worship.
Why did I stop using MIDI files? Times and technology change. Fifteen years ago I was running a laptop in worship that was less powerful than my smartphone, and MP3s were unheard of (and probably couldn’t be run from a computer anyway.)
Instead, many churches used MIDI files to power synth modules that enhanced their bands (often, in my small church plant, it would be just me, my computer and an acoustic guitar player.) My 32 megabyte midi piano sounded amazing back then, but today it would sound thin and rinky-dink next to my current 32 GIGabyte grand piano VST software. (Seriously, this thing sounds amazing – wait ’til you login and hear it!)
Basically, MIDI tracks outlived their usefulness in live worship when computers became powerful enough to play, transpose and time-shift the infinitely better sounding audio tracks and multitracks. If you’re still using MIDI let me strongly encourage you to switch to audio tracks and multitracks from places like praisecharts.com and loopcommunity.com.
