Searching for and Downloading MIDI Files from the Internet

You can use your favorite Internet browser, such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer, to search for and download MIDI files from the Internet. If you have associated the MIDI .mid filename extension and Karaoke .kar filename extension with Composer, then as soon as the download of the file has completed, Composer will automatically start up and open the file. You will see the MIDI or Karaoke file transcribed to sheet music.

Also, you can use your favorite Internet browser to download MIDI files to a directory on your system. Then you can use Composer's File Open command to open any of the downloaded MIDI files. You might find this method inconvenient if you tend to forget which directory the files have been downloaded to.

Instead of using an external browser, you can use Composer's built-in Internet browser to download and open MIDI and Karaoke files. This built-in browser is actually Microsoft's Internet Explorer, repackaged inside of Composer's own window.

The advantages of using Composer's built-in browser are:

Your MIDI file searches will begin with a web page at Notation Software's web site, which offers an excellent list of MIDI file web sites. You can specify a different default web page for starting your MIDI file searches.

The MIDI file will be downloaded to Composer's default song directory, which you can specify, instead of some general download file directory on your Windows system, where it might be difficult to find and organize your MIDI files.

If you download a .zip file that has one or more MIDI files, Composer will automatically unzip the files. If there is only one zipped MIDI file, Composer will automatically open the unzipped MIDI file, all in one step. If there are multiple zipped MIDI files, then Composer will ask you which one you would like to view first.

The following topics describe how to use Composer's built-in browser.