<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Navigation:  Opening and Transcribing Songs > Searching for and Downloading MIDI and NoteSoft Files from the Internet > Downloading MIDI Files and Zip Files

Please note that these instructions will only work on older systems.  For Windows 10 and other more modern systems, we recommend using your favorite browser to find files and then download them to your Songs folder.

 

See Using Notation Player's Internet Browsing Window for instructions in starting Notation Player's built-in Internet browser.

 

Once you have arrived at the initial web page for browsing, you can browse around the Internet, searching web sites that offer MIDI files, Karaoke files, or Zip files containing MIDI or Karaoke files. The techniques you should use for finding MIDI files with the built-in browser are the same that you would use in Internet Explorer or your favorite browser.

You can perform searches using general search engines such as Google. Just type "www.google.com" for the Location in Notation Player's browser window, and hit the key.

Once you arrive at Google, do a search on "midi" and the name of the song or artist you are interested in. For example, do a search on "midi twinkle" to look for MIDI files for the children's song Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

When you visit a web page that publishes MIDI files, you may find the files in a couple of different formats. Also, the links might be displayed in some different ways. MIDI files usually have a .mid filename extension. Karaoke files have a .kar filename extension. Sometimes just the name of the MIDI or Karaoke file is displayed. In other cases, the song title is displayed instead of the file name. In this case, you can confirm that the highlighted text corresponds to a MIDI or Karaoke file by moving the mouse cursor over the highlighted text and noting the location (URL) displayed at the bottom of the browse window.

 

Once you have found the file you want to download, the procedure is simple.

To download a MIDI (or Karaoke) file:

 

NOTE:
 
If the MIDI file immediately plays rather than starting to download, you probably have a MIDI player plug-in installed on your system. Some MIDI player plug-ins provide an option for saving the MIDI file to your hard drive. You should use this option, and specify your song directory as the download location. Upon completion of the download, Notation Player will automatically open the MIDI file if you have associated Notation Player with the .mid file name extension. If Notation Player does not automatically open the MIDI file, then you can open it using the Open command in the File menu.
 
If you are not able to keep the MIDI player plug-in from playing the MIDI file instead of letting you download the MIDI file, then the steps to correct this problem depend on which particular MIDI player is installed on your system. The Notation Software web site provides answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) regarding how to handle such conflicts with common MIDI player plug-ins. We provide the answers at our web site rather than in this help documentation, because the answers change over time as new versions of MIDI player plug-ins are released by their manufacturers. Visit www.notation.com/FAQ.htm, and search for "MIDI Player".

This is necessary only if you want to change the Transcription Options from their most recent settings. For details, see Transcription Options.

TIP: If you find that you usually want to save MIDI files in the same directory, then turn on the "Set as default directory" check mark in the above Save As dialog. Then, whenever you run Notation Player, it will automatically open this directory in the Save As dialog.