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Recently I was doing an authorized remix of Herbie Hancock music for a remix contest in Second Life. The first thing I did was download a MIDI file of “Watermelon Man.” You probably know you can drag a MIDI file into GarageBand and GarageBand will try to map the instruments to the closest software instruments that it has. Sometimes this works great, but most of the time it just makes a horrible mess that doesn’t sound at all like the General MIDI Instruments that were intended for the piece. For example, here is a short sound file of what the “Watermelon Man” MIDI file sounds like dropped straight into GB. (Example 1.mp3)
We can hear that the Percussion parts mapped to a piano sound and generally the thing is a mess. You can go through to each track and try to find a software instrument that fits better, this can sound great, but it’s time consuming and the results are often mixed at best.
There is a better way.
In GarageBand import a General Midi file by dragging into the timeline. then select a track that has a piano mapped to it.
Click on the Track Info button in the lower right of the GB window. Then click on the Details disclosure triangle.
Next, under the Instrument Generator selector change the selection from Piano to DLSMusic Device.
(Figure 1)
Click the pencil icon to the right of the Instrument Generator to edit the DLSMusic Device. In the DLSMusic Device edit window, make sure that QuickTime Music Synthesizer is selected as the sound bank, and then close the edit window.
(Figure 2)
Click the Save Instrument… button and name your new instrument “GM DLS.”
Go to the tracks column and change ALL of the software instruments to GM DLS.
(Figure 3)
Now when you play the song the General MIDI track will send Program change commands to the GM DLS instrument and play back the proper General MIDI instruments using QuickTime’s built-in GM instrument set. Here is what the newly mapped song sounds like. (Example 2.mp3)
By using your newly created GM DLS instrument you can import and listen to any General MIDI song as it was intended. While General MIDI songs are never perfect, at least by going with the General MIDI mapping you have a good place to start if you want to edit the instrumentation or the arrangement.
