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From Windows, you can print this page by pressing Ctrl  P .  On a Mac use Cmd  P .

If you're having trouble please let me know what browser (and what version) you are using.

I hope you won't get lost navigating this Web Site.  I've tried to make it simple, so most pages are no more than two clicks away.

The menu at the top of the screen gives a number of section headings.  Clicking on one of these displays the appropriate section in the body of the screen.

Some of the sections have one or more buttons on their heading line which will bring a sub-section into the lower part, but the menu is always there to stop you getting lost.  I've put a Back button to the left of each page title (that white arrow on a purple background before the word “Help”) but you shouldn't often need it: just click on Section and then Sub-section if any.

Most of the sections are longer than your screen, in which case you can use the scroll-bar on the right to move up or down the text.  I prefer to use the PgUp  PgDn  Home  and End  keys — but then I'm not a great fan of Windows and I often prefer the keyboard to the mouse!  However I realise that people on tablets or Macs have been deprived of a Home key, so in sections of a really long page you'll find  Top  arrows to take you to the top of the page.  I've now been told that on a Mac Cmd Up and Cmd Down do the same job as Home  and End 

Some of the sections and sub-sections contain underlined references to other Web Sites (or sometimes other pages of this Web Site).  Clicking on these will display the other Web Site full-screen.

Click to play videoIf you're still confused, please Contact me.  Or click the image on the left for a guided tour of the website.

I say in this that some people will tell you MIDI sounds awful and that's not fair.  A MIDI file just says things like “Play this note with this volume on this instrument”, and what the instrument actually sounds like depends on a thing called a SoundFont bank.  The one that comes with Windows isn't very good, so since producing this video I've updated the site so that in addition to [Play MIDI] there's now a [Play MP3] button, which uses the SoundFont bank I'm about to recommend to create an MP3 file, which can also be played on an Apple Mac or a smartphone.

Or you can do it yourself:

Browse to www.schristiancollins.com/generaluser.php and download the current version, which is a zip file.

Copy some of the contents to a folder of your choice — the only file you need is GeneralUser---.sf2 but you might want to listen to the demo MIDIs — if you have good speakers they sound amazing.

Browse to coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth#download and download the current version — just accept all the defaults and run the program once it's installed.

Click the + button, navigate to the folder of your choice and select GeneralUser---.sf2

Click “OK”.  Your MIDI files should now sound so much better.

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