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Next, contact us so that we may resend you the activation email.
Access up to 5 unrestricted media files per day.
This includes WMA streams, MIDI files, and Free audio files.
(High-Fidelity MP3/M3U and ZIP files are not available to free-members)
All members of your family can use the membership and its privileges
Individual Subscription ($25/year)
Access up to 1,000 media files per month. (5 files/day for non-subscribers)
This includes all accesses: streamed and temporary or permanent downloads of any of our media files: WMA, HiFi MP3/M3U, MIDI, ZIP, Video formats, etc.
(High-Fidelity MP3/M3U and ZIP files are not available to non-subscribers) Some sample MP3 files are available to all HERE to allow you to judge their quality.
You benefit from a 20% discount on any early renewal of your subscription ($20 instead of $25.)
Free members, since this is a free membership, there is no need to "unsubscribe" from anything; simply stop using the membership.
Paid members, your membership will automatically expire one year from the date you signed up. No further action is required from you. Your credit card will not be charged.
(If you still wish to cancel early, and not take advantage of the remainder of your membership, please contact us.)
Yes, your membership may be accessed from multiple computers and locations. Simply log in using your email and password.
Are registrations to MidiGate and subscriptions to the Archives the same thing?
They are different and have nothing to do with each other:
A registration to MidiGate is a freeware registration which gives you the right to use all the features of MidiGate
(the queuing MIDI Player by PRS.) See the link to MidiGate for details.
A Subscription to the Archives makes you a member of the Classical Archives and
allows you to download or access more and reserved files than if you don't subscribe.
See the link to SUBSCRIPTIONS for details
Once registered and you have received your User ID and your Registration Code, you can visit this registration input guide.
Or you can go directly to the
Most (good) security programs allow you to specify which sites you consider safe. Please add the classicalarchives.com domain to that program's safe list.
We block download managers and browser accelerators, due to the high strain they produce on our site's servers (which slows the site down for everyone.) Please only use your browser's built-in downloading capabilities.
When downloading large files, unstable internet connections may cause your computer to prematurely terminate a download.
Normally, re-downloading the file resolves the problem.
However, sometimes, your computer doesn't realize that the file was incomplete and will not allow you to re-download it.
It, instead, gives you the incomplete file you originally downloaded, which is still stored in your computer's temporary file cache.
To resolve this bug, simply clear your computer's temporary file cache.
If you attempt to right-click on a music file, but the "Save Target As..." option is disabled, please check the following:
Click Tools in your Internet Explorer browser's menu bar.
Select Internet Options.
Click the Content tab.
Is the Content Advisor enabled? If it is, disable it.
(If it asks you for a password, type the password you used when you initially enabled it.)
Click OK to all the prompts, and return to your main browser window.
Now try right-clicking a music link from our website, to see if the "Save Target As..." option is enabled.
Note: if you'd like to keep the Content Advisor enabled, you may do so, but you will need to add "classicalarchives.com" to the Content Advisor's Approved Sites list.
The Classical Archives uses the following media file formats:
MIDI files - The majority of the files in the Archives are in the MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) format. Most of these files were sequenced one note at a time although some of the great files are real-time performances by very gifted artists. The advantage of MIDI files is their very small size. However you need to have a good sound card or external synthesizer to get good renditions.
Recommended external synth: Roland SoundCanvas SC-8820. See also this.
MP3 Audio files - Selected Live Performances by our Featured Artists
are provided for download (not streamed) to our subscribers.
These files are encoded at HiFi quality at 128kbps. Thus, they may be quite large!
These files are not available to non-subscribers.
(So subscribe! It's only $25/year.)
Windows Media Audio (WMA) files - The Archives also offer collections of Live Performances by our Featured Artists. In addition to each file being accessible by itself, you can also listen to a whole work by clicking on our WMA playlists indicated by the [Complete Work Playlist] links in the Artists pages.
These files are encoded and streamed at 20kbps to allow for even the slowest modems. These files are available to all our users (including non-subscribers.)
Video files - There are also a few video files in the Archives. The pages containing video are written in such a way that Mac users are automatically presented with RealVideo embedded files, while users on any other platform are presented with Windows Media Video embedded files.
Our WMA streams are encoded at 20kbit/s to allow even modem users to listen to our streams.
Most of our downloadable MP3 files (available only to subscribers) are encoded at
128 kbit/s although, as of the beginning of 2005, we've started encoding all new MP3s using a higher 192 kbit/s bit rate.
Anyone may sample the quality of MP3 files by downloading files from THERE (free access to all.)
Make sure you are not using a cached, but expired, version of our content: Press the control-key and (while keeping it down) click on the reload/refresh icon of your browser.
If you can't hear anything or the sound you hear is not what you are used to,
your Windows multimedia settings may be incorrect. (These can be changed when you
install a new sound card or update drivers. So you'll want to check these settings
when your MIDI sounds are not satisfactory.)
To check for your MIDI settings, click on the Start button/Settings/Control Panel/Multimedia/MIDI tab.
Then select a MIDI "instrument" such as "Internal FM Synth" or the like and click OK.
If you still can't hear anything or the sound isn't as good as it was when playing a MIDI file,
try another "instrument" in that list. (You may want to actually use an external synthesizer
like the Roland SC-8820 and use the "External MIDI Output" instrument to connect to it.
Very few cards have built-in synth modules that sound good: most "internal synth" will sound rather tiny.)
Windows 98
Windows XP
If that still doesn't work, you may have to reinstall the drivers for your audio card (unless
you plum forgot to turn your volume up! By the way, you also want to make sure that, if you have
a mixer, you have not inadvertently muted your MIDI output.)
You need to be a subscriber to download one of our Zip Collections.
These collections allow subscribers to download all the MIDI files from a particular composer with one click.
Composers who have a very large number of works (e.g., J.S.Bach, Beethoven, etc.) are
broken down into several Zip Collections to keep the download times reasonable.
Zip collections are made only for composers or groups for which we have more than one file.
Zip collections contain only the MIDI files listed under the Zip Collection icon within the listing of
a particular composer. It does not contain WMA or MP3 titles or audio files in any other format.
To unzip a collection, you need to use a pkunzip-compatible utility:
Click to find the right utility for your particular platform.
Please note that the Zip Collections should be unzipped using the "unzip using pathnames stored in file" (WinZip users: click "Extract" button and select "All Files")
to allow unzip to create the right subdirectories under the directory which you target for unzipping:
each Zip Collection contains one html file which you can see with your browser and which
provides links to all the midi files (contained in the collection) which are stored in these
subdirectories.
You can create a multi-clip by using the Windows Explorer (right-click on the Start button and click Explore) and selecting (drag & drop) any playable files
(clips) from a local directory, then dragging and dropping them onto your preferred player
(e.g., Windows Media Player, Real Player, etc.) You can even drag and drop to one of these player's icon on your desktop
if the player isn't already open.
The clips are then listed in the playlist and start to play, one after the other.
You may sometimes get the following error when the Windows Media Player 7 is called:
"Player is selecting a runtime that is not valid for this media file type."
This may be due to an incomplete reception of the stream starting data. If this occurs, simply
click on the OK button below the error message and click again on the link to the audio file you wish to listen to. In most
cases, the file will then start without an error. If not, repeat the procedure once more.
Note that all our WMA (Windows Media Audio) streams are encoded at 20 kbps to allow for even the
slowest modems. However network congestions can still sometimes create problems.
You may sometimes get the following error when the Windows Media Player 7 is playing an m3u files (streamed mp3):
We got a lot of these errors after installing other multimedia software. We found that the only
way to get back to normal was to reinstall the Windows Media Player from scratch.
First, your electronic piano (EP) must be hooked up to your PC
(via USB, serial, MIDI OUT, or other connection)
and all the appropriate drivers installed
on your PC as per your EP's manufacturer's instructions.
Next you must make that sure that you direct your PC to send the MIDI data to
your EP (and not your sound card.) This is done in the Control Panel/Multimedia/MIDI of Windows on your PC.
(For Win XP: Settings/Control Panel/Sounds and Audio Devices Properties/Audio/MIDI music playback.)
Now for the difficult part... some EPs accept any kind of MIDI files, but
others don't. There are two kinds for MIDI formats (0 and 1) and some EPs
can only play one kind and not the other.
All MIDI files on our site are analyzed and those that are of type 0 are marked as such.
Those without an indicator of type are by default type 1 files.
If your EP cannot play a type 1 file, it may be restricted to type 0 files.
You can locate all our type 0 files by going to our search page
and entering "type 0" (without the quotes) in the search field.
But the good news is that YOU can change the format of a MIDI file, using any
good quality sequencer - and for that, we recommend that you visit
(for Windows) Cakewalk Home Studio; or
(for Macs) Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU) (look for "FreeStyle" or "Performer.")
These sequencers can open a file in one MIDI format and save it (or export it) in
another that should be compatible with your EP.
The following remarks are for Mac users of older OS (prior to OS X):
Files on the older Mac OS are a bit different from those as used on a Windows
or Unix platforms. A file on a Mac contains both a resource fork and a data fork (the later is equivalent
to the file as used on other platforms.) So when you download a MIDI file or a zipped collection of MIDI files
to a Mac (and the file hadn't been made on a Mac, the file may not have a "resource fork"
which indicates the TYPE and CREATOR of the file. Although the extension of the files will
be ".mid" - without the correct Type and Creator 4 character codes in the resource fork,
the Mac's Finder may not know what player to run to play it.
Mac users may want to consider a few things:
Use a type-changer utility to force:
Type = Midi
Creator = TVOD
(This creator code is a pointer to the QuickTime Player)
You can change the Type and Creator using Sherlock II (which usually comes with the original installation) or
you go to www.versiontracker.com,
select your OS and then type "type creator" (without the quotes) in the search
input field. This will bring several such utilities for your consideration. Several of
them are freeware.
You'll also want to make sure that you have the latest version of the QuickTime Player.
Some of their earlier versions do not automatically understand that they should
play MIDI files (although they can) if all the settings aren't exactly right.
In particular you'll want to look at:
In the menubar, click "edit" --> "preferences" --> "quicktime preferences"
Select the appropriate entry in the drop down menu.
Click "Mime settings"
Scroll down to and click the little arrow next to where it says "audio".
Search and edit the settings for MIDI until you can play a .mid file (which
you unzipped from a collection) simply by double-clicking on it.
Since the sound quality of the CD will depend entirely upon the quality of your computer's MIDI synthesizers, making audio disks is not recommended, since most built-in MIDI synthesizers have horrible instrument reproduction. If the MIDI sounds bad in your speakers, it'll sound just as bad on a CD!
That said, if you still wish to attempt the conversion, we recommend you use a high quality synthesizer (such as a Roland synthesizer).
Next, purchase a program that will convert MIDI to WAV (or CD). There are several such products on the market and may be found by searching for the terms midi to wav in your favorite search engine.
Once the WAV files have been created, you may use your favorite CD burning program to create an audio CD.
MidiGate is still only a MIDI player and it depends on what audio card you use.
The main advantage of using MidiGate is for its queuing function.
MIDI, as a medium, is usually not the first choice of classical music listeners:
too many MIDI files make for rather poor performances (to be charitable) as compared
with that of audio files containing live recordings of gifted musicians on real instruments.
MIDI however, when used by a true sequencing master, can and does offer a wonderful
listening experience if listened to on a good synthesizer (but most cheap audio cards
don't fit that bill!) In addition, MIDI has two notable redeeming features: the files
are very small compared to those of audio recordings (even after compression) and they can,
in many cases, be used to generate a useful score while using the appropriate software
(see Notation Musician in our store.)
As said above, the quality of a MIDI rendition also depends a lot on the synthesizer
you use. And both audio and MIDI renditions are best played through a good audio
amplifier and speakers.
If you prefer to listen only to Live Recordings (not synthesized music),
go to our Featured Artists Pages.
You may prefer to use MidiGate (instead of the new Classical Archives Player) to listen to MIDI files.
Go to the User Settings Maintenance Page
and uncheck the box next to MIDI and click on the Set the Player Options button.
This will tell the Classical Archives Player to avoid playing all MIDI files - so that
your chosen MIDI player (e.g., MidiGate) can play it.
Midigate is not the default player anymore, what can I do?
If you install another MIDI player (such as Crescendo or Mplayer2) after you've installed
MidiGate (which becomes your default MIDI player,) then MidiGate will not be your
default player any longer. To reinstate MidiGate as your default player, you will
need to reinstall MidiGate and go through all these steps again. This is due to the
fact that the installation of another player changes all your settings without
notice. (Note that if you installed the Quick Time Player you may have problem:
the QTP hogs many extensions and there is no easy way to redirect these associations. See Craig Daniels' article at http://www.uci.net/~goto/tools/tools3.htm.)
First, the File Association Table has to be modified so that the file type
"MIDI Sequence" points to (your path)\midigate.exe.
This is done automatically by the installation of MidiGate - but check
that it's still the case.)
The File Association Table is reached from Explore by clicking on
"View/Options/File Types". Scroll the file type list down
to "MIDI Sequence" and make sure the ".mid" extension
and the "audio/midi" mime-type point to (your path)\midigate.exe.
Netscape users (4.05 or later):
Perform the step indicated above if you find a file named npaudio.dll. But one more step may be required for Netscape users with more recent releases than 4.04:
Go to the Netscape menu item [Edit] [Preferences...] [Applications] and select the application for which
the extension is "MID RMI". Highlight that entry and click Edit and then Browse.
That done, browse in your folders and files until you see MidiGate. (It can be either the actual program or
one of the shortcuts pointing to it.) Double-click on MidiGate to select it as the
chosen application and then click OK and close the window.
You may also need to deactivate mplayer2.exe with regards to the audio/midi MIME type if you installed
MPLAYER2 from Microsoft. This is done with the Netscape menu item [Edit] [Preferences...] [Applications] as follows:
Look in the Description column for "MPLAYER2 File" and highlight each entry, one after the other,
while looking for "MIME Type: audio/midi" in the File type details. Once you have
selected the appropriate entry, click the Remove button.
(You may want to repeat this operation for the entry corresponding to "MIME Type: audio/x-midi")
If your browser is configured such that it uses QuickTime instead of mplayer2, then
follow these steps, but look for quicktime instead of mplayer2. The important thing
is that no applications should be indicated for "audio/midi" other than
MidiGate. Note that if the browser uses a quicktime plug-in (as opposed to
a helper application), then you need to go into regedit (as shown below for IE)
and remove the CLSID for quicktime (as opposed to mplayer2.)
IE (4.0+) users:
You can modify your system so that IE uses MidiGate to play MIDI files. The process is not for the technically challenged and should be used with caution. One adjustment has to be made to the Windows 95 setup parameters.
One key in the System Registry has to be modified.
This is the tricky part for anyone not familiar with the Registry
and the Regedit.exe utility. (Regedit can be found by clicking on the [Start Key] [Find] [Find Files or Folders] and entering "regedit".
Once you've opened regedit.exe, look for the following key:
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\MIME\Database\Content Type\audio/midi]
"Extension"=".mid"
"CLSID"="{05589FA1-C356-11CE-BF01-00AA0055595A}"
or, if you've installed mplayer2:
"CLSID"="{22D6F312-B0F6-11D0-94AB-0080C74C7E95}"
or, if you've installed QuickTime:
"CLSID"="{02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B}"
The line containing CLSID must be removed using Regedit.
Follow these easy steps for doing this:
Click the Start button and select Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Regedit
Press Control-F (Find) and enter audio/midi in the box
Click Find Next and then repeatedly click the F3 key (Function 3) until you find
an entry in the right window which includes either
{05589FA1-C356-11CE-BF01-00AA0055595A} or
{22D6F312-B0F6-11D0-94AB-0080C74C7E95} or
{02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B}
The bottom status line must show:
My Computer\H_KEY_CLASSES_ROOT\MIME\Database\Content Type\audio/midi
or
My Computer\H_KEY_CLASSES_ROOT\MIME\Database\Content Type\audio/mid
Once you locate this entry, RIGHT-click (highlight) CLSID
Select DELETE from the small menu that appears and click YES.
You're done. Close Regedit. (You may need to reboot to get the new settings to work.)
Click "Tools" in the navigation bar, and select "Preferences..."
Choose "Media Types" in the left column.
In the right column, scroll down and check the "MIDI Audio" checkbox.
Click "OK".
If the Crescendo MIDI plugin isn't installed, the RealOne Player will automatically attempt to download the plugin. When the AutoUpdate popup comes up, simply click "OK" (1) (1) Depending on your software firewall installation (assuming you have one installed), you may get additional prompts asking you to grant internet access permission to the application.
Allow the access to take place, or else the installation will fail and you'll have to start over.
The RealOne Player will then attempt to download the Crescendo plugin. The download times will vary depending on your internet connection. Please be patient.
Once the plugin has finished installing, you'll be prompted to accept the Crescendo License. Click "Accept".
After everything is finished loading, close the RealOne application, and reboot your system (**) (**) Although it's not required, it's always advisable to restart your system every time you install new software, especially on the Windows 95/98/Me operating systems.
After rebooting, connect to the internet and go to http://www.classicalarchives.com. Click on any MIDI file on the site. The RealOne player should open and look something like the one shown in the picture.
To clean up your MIDI sequencer or player, click one of the following buttons:
(for General MIDI players)
(for Roland GS players)
(for Yamaha XG players)
Executing one of these (silent) sequences will, respectively, reset the
internal parameters to the
General MIDI System Level 1, Roland GS format, or Yamaha XG format defaults.
Note that our MidiGate Player can perform these resets automatically before starting playing any MIDI file.
In addition, to reset the selection of patches (instrument sounds) for all tracks to piano, click on
Click to download VBRUN300.DLL. You should place it in your windows/system directory (folder).
This file is required for most of the PRS applications (see our software).
If you find a mistake - either musical or technical - in one of the MIDI sequences in the Archives,
you should contact the appropriate contributor(s) directly.
We cannot and should not make changes to files that are submitted to the Archives
as ownership of, and rights to, these files stay with the contributor(s).
Contributors can, and sometimes do, send corrected replacement of their files which
we enter regularly.
If you can't find a contributor's address in the contributors' list,
please do not email us asking for it: we don't have it.
All we have is in that page.
Some contributors, by commission or omission, do not update their information - or wish
to remain unreachable by email. (And we do not have other means to contact them.)
We are almost entirely at the mercy of our contributors. If a composer or a particular piece is not
represented in the Archives, this simply means that none of our contributors have yet submitted any
work by that composer or the particular piece you are looking for. But as we add about 200 files per week
you are invited to browse the Archives often: you may find what you are looking for during your
next visit!
Also, you may tell us and our contributors that you hope to see a particular piece in
the Archives! Join our FORUM and tell us!
Note that if you find something missing, we urge you to sequence the file yourself :) and
submit it to us via the Submission Form.
We keep some less than outstanding MIDI files (even rather poor ones) in the Archives because, although
they may not sound great (or even good), anyone with a sequencer can use them as raw material to make
a terrific sequence. The entry of each note (event) is a time-consuming task which most won't regret avoiding!
So, even from some of the poorest files, the note events can be re-used in a new file and time can instead be spent
constructively tweaking the dynamics and tempo, and adding judicious system-exclusive messages to make that new
file outstanding. This can then be resubmitted to the Archives (with the permission of the original
contributor) under the names of both contributors.
Please remember however that you cannot create a link from your page directly to our music files!
This violates our copyrights and generates an error when such links are
intercepted by our servers.
Sources: Asking for a particular piece of music or source!
If it isn't in the Archives - we haven't got it or it is copyrighted.
We suggest you explore these links.
CMA by FTP: Asking for an ftp site or a zip collection to download the whole or part of the Archives at once. There's none, and would violate our copyrights.
Wrong Note: Telling us there's a problem in, or with, a sequence.
Please tell the contributor. (His or her email address is either in the CONTRIBUTORS' LIST or we don't have it.)
Sheet Music: If you have any question with regards to any sheetmusic or the Sheet Music Archives, please contact John Mamoun directly at mamounjo@UMDNJ.EDU
Non-Windows: Asking for non-Windows implementation of our software.
That probably won't happen in the foreseeable future.
No Sound(1): If you cannot hear any sound - please see this FAQ
No Sound(2): If you can't hear any broadcasts while using one of our ID LOGIC Simulators,
it is because they ARE simulators... Even the best of software will not turn your computer into a radio receiver.
If you have a problem with the site (and please be as detailed as possible in your message.)
If you wish to have one of your sequences removed from the Archives.
If you wish to copy any element from the Archives. But first, read the copyrights page.
If you are sending an email telling us that you receive a "Forbidden" message
when you try to access one of the CMA's files - please see
the probable reason for this in the copyright page.