Played through a computer with a good midi-player or a keyboard with a disc drive Midifiles can sound just like the real thing since they invented Digital Sampling. In the old days the sounds reproduced were pretty corny, but nowadays, close your eyes and you'd think you were listening to the real thing. Obviously the more expensive the equipment the more realistic the sound, but only up to a certain level, after that it levels off no matter how good the equipment is.

 I use a Roland keyboard and a Roland JV1010 sound module and I must admit that the sounds from the 1010 are far superior to the old E86 I used for years. When I bought the 1010 I bought an expansion card with it which has 256 voices of dedicated Country instruments including a fantastic steel guitar sound.   Ironically I still use the original Cakewalk programme, although I have Cakewalk's latest (Pro9). The original programme was well designed without all the gimmicks they chucked in for the later versions. I have included a sample midifile at the bottom of this page.

 Over the years I have found the combination to be extremely effective and have several hundred MIDI files to prove it covering a very wide range of music styles. I use my laptop containing all the MIDI files in a programme called Virtual Jukebox to drive the Roland JV1010 through a midi interface output to two inputs of a 300 watt per channel stereo mixer amp coupled to 4 speakers (2 per side) which gives me an excellent sound, and am often told to turn down because it's too loud!

 My guitar uses 2 inputs, and my PA uses 2 more, so everything comes out in full stereo.

 Below is a sample MIDI file of a Garth Brooks number called "Not Counting You".  Create a file on your hard drive, give it a name then right click on the icon below (notcount.mid) and save it to your file. Then later you can either play it with a media player, or if you've got Cakewalk you, can open it up and see how I put it together, or,  if you're the proud owner of a keyboard complete with disc drive, download the file onto a floppy disc and play it through your keyboard. Have fun!