There is a place called Tune Toys where you can make your own midis, There are a number of toys to play with, but this tutorial will only be about one. The rest of them are pretty basic and easy to use. This one is more unique in that you can make a nice sounding midi here with a little creativity.

The tune on this tute is one I made using the Tune Toys Chain feature.

So here's the one I refer to... Chain

The tune you will make is in the midi format, and is a small file. Mostly between 3 and 5 K.

You can transload your creation quite easy. After you finish your tune you click on your goto key, hit the show last button which will give you the temporary URL, cut and copy the URL and transload it.

And here's some tips for you...

First, it helps if you are at least a bit familiar with a piano keyboard and how to write music. It is not mandatory to know how to write music as there is a feature that you can select a key, i.e. the key of C or G that will put your tune in order.

The letters you will use will relate to the piano keys. They do not match the keys but are in a sequence that relates to it.

For example, the letter a can be thought of as the a key on the piano. There are 12 keys in an octave, and you have two octaves to work with.

The letters that reference them in the alphabet are:

a=a, b=b-flat, c=b, d=c, e=d-flat, f=d, g=e-flat, h=e, i=f, j=g-flat, k=g, l=a-flat.

Then on to the next octave:
m=a, o=a-flat, p=b, q=c, r=d-flat, s=d, t=e-flat, u=e, v=f, w=g-flat, x=g, y=a-flat, z=a.

Next, fill in the letters you want to use, it is best to repeat letters in multiples of 4 and have the number of letters you use divisible by 4. That will keep the tune in proper beat sequence and make it so it loops properly. This does take some counting and keeping track of the letters. However, in the end you will be much more pleased with how the tune turns out.

Use combinations of letters like: aaddaahh, or adadhhhh to give an 1/8 note and/or 1/4 note kind of effect. With different transformations this kind of pattern will also sound like rests between notes.

You can also repeat patterns of letters to get some great effects and altho I am not positive how many letters you can use, I have used up to 64. But, keep in mind a "bar" is 4 notes in 4/4 tempo and 4, 8, 12 or 16 bars makes a good melody, then repeat the pattern. If you use 8 bars and repeat the same pattern you would have a total of 64 letters in the box.

(4 letters=1 bar, times 8 bars=32 total letters in the box so far, repeat the pattern again and you have 64 letters in the box, a total of 16 bars)

There is a transformation you can add to the list to repeat up to 4 times which would make the tune play 64 bars. Then you can use a loop attribute in your bgsound src tag to make it play even longer.

Next, choose one of the voices. There are six to choose from. Then click on update.

To play your midi click on the box near the top of the page. It will have horizontal lines in it, and as you add to it the lines become smaller.

Now you have the basics set up and at anytime you want you can change the patch, or voice and the tune you are working on will stay the same only play with the selected patch.

The next part is where you get to experiment, there are a lot of transformations to choose from. Just go through the list and click on something, and click on add to list and try it out. If you dont like it then delete it and try something else. Adding one transformation at a time and then playing the midi is best. That way if you dont like it you dont have a big list to remember what to delete.

Just keep adding to the list until you get something you like and then transload.

You can add drums too. There are 3 drum patterns and also 2 hi-hat and 1 hi-hat/snare transformation. Play them in combination by adding each individually to the list. You can even pick a transformation to exclude the drums being affected and only have the other transformations affected.

There is a lot that can be done with this toy, just do it one step at a time and you will be pleased with what you come up with.

If you need help or clarification on this please feel free to email me.