My Pilot is God

Music Information

If the music doesn't sound that great

     The music on this site is provided through "midi" files.  Unlike mp3 files, midi files don't actually contain the music itself, but instead contain commands to play musical instruments.  The quality of the music you get from your computer is therefore dependent upon the quality of the sampled musical instrument sounds that are present on your computer.

     The quality of the sounds provided under Microsoft Windows is not quite as good as I'd like.  The Crescendo Max player ($9.95) includes a different set of musical instrument sounds that will improve the quality some of the music you hear, but some sounds will be lower or missing compared to the Microsoft-provided ones on Windows ME or Windows XP.  The basic (free) Crescendo player will use the Microsoft-provided sounds by default.  For whatever reason, neither set of sounds seems to be as complete or realistic as what I hear under Linux.

     Crescendo is also available for the Mac.  I haven't heard the music played on a Mac, so I really can't say much about the quality.

     Timidity is normally used as a Netscape plug-in under Linux.  There are other supporting packages that you may need.  The supporting packages are part of the Red Hat Linux distribution.  The sound quality I've experienced is Excellent. You will also get popup windows showing the words to the songs etc. which you don't normally get under Windows.  If your sound isn't the same, you might consider updating to a newer release of Linux, or check for a sound card problem etc.  Exercise care when messing with settings and drivers, or you may make things worse.

If the music is garbled or breaks-up

     Windows sometimes will have the sound work O.K. with less-taxing formats, but will fall apart when presented with the complexity of playing the multiple instruments contained in midi files.  Within Control Panel, you can look at the information on sound, and reduce the "acceleration level" or similar settings to a lower level, and you may get rid of the problem.  Before messing with settings on Windows, record exactly what the settings are before you change them, and then change a single thing at a time by one increment at a time, and listen to the music to see if the problem has disappeared.  You may also want to check for an updated driver for your sound card.  Exercise care when messing with settings and drivers, or you may make things worse.

     On Linux, you may need to change settings or get an updated driver for your sound card.  Under Red Hat Linux, my personal opinion is KDE environment has a better sound system than gnome.  Exercise care when messing with settings and drivers, or you may make things worse.

If you hear no music at all

     I guess it goes without saying that your computer must support sound, and have a working sound card installed.  If you have sound working on other applications, you are probably just missing the web browser plug-in that will enable it.  Note that the plug-in may need to be installed separately for each browser.  If you're using Internet Explorer at version 5.5 or above, you may be a victim of Microsoft disabling support for Netscape plug-ins.  Note that IE 5.5 originally supported Netscape plug-ins, and that an update to it removed the support!  If you had music sometime in the past, and then lost it, that could be how it happened.  Installing an IE-specific plug-in should bring it back.

     Crescendo is recommended as your plug-in for either Internet Explorer or Netscape on the Windows environment.  Apple's Quicktime will also work.  If you are using a browser other than Netscape or Internet Explorer, such as Mozilla, you may find that it supports Netscape plug-ins.  If that is the case, you may be able to get Crescendo to work by specifying an install directory that corresponds to the directory that the browser uses for Netscape plug-ins.  I have been successful doing this with Mozilla under Windows ME; but I cannot guarantee anything to anyone regarding this.  Crescendo only supports IE and Netscape.  If you want to play around with what set of sound files will sound best for a given song, spend the $9.95 for Crescendo MAX.  The basic (free) player will also work fine.

     Under Linux, Timidity is recommended.  See the documentation for any other requirements.

Downloading plug-ins

You can Click here to go to the Crescendo site.

If you wish, try using Apple's Quicktime instead.
You can Click here to go to Apple's Quicktime page.

Timidity may be downloaded from your Linux Distribution's site, or
You can Click here to search for Timidity on rpmfind.net.

Follow the installation instructions provided by the plug-in manufacturer.

You're enjoying "Mystery of Your Love" from the Songs of Praise website.
Thanks to Songs of Praise for providing music for this and other sites!