The file I got shows the size 52,461 bytes, and it is a .mid file. [...] I loaded the file I got into SYNTHFONT, and it loaded fine. I then played the file, and it plays fine. Although, near the end, there are some LONG (too long) notes sounding
the file that I downloaded and was commenting on has 15 tracks, BUT tracks 11 to 15 are in fact empty.
Hello Geoff. We are both looking at the same MIDI file. The page that Erez mentioned only has one MIDI file on it that I can see and it is 52461 bytes, or 51.23 kibibytes, as the page says.
As a quick and dirty way to confirm the file only contains 10 tracks, here's something you can try:
1. Open Notepad.
2. Drag and drop the MIDI file into the Notepad window.
3. Go to the Edit menu and choose the Find command. Enter in
MTrk and click the Find button.
4. Keep repeating the Find command and you will discover the "MTrk" text can only be found 10 times in the file.
I just downloaded
SynthFont 1.770 and it behaves like you describe. It appears SynthFont doesn't care that the number of tracks indicated in file's header is incorrect or that the number of bytes indicated in the last track's header is incorrect. I guess SynthFont creates 15 empty tracks based on the file's header information, then fills in the tracks with whatever events are in the file until the end of the file is reached. The last events in the file are the beginning of the never-ending notes.
Another app that can play the MIDI file is
vanBasco's Karaoke Player, it also displays the lyrics in the file. But it still plays the never-ending notes.
All of the other MIDI player software I tried give an error message, crashed, or refused to open the MIDI file (Windows Media Player, MuseScore, Sekaiju, Notation Player, Synthesia, Cakewalk, MIDITrail, MAMPlayer, VLC Media Player). Patching the MIDI file as I described gets it to open in all of these apps and also removes the never-ending notes.