With all the capabilities inherent to waveform audio, you might ask: Why bother going through the trouble to understand and use MIDI? The reason is that MIDI files offer some very compelling benefits over waveform audio.
Since a MIDI file is a series of instructions and not a waveform, it requires much less disk space. For example, a typical 8-bit, 22.05 kHz waveform lasting 1.8 seconds might require 41K. A typical MIDI file lasting two minutes could require less than 8K.
Because the size of the MIDI file is so much smaller, you can pre-load MIDI files much easier than you can waveform files. This gives you flexibility when you design your title and specify when music occurs.
There are several situations where using a MIDI score is preferable to using waveform audio. The following table offers some general scenarios where you'd choose one form of audio over another.
| Use Waveform Audio when . . . |
Use Compact Disc Digital Audio when . . . | Use MIDI when . . . |
| You need to play voice-over narration or natural sound effects | Your title requires full CD-DA quality audio. | You need to play music of more than a short duration of reasonable quality. |
| You need to load other data from the CD drive simultaneously. | You need the full CPU bandwidth for some task other than using the CD drive (when CD-DA audio is playing, you can't load anything from the CD drive). | You need to load other data from the CD-ROM simultaneously. |
| You want to store less than one minute of sound on the hard disk., No hard disk storage of sound is needed. | You want to store more than one minute of music on the hard disk. | |
| You have plenty of space available. | You have plenty of space available., Space usage on your CD-ROM disc is limited. |