I am wondering what kind of midi programs people are using that are actually useful for Ir-trad learning and/or practice.

I have used a (discontinued) jukebox program called MidiGenie for playing midi files and playlists. Still a useful tool and it runs under Windows 7.

For learning tunes Notation Musician (formerly MidiNotate) is pretty good and the practice functions are very nice. However the playlist and file access systems are beyond antiquated. http://www.notation.com/

I used to use ABCPlay for creating files, however it hasn't been updated in years and doesn't work in Win7. The capacity to search all ABC files on your system was a great feature! ABC Navigator is useful for making midi from ABC but the search capacities are not there. (edited)

So...I am interested to hear about what other software or software combinations people are using for managing midi files?!?

Cheers,
Paul

Personally I don't find midi to be very useful for Irish traditional music- just too stiff in the timing department. I do find ABC format to be helpful in cataloging tunes. And midi playback is built into most ABC suites.

I use ABCExplorer for ABC cataloging, archiving and display. It has an embedded midi player.

I do however work with midi material all the time for other music genres. Midi support seems to be embedded in most most players out there. So I don't think one bit about a dedicated midi player.

I use PGMusic's Band In A Box (BiaB) and their sibling products as assistants to writing and arranging including midi input.

I use Cakewalk's Sonar Producer for audio recording and production. I've used their products since they were midi-only production tools (late 1980's). I frequently start a recording by importing midi tracks from BiaB and build out and over those tracks to complete the recording.

Feadoggie

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Oh...certainly agreed that the midi format is quite limited as you say, however I personally find it extremely useful as a memory tool. Kind of like "auditory ABC".
With that in mind I am trying to find the most useful tools I can for managing hundreds of trad ABC/Midi files. I am frustrated with how all of the programs out there come close but yet fall just short of having some very useful features!!

Try EasyABC. Works on most platforms, wraps around abcm2ps so the display is pretty much WYSIWYG, and wraps around abc2midi for playback.