Part of the preparation for this site involved an extensive search for free MIDI files over several years. During that time I ranged far and wide over the internet following seams of information about particular music genre and finding the sites run by the enthusiasts involved. The types of site ranged from a simple one page site to much larger ones, through the huge FTP archives available at some university sites in those days to the binary news groups.
Having put the collection together I republished it for a while but the activity was progressively curtailed by copyright concerns and ultimately by a careless free ISP - you get what you pay for in the end.
But through all that I learned a bit about searching and I also saw the search engines develop their capability. At one time broad searches generated leads but now they are all invested by the big commercial sites. Today you are better off with rifle shot searches and narrowly defined requests because the big three search engines are so much more comprehensive and up to date.
On our site not surprisingly 'mp3' is the most popular keyword followed closely by 'can' since we published Offenbach's Can Can - it counts double every time and the lofi clip is today's streaming sample. So composer's name, file format and elements from the title will almost always find what you are searching for if it has been published and it will often open up a seam of other interesting and entertaining material.
Having put the collection together I republished it for a while but the activity was progressively curtailed by copyright concerns and ultimately by a careless free ISP - you get what you pay for in the end.
But through all that I learned a bit about searching and I also saw the search engines develop their capability. At one time broad searches generated leads but now they are all invested by the big commercial sites. Today you are better off with rifle shot searches and narrowly defined requests because the big three search engines are so much more comprehensive and up to date.
On our site not surprisingly 'mp3' is the most popular keyword followed closely by 'can' since we published Offenbach's Can Can - it counts double every time and the lofi clip is today's streaming sample. So composer's name, file format and elements from the title will almost always find what you are searching for if it has been published and it will often open up a seam of other interesting and entertaining material.