Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, mac_h8r1, Nemesis
Dr. Coconut wrote:Hello, just me again. I wasn't entirely sure where to post this, so I'm sorry if it's misplaced. But out of curiosity, how do I improve the sound of .midis on my computer(It's a Vista by the way, but I have a Windows 7 also)? Because honestly, it sounds like a broken trumpet in a microwave.(I.e., really digitized)
Game_boy wrote:MIDI isn't for playback. You need to use actual sample libraries.
Captain Ned wrote:Yet another reason to mourn the TBSC.
Captain Ned wrote:Yet another reason to mourn the TBSC.
derFunkenstein wrote:I had an ISA Sound Blaster Pro that for some bewildering reason defaulted to channel 16 as the default drum channel rather than 10 in Windows 3.1, so drum tracks always sounded like someone banging on a piano's bass keys. You could fix it in a control panel but it was weird to say the least. But in DOS the same card correctly used channel 10 for drums. Weird.
just brew it! wrote:derFunkenstein wrote:I had an ISA Sound Blaster Pro that for some bewildering reason defaulted to channel 16 as the default drum channel rather than 10 in Windows 3.1, so drum tracks always sounded like someone banging on a piano's bass keys. You could fix it in a control panel but it was weird to say the least. But in DOS the same card correctly used channel 10 for drums. Weird.
Sounds like one of the driver developers got 10 decimal mixed up with 10 hexadecimal!
FireGryphon wrote:I had a Pro Audio Spectrum 16 sound card -- a very good card for its day -- that used channel 16 for drums, too. I soon realized that most of the MIDI files I downloaded had drums set to channel 10, so I was always editing the files to 16 using Midisoft Recording Session software.
Dr. Coconut wrote:Thanks! The reason I'm interested in .midis is because, when making computer games, .midis tend to be more space efficient then .OGGs or .MP3s.
derFunkenstein wrote:Yamaha also offered an XG daughter card that would fit onto the expansion socket on most SB cards. I had one (I guess I still do, it's inside my mothballed PIII/Win2K machine IIRC) and it really did sound excellent. All those MIDI tracks from 90s games sounded better on it than many of the full (but compressed) WAV soundtracks that came along later. Well, as long as they didn't screw up the instrument assignments.Yamaha used to bundle a really excellent sounding XG synth (extended general MIDI) with Hercules sound cards, but it's been abandoned and the latest version of Windows it'll run on is Windows XP.
just brew it! wrote:derFunkenstein wrote:I had an ISA Sound Blaster Pro that for some bewildering reason defaulted to channel 16 as the default drum channel rather than 10 in Windows 3.1, so drum tracks always sounded like someone banging on a piano's bass keys. You could fix it in a control panel but it was weird to say the least. But in DOS the same card correctly used channel 10 for drums. Weird.
Sounds like one of the driver developers got 10 decimal mixed up with 10 hexadecimal!
Glorious wrote:You could also consider mods. They keep the space down like midis, but they'll sound the same.
Long history of being used in games too
The problem is, if you're making games you plan to distribute to the general public the MIDI file may sound very different on the computer of the person playing the game depending on what kind of MIDI support they've got on their system. If you're OK with it sounding like "a broken trumpet in a microwave" (to use your own description) for anyone who's playing the game on a system with inexpensive onboard sound, then I guess it may be a viable option.
Dr. Coconut wrote:The problem is, if you're making games you plan to distribute to the general public the MIDI file may sound very different on the computer of the person playing the game depending on what kind of MIDI support they've got on their system. If you're OK with it sounding like "a broken trumpet in a microwave" (to use your own description) for anyone who's playing the game on a system with inexpensive onboard sound, then I guess it may be a viable option.
Well that's too bad for them really.
Dr. Coconut wrote:Say, doesn't Famitracker support mods?
derFunkenstein wrote:If you're talking about the general MIDI playback that's used by default in Windows, Prion's link is most practical, though the nonsense about the "MIDI stack" is just that - nonsense. Windows 7 uses the same sample library that every version of Windows has used since Win98.
Glorious wrote:Dr. Coconut wrote:Say, doesn't Famitracker support mods?
Well, yeah. The NES used a mod format.
Prion wrote:My bad, I read some more and as I understand it they just removed the MIDI mapper and made the DirectMusic softsynth (the broken trumpet microwave one) the hardwired default option. So I guess as long as you have a driver that overrides that (the Creative hw synth driver, BASSMIDI, etc.) or use a program with a built in MIDI mapper (like most sequencer software or MIDI players tied to a particular synth) you're all right(?)
derFunkenstein wrote:You're probably dealing with a quirk in reading note velocities or more likely track volume in the driver. If they're your own MIDI compositions, open them back up in whatever sequencer you used and write in some sort of track automation that adjusts volumes at the start of each MIDI file. Some synths never touch the "faders" (so to speak) without being told (resulting in weirdness as you move from one track to another) and others will default to a specific volume.
Not sure about WMP "crashing" when you close it, that's a little weird.
Prion wrote:The NES didn't use any format. Some games by the same company share sound code because code recycling is efficient, but that's pretty much it. An .nsf file is just machine code that acts as kind of a sound driver+sequence data for the PSG and any externally mapped sound chips.