MIDI file FM playback recording question. Kinda a big deal.

prisoner416

New member
I'm working with a rather well known video game music artist that I will not name at the moment, but odds are, if you played games back when cd-roms were new, you might have heard his stuff. I've been working with him for a while to try to release complete soundtracks for two games he worked on online... there are tracks available, but not nearly all of them.

Managed to extract the midi and xmi files from the games and send them to him.

He's willing to cut me a deal if I can find him a way to get " a complete recording of FM playback" on a bunch of files. In return he's willing to give me the sound canvass versions.

I have been waiting so long for these files, and would love to see them preserved for history. However, I'm in over my head.

TO be honest, I don't know much about midi and only recently got into soundfonts, Roland, FM, and all this other stuff.

Would anybody be wiling to lend me a hand?
 
Thought I knew a lot about MIDI, but the XMI file, not sure I know where these come into play. Maybe except they contain the information on what bank to play? It is used in UML modeling exchange, like Rational Rose, for creating OO coding diagrams and code generation (mainly stubs).

So, kind of lost on the XMI data part. Once again, maybe that is the modeling tool they used to know when something was referenced when certain action happened. At this point, guess talking to a game creator understands how these files work in regards to the music.
 
Back in the 80's we didn't have samples. So we designed the sound based on FM syntheses, so I get that (parameters, attack, tail, frequency, etc.) but how to bring that forward, and to translate that I did not get into that part of it. I did start but hat was close to programming (In a pure since down to assembler). That was too deep for me and I bailed.

Seems to me, the OP will have to go to that level to create this compilation.
 
Seems like we're mixing items, here.
Midi is universal. Notes. Volume. etc. Plays across platforms and, except for Sysex info, responds pretty much the same way. Easy.
If i understand it, XMI is hardware based. That is, you'd have to know the sound engine, be it Sega, Nintendo, etc. as these were integrated differently.

As DM60 said, FM synthesis was uniquely powerful for certain emulations and for a big sound palate, overall. Most video consoles capitalized on it somewhere along the way. But they weren't DX7 units inside, either. They were specific FM setups, often a single chip -- often a custom single chip.

To do what you're asking, is lopsided. Extract the Midi. Okay, got that. Make useful sound of the XMI? Monumental task for even a team.

Depending on exactly what your deliverables are, I might be keen to approach this as a high quality archival recording. Trick out the game to play all the tracks. That might be easiest. Capture those tracks, then backwash both the Midi and the patches by ear, independent of the data.

Challenges:
1. Of course, there's the playing of the tracks. Gotta hack the game at some lower level, obviously.
2. Chances are (I hate to say this), while some basic notes and volumes might be in Midi, anything like modulation, timber sweeps, and pitch bend, all popular game hits, will probably be in the XMI data, so again, finding what's affecting what is gonna be untangling a bird's nest.

Sounds "interesting", but if this is what i think this is -- and let's say it'd be good if i was wrong -- handling this as digital data to recreate a score might be quite the undertaking.


Ponder5
 
Sorry for late reply, I thought I had email setup to notify to replies. I'm crossposting on a few message boards as this is something I've been hopeful for a while for, but again, given I was born around '87, I don't have quite the amount of knowledge of midi to know how hard of a task this might be.

If I'm lucky, the midi files for all of them should be available as if I recall they were converted into xmi for some reason for the game, but the artist should still have the source files. The first game's midi soundtrack was released for purchase. It's only the second game that uses xmi for some reason, but from what I've been told, the original midi is still available.

I already have the midi files and xmi, and I know he's done conversion for them to turn into Sound Canvass renders (which he has offered some of in Flac format and otherwise via Bandcamp and a studio album.)

Sorry if my question was confusing, no hacking of the game is required. The only reason I haven't mentioned what games are involved was because I didn't want to get anyone's hopes up if nothing comes of it.

I'll contact the artist back and see if there is any other information I can provide. I'm sending him links to this and another thread I made about the subject.
 
The clue here is he mentions Sound Canvas - so back then, he probably produced the entire thing using Roland GS synths, and with the MIDI file to provide the note data, you simply have to marry the two together you should have it. However - I'm not sure why the game would include the MIDI - unless the same sound generation hardware is inside - as in it has (had?) a Roland Sound Canvas chipset?

GS was Rolands extended sound set, similar to Yamaha's XG.

The success of the project will be in the MIDI data - is it GS, taking advantage of the extra sound sets, or plain old GM? You'll have to check the sysex data to see what you have - but if you have the original music in even a poorly recorded version, or a working game - the sounds are pretty obvious to somebody old enough to remember them. My guess, however will be that while you have the MIDI, you won't have any information on any tweaks to the sound he made. I still have all my projects from the 1990s, in GS, XG and GM - BUT to get any sounding remotely like they did is many hours of work, as I bet most of his work was done in Logic or Cubase back then, and the cleverness saved in their files, not in the MIDI. Hardly any of my finished projects from back then were ever saved out as MIDI, because you lost so much of what you'd done. The XML file I doubt will help you - I never ever used that file format as I didn't need to.
 
I think it's all right to give a bit more info now. I've been talking with the lead composer of the 7th Guest and the 11th Hour, "The Fat Man" aka George Sanger. The hopeful goal is a complete digital release of the game soundtracks, beyond the stuff that was released previously. Right now, he's looking into converting the .xmi into .midi. Not sure if that's possible, I've found a few programs but some warn they might lose data.

As far as equipment, he obviously knows more then I do, so I've sent him links to this topic. Sorry I'm not more help.
 
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