Is there a Midi PC file music player for Amiga?

[Amiga_Nut]

You know you get those PC music files which are labelled .mid and even Win7 plays them yes?

Is there a program on Amiga that plays these files too? Google search is not helping at all for me, and as the only decent Outrun tunes that sound anything like the arcade are in .MID format this got me thinking.

And if someone has transferred the general midi samples used for these files to an Amiga 8bit friendly format for the player, naturally, is there any way to convert .MID to .MOD files too?

TIA

[Amiga_Nut]

Oh I mean play these music files in the same way as a PC plays them using a standard soundbank loaded onto the wavetable/sampletable in memory with a generic sound card and no actual midi instruments attached to the machine. So instead of Windows Media Player ontop of Windows was looking for a Workbench music player. That's the problem, unless you have these 200+ generic midi instruments required to play the files (Windows includes them as standard I guess) converted to Paula capable format then you can't play them on an Amiga.

I tried Modplug Tracker to export the file but it will only export it to a 10 channel MOD of the .IT file format, it refuses to save it as a 4 channel Pro-Tracker MOD despite it being a 4 channel midi tune.

I'll have a look on Aminet see if there is anything for playing back the files on classic Amiga, technically it should be possible given enough sound channels.

I'm interested in ripping the instruments at the very least, or just to be able to play individual channels of the .mid song file. Maybe I'll try more experimenting on the .IT Impulse Tracker MOD it produced (10 channel PC format I believe).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxcVk6ygHVE&feature=related

That's the arcade version, the Amiga MODs I have found sound way off this instrument wise, although clearly this is a simple enough tune *sigh*

I can attach the MIDI song file if anyone else wants to experiment with it

edit: MODplug Tracker is actually quite powerful after a few minutes playing with it, but the process of getting it down to a MOD file ruins the song (complains about some pattern data being trimmed off the end). The search continues.....after I have watched Monaco F1 Free Practice 3 that is and done my chores for the day

However I did find some samples, and I guess that's something.

[Amiga_Nut]

I've only got access to a standard OCS machine not A1200 (which is stored away for now) btw so I can't use that for now.

I'll give it a go though when I get my A1200 sorted out ta

I've been through MODS Anthology and the Outrun tunes on Amiga are embarrassing to say the least (but still not as terrible as the absolutely pathetic US Gold game rips)

They bloody 80s them up with extra mature cheese! lol

[Amiga_Nut]

I don't have anything other than stock CPU machines, and I don't have cash to blow on 060/040 cards etc at most would be a CPU socket board for my A1000 for double figures. After a lot of messing about with MODplug Tracker I have managed to access various hidden features. Sadly as people say the way the 64 events per pattern of a true MOD are laid out are not going to convert well from this MIDI file (yes it was called General Midi, I remember now). It's important to remember though that the original song is only about 4 channels anyway so there is no technical reason it can't be done.....there are MODs of the song it's just the samples used are terrible.

Anyway, sort of found a 4 channel MOD with the right notes sequenced up etc, might get this all onto a floppy and mess about with various sound trackers by trying to convert samples from the general midi library).

I Need a desk, comfy chair, and a spare weekend to do this Now would be a good time to repair my 3rd external floppy by butchering one from an ST....it's for the cause!

[Amiga_Nut]

Deluxe Music Construction Set ran on stock Amiga's...
FWIW..

desiv

I think I have that somewhere, but assumed that would only play them via an actual midi piece of musical hardware attached to the Amiga as the general midi files don't hold samples. Also thinking about it wouldn't all the samples probably take up too much space for your average machine at the time it was released?

I'll dig through my box of disks and make sure I have all 4 disks it came on, did see it recently whilst looking for Xenon II (not to play, rubbish 16 colour game...to sell lol)

[Amiga_Nut]

Apart from the 16 channel aspect, some of which is just down to the way the general midi is played not because you need 16 simultaneous notes played at exactly the same time in all cases, it is very possible for Amiga to play back these tunes technically. DMCS was very early in the life of Amiga but around the time of the A1200 EA did release a sequel, although I doubt it has the general midi instruments available to play them without any hardware as you say.

Memory for holding the samples is the issue, but essentially things like Startracker and other 8-channel MOD players for Amigas prove that technically it is possible to do more or less the same thing, in fact MOD is a superior technology given you pick the samples anyway. After all what is a MOD player doing, the same thing more or less. 50mhz 030 is enough to play an MP3 on the fly so I see no reason why you need that kind of power to play general midi music files, I could convert that youtube video I linked to an MP3 and just play that back too then.

Anyway I need it as a MOD file for some other project, so looks like it's going to have to be a lot of manual experimentation and messing about trying to save out samples from other sources tacked onto a general MOD that exists already. Even so, the midi instruments are still not quite as good as the original ones, and I'm starting to wonder if there is a utility for ripping samples from MAME ROMs.....now that would be a really cool thing to do, and I think it is possible from some distant memory.

(I admit there may be some bespoke effects not supported but essentially trackers were doing the same things as a music player in Windows is doing now, sure the samples won't be in 16bit but really it's the same thing as comparing an IFF 256 colour image to a GIF file, it's all much of a muchness, and the technical requirements are too similar.)