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

[lsmart]

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

Actually MIDI is a cross platform standard. Not only PCs know how to handle them but all major OSs even a C64 has some MIDI-Software. The basic format of MIDI is dead simple. You could write a Midi generator in 40 lines of C.

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.

Just look on Aminet or OS4depot instead of Google.

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

ptmid for OS4 does this, but mind that midi doesn´t tell anything about the actual sound there is just "This note has to be played on a Piano .. Fortissimo with a bit of Reverb" and the tone generator looks for an adequate sample or preset to play it with. External tone generators were widely used in the 80s. So you can e.g. pipe the midi out your serial port to control YAMAHA keyboards.

[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.

[amiga1260]

You could use GMplay to play MIDI files on your Amiga.

[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

[bubblebobble]

The midi format does not come with samples. The GM MIDI standard defines at minimum 16 voices. MODs have only 4. So a converter is kind of difficult, first it must choose the samples from some kind of sample pool (Windows has this indeed pre-installed, and many sound cards have them on-board). Plus, MIDI has a lot fo information that a MOD cannot capture. So better leave the file MIDI rather than trying to convert.

On the Amiga the best midi Player is Timidity, it is pretty decend and sounds definetly better than the Windows Standard Sounds. It leaks of DSP stuff like Reverb and Chrous, but comes with good samples. I can be found on Aminet.
Warning: Anything less than a 60/50Mhz might be to slow for playback. But you can alos offline-convert the midi files to .wav.

[Karlos]

If you can still find one, there was a simple project to wire up a Yamaha DB50-XG board to your serial port using a minimum number of additional components (there was an RS232 to TTL level converter and not a lot else). Together with GMPlay, it was very nice, decent sound quality and reasonable effects too.

Before buying some rather more serious kit, I built this hack and fitted the DB50XG internally to an A1200, with a slight modification to the original schematic such that it didn't need independently resetting on reboot, though I left the reset switch in there anyway, poking out the side.

Alas, my DB50 XG failed in the end (just no sound output at all), though that did prompt me to buy something a bit better.

[desiv]

I know "back in the day", I used Deluxe Music Construction Set to play midi files on the Amiga.  Not sure how it would handle more complex files, but I seem to remember enjoying it at the time.

desiv

[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!

[desiv]

I don't have anything other than stock CPU machines,

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

desiv

[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)

[bubblebobble]

Deluxe Music Construction Set is a Sequencer, that can read and write MIDI filesto a certain extent.
It is not a General MIDI player.

Note the difference:

- MIDI is THE protocol to transfere musical data in realtime (such as Note on/off, Pitch Bend etc.)
- ".mid" Files are files, that have those data "frozen" with timestamps into a file, almost all serious music programs support this format.

To make this "data" audible, you need a musical instrument that is midi capable. A software synthesizer can replace this hardware, but requires significant CPU power.

MIDI does not specify what kind of sample/instrument should play the data. MIDI is usually used in a fix MIDI environment, so this is not really needed.
To exchange .mid files betweens people, e.g. to use it for games, there is a later standard called General MIDI (published first time 1991, AFTER the Amiga).
This defines for each program number (a MIDI definition) a certain, fix for all times, instrument.
E.g. program #1 shall be an acoustic piano. (whatever you do now with this information)

So if you want to play such files without HW, you need a player plus a software synthesizer that is General MIDI aware.
Deluxe Music Construction Set is not General MIDI aware, and supports only 4(?) channels. In MIDI, you are not limited to any number of cannels. The General MIDI standard says, that a device shall have at least 16 channels.

And what now?

- No, you can not play back .mid files (in sense of making them directly audible) on an off the shelf Amiga500/1200, it is too slow and has not enough memory.

- Yes, you can play it back on a 60/50Mhz when you use a program like Timidity, that contains about 15MB of samples.
Forget all other players on Amiga. Actually there is only GMPlay, which is a very early and buggy port of Timidity IIRC.

You can convert .mid files into MODs, but not automatically, this requires manual tweaking of the channel usage and a careful selection of the samples. The result might sound quite different from the .mid file played back via MIDI HW.

[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.)

[Karlos]

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...

MIDI channels have nothing to do with the the number of notes that can be played simultaneously. A single MIDI channel can play as many simultaneous notes as the hardware allows. All the channel does is define a set of parameters that apply to all notes played on that channel. Those parameters include the current patch (instrument) overall volume, stereo position, modulation (vibrato), pitch bend, effect send (reverb, chorus whatever) and various other parameters, depending on the hardware.

So, a MIDI piece that uses only one MIDI channel, say a piano composition, may suddenly play 8 concurrent notes whilst 4 more are still sustaining. That would require 12 audio channels on the Amiga to reproduce if you had to do it using only discrete single note samples.

Of course, if you were writing this for a tracker to start with, you'd find all of your commonly used chords first and prepare samples for them so that you can use a single channel.

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.

I've seen software that'll rip the samples used for soundblaster GM sets and the like.

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.

2->1 channel mixing for 8-channel replay has many limitations though. The mix mode of OctaMED SS is far better, but you need more horsepower.

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

That's debatable. It depends on the file and the quality settings used. You won't be playing back a 256kbps 44kHz stereo file at 14-bit through paula with that. Not without converting it to PCM first. Of course, you could use a hardware mp3 decoder, then even a 68000 is enough.

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.

I have MIDI compositions that have up to 64 notes playing concurrently. A vanilla 68000 simply cannot mix that many sound channels at an acceptable rate.

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.

OctaMED SS can load SMF0 and SMF1 files and gives you a fair amount of control over how it should import them. If you want to convert a .mid file to a tracker format, this is a way to start.

[desiv]

Deluxe Music Construction Set is a Sequencer, that can read and write MIDI files to a certain extent.
It is not a General MIDI player.

That's weird, because I didn't have any midi OUT devices, but I swear I remember it playing files???

You sure it doesn't have some default way of playing MIDI files?  I know I heard it playing music..

I'll have to dig it up and try it again?  :confused::confused::confused:

desiv