The MIDIs

[Vormotus]

Originally Posted by Danth [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

EQ used some sort of proprietary file for its music, although I think it was really just midi music converted to a different format so people couldn't easily listen to it out-of-game. An old EQ patch note for EQ suggests that most users heard pre-rendered music, although users with SBLive! or AWE32 cards got something different. If you can remember what hardware you had in 1999/2001 that'll let you know what you want to hunt for on youtube/elsewhere.

Danth

I had in the day an AWE32 and it was amazing, but I remember a friend of mine had this Pro Audio Spectrum soundcard, it was so advanced for the time it even had a SCSI interface.

I wonder how it would sound playing EQ?

He was the guy that showed off in the Adlib/SB 1.0 days how his Wing Commander intro sounded better than everyone elses.

These type of threads make me want to go buy me a real Mt 32 and other oldie gadgets. I left behind on my country a fully 1996 themed computer that ran all the classics in wonderful early vga colors with a trusty super bulky crt.

Nothing beats that nostalgia trip high as using actual vintage pieces haha

[Jimjam]

Originally Posted by Deathrydar [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

So now that the conversation has started, what have some people found on the interwebz that gets the midis as close to the original sounds as possible?

I'm sure there are threads on this in the technical discussion forum and elsewhere on eqemu, but my gut is telling me that because elfsim is so old, those threads might actually now be out of date and not appropriate solutions for windows 10!

googled site[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]roject1999.com midi and got this result:

Make EQ's music (MIDI) sound Significantly Better.
(2012!)

edit:

I see you already found that dead end.

edit edit:

You can setup several soundbanks in virtual midi synth, I've found that using the files you can find in the EQ directory in combination with the awe32 soundbank will give you the correct instruments. They overwrite each other as you load more in, here's my current load order and it sounds pretty good.

1mgm.sf2
synthys2.sf2
sythnusr.sbk

The last two are in the EQ directory. I haven't noticed anything that sounds significantly off with this setup yet.

Sounds like the trick for win10 is to download virtualmidi synth and combine EQ's own files with the awe32 soundbank

[Deathrydar]

Originally Posted by Jimjam [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'm sure there are threads on this in the technical discussion forum and elsewhere on eqemu, but my gut is telling me that because elfsim is so old, those threads might actually now be out of date and not appropriate solutions for windows 10!

googled site[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]roject1999.com midi and got this result:

Make EQ's music (MIDI) sound Significantly Better.
(2012!)

edit:

I see you already found that dead end.

edit edit:



Sounds like the trick for win10 is to download virtualmidi synth and combine EQ's own files with the awe32 soundbank

/cheers

[Mblake81]

Originally Posted by Deathrydar [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

So now that the conversation has started, what have some people found on the interwebz that gets the midis as close to the original sounds as possible?

Examples:
Kelethin
Neriak, Necromancer guild
North Ro
Boat Theme, OoT

*The sounds are correct and not remixed but they are cleaned up. It would sound different coming through a MIDI card and speakers of the time. I was using a Soundblaster Live! and Boston Acoustic Digital BA735 speakers.

[Mblake81]

Originally Posted by Danth [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

A great many people presently use onboard sound which typically has only poor MIDI support. Way back when you would've been using things like SoundBlaster Live! or AWE32 which would've given different results. That being said it still wouldn't have sounded quite the same as that modern video. There are old videos also on youtube made using various types of hardware (or simulated equivalents).

For my part I was also among the folks who always turned game music off (sound on, but music off). 90's MIDI music always sounded so bad compared to consoles of the era.

Danth

Yeah, good info. There were some games that got into Mod Tracker sounds like the original Deus Ex (the only Deus Ex game), I am not all that familiar with it. But I would argue that better or worse computers had their own sound. It was one less thing stretched across the board with every other device. Some people are all about the multiplatform but I am one of the guys that hate it. It all tastes like Vanilla.

[loramin]

Just to clarify, since I get the impression people here don't fully "grok" it ... midi files are not sound recordings. MP3s, WAV files, etc. those all are digital formats for storing audio recordings ... but not MIDIs.

What MIDI files are is more like sheet music. They (essentially) say "the trumpet plays this note at this moment" ... but they leave it up the MIDI-playing program to decide exactly what that trumpet sounds like. They don't store the sound of a trumpet, which made midi files much smaller (and more attractive to devs) than actual audio recordings back then.

That's why there's differences between different sound cards and such: they all have different (virtual) "instruments".

[Mblake81]

Originally Posted by loramin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Just to clarify, since I get the impression people here don't fully "grok" it ... midi files are not sound recordings. MP3s, WAV files, etc. those all are digital formats for storing audio recordings ... but not MIDIs.

What MIDI files are is more like sheet music. They (essentially) say "the trumpet plays this note at this moment" ... but they leave it up the MIDI-playing program to decide exactly what that trumpet sounds like. They don't store the sound of a trumpet, which made midi files much smaller (and more attractive to devs) than actual audio recordings back then.

That's why there's differences between different sound cards and such: they all have different (virtual) "instruments".

/\

LGR's MIDI Mountain

8-Bit Guy, Soundblaster Keyboards.

[Vormotus]

Originally Posted by Mblake81 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

/\

LGR's MIDI Mountain

8-Bit Guy, Soundblaster Keyboards.

You pasted a 8 Bit guy video, you are already in my fav person book!

That channel rocks so much, I am stuck on permanent vintage mode and some of his videos are so relaxing I usually leave them on on my big screen so I can see them as I do chores around the house.

Some of his unboxing vintage computers are the best!

And LGR channel is what got me into MUNT madness ... so much good stuff there!

And yes, having EQ sound exactly as it was back in the day is really fun [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Izmael]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMiy...=youtu.be&t=49

I think this sounds quite close to how a regular SB back then rendered the EQ MIDIs.

[Mblake81]

Freeport theme on 13 different MIDI wave table soundcards.