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

[Magnus Of Rorck]

I use the FluidR3 or the Arachno soundFont with VirtualMIDISynth and it sounds like a full friggin' orchestra inside my box with Everquest.

[Maestrobob]

The previous .zip had a small issue where my MIDI player was limiting the max reverb per channel to 64 instead of the full 127.

I've recreated them with the correct reverb settings and put them in a .zip -> here

It should be a noticeable improvement for those who just want to listen.

[Scoojitsu]

Those all sound very very nice!

Could you post a quick tutorial on how to get this new sound file into the game?
I installed XMPlay and don't know what to do.
Thank you!!

[Maestrobob]

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

Those all sound very very nice!

Could you post a quick tutorial on how to get this new sound file into the game?
I installed XMPlay and don't know what to do.
Thank you!!

XMPlay is only if you want to listen to the MIDI files outside of the game.

The easiest and quickest method for getting the in game music to sound like this is to use BASSMIDI or VirtualMIDISynth, as outlined by the OP of this thread. Then, instead of using 1mgm.sf2, synthusr.sf2, or a combination of both, load my soundfont I posted earlier and all the in-game music should sound like the mp3s.

As a quick note, VirtualMIDISynth limits the max MIDI reverb and chorus to 64 by default. You will need to go into options and change both to 127.

There is one other way - which involves making the client use mp3 files instead of the .xmi. It's much more complex as you have to edit a ton of .emt files in the EQ folder, but you can see the details of what's involved on this post.

[Scoojitsu]

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

XMPlay is only if you want to listen to the MIDI files outside of the game.

The easiest and quickest method for getting the in game music to sound like this is to use BASSMIDI or VirtualMIDISynth, as outlined by the OP of this thread. Then, instead of using 1mgm.sf2, synthusr.sf2, or a combination of both, load my soundfont I posted earlier and all the in-game music should sound like the mp3s.

As a quick note, VirtualMIDISynth limits the max MIDI reverb and chorus to 64 by default. You will need to go into options and change both to 127.

There is one other way - which involves making the client use mp3 files instead of the .xmi. It's much more complex as you have to edit a ton of .emt files in the EQ folder, but you can see the details of what's involved on this post.

Thank you very much! [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Muggens]

Thanks Maestrobob, this is sounding very good to my ears!

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

As a quick note, VirtualMIDISynth limits the max MIDI reverb and chorus to 64 by default. You will need to go into options and change both to 127.

Newest release of VMS wont let me change the reverb/chorus, seems bugged, stuck at 64

[Knuckle]

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

XMPlay is only if you want to listen to the MIDI files outside of the game.

The easiest and quickest method for getting the in game music to sound like this is to use BASSMIDI or VirtualMIDISynth, as outlined by the OP of this thread. Then, instead of using 1mgm.sf2, synthusr.sf2, or a combination of both, load my soundfont I posted earlier and all the in-game music should sound like the mp3s.

As a quick note, VirtualMIDISynth limits the max MIDI reverb and chorus to 64 by default. You will need to go into options and change both to 127.

There is one other way - which involves making the client use mp3 files instead of the .xmi. It's much more complex as you have to edit a ton of .emt files in the EQ folder, but you can see the details of what's involved on this post.

Yeah they didnt have great instructions im a bit confused. I THINK I know what to do, but could use a confirmation.

EDIT:

So FIRST I followed the README instructions:

---Installing---
1. Back up all existing .emt files in your EverQuest directory.
2. Copy all .emt files in the EMT folder to your EQ directory. Overwrite any files that already exist.
3. Copy the /music folder into your EQ directory. What is this step doing? And I was supposed to move the entire folder so that I have a "music" folder in my eq directory, or just paste the files inside into the main directory?
-Optional
4. Back up combattheme1.mp3, combattheme2.mp3, deaththeme.mp3, and eqtheme.mp3.
5. Copy the four files from the optional folder and replace those in your EQ directory.

Based on this screenshot from the spreadsheet in the download:
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

EDIT: So with having followed steps 1-5 in the readme, is this spreadsheet simply explaining what was already done when I overwrote the EMTs? Or is this an additional step that needs to be done?

I am taking the downloaded mp3 from the music folder, making multiple copies of it with the name of the xmis in my everquest directory, and overwriting them with the same name? So I am taking a copy of the mp3 "theme" and renaming it "freportn.3" and pasting it into my main directory as a mp3? Am I missing a step? And why would that play in lieu of the xmi file if they have different file types?

Last, am I supposed to be doing anything with the XMI to MP3.ods file?

[Maestrobob]

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

Yeah they didnt have great instructions im a bit confused.

EDIT: So with having followed steps 1-5 in the readme, is this spreadsheet simply explaining what was already done when I overwrote the EMTs? Or is this an additional step that needs to be done?

I am taking the downloaded mp3 from the music folder, making multiple copies of it with the name of the xmis in my everquest directory, and overwriting them with the same name? So I am taking a copy of the mp3 "theme" and renaming it "freportn.3" and pasting it into my main directory as a mp3? Am I missing a step? And why would that play in lieu of the xmi file if they have different file types?

Last, am I supposed to be doing anything with the XMI to MP3.ods file?

It's explaining what was already done. The only folders you need to worry about are the music, optional, and EMT folders. It's a lot simpler than it looks.

1. Copy the entire music folder into your root EverQuest game directory (so that it's a subfolder in your EverQuest folder).

2. Copy the .emt files from the EMT folder directly into your root EverQuest game folder overwriting the existing .emt files (probably good idea to back these up first.)

3. If you want the main EQ theme, combat themes, and death theme, copy the .mp3 files from the optional folder directly into your root EverQuest game folder.

Done.

Alternatively, you can just download and extract my .emt's and music directly into your EverQuest folder (overwrite any existing files): https://bit.ly/3paKc0w

It's larger, much less optimized and includes redundant songs, but accomplishes the same thing as bivouac's package.

[Knuckle]

Thanks for responding Bob, looks like I am all set then!

[Maestrobob]

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

Just to be clear (for those of us who are more 'technically challenged'), we would download your synthusr-samplefix.zip and copy its contents into the Everquest directory, then run Everquest with BASSMIDI or VirtualMIDISynth loaded alongside EQ? Or, what do I have wrong...I'm very excited about this (and about the possibility of getting the combat music to shuffle properly between tracks, bring back the underwater music etc.), thank you for your hard work on it :-)

Download the synthusr-samplefix.zip, you can unzip the synthusr-samplefix.sf2 into any directory you want, doesn't have to be the Everquest directory.

The key here is that you have to load the synthusr.sf2 into BASSMIDI or VirtualMIDISynth first and as your only soundfont.

The next step is to make sure BASSMIDI or VirtualMIDISynth is set in Windows to be your default MIDI playback device. Microsoft removed MIDIMapper from Windows 7 and all versions since. You will need to use Coolsoft's MIDIMapper (or similar) to set VirtualMIDISynth to default. You can find it here -> https://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/midimapper

Now you can start up Everquest and the music should play correctly. You can start EQ in a window, then pull up VirtualMIDISynth's mixer just to make sure it's going through there.