The sound quality and characteristics of midi playback varies hugely depending on the quality of the midi playback device and what samples and what quality of samples are used. You probably know that, but just stating it for people that might not know.
With a good device and excellent sample choice and quality of samples, it can sound almost orchestral.
It is though. MIDI is used for almost everything in music. Sure you can use your samples, like in the case or PS1 or 3DS games, not necessarily General MIDI 1 or General MIDI 2, GS.. But once you have the samples in your game, you use MIDI to tell which note and instrument should be sounding,volume, reverb, chorus, etc etc.Yes, but sequenced music for PS1 or 3DS games doesn't have that characteristic at all, they use fixed instrument samples that are part of the game, not ones that are dependent on the user's system. Which is why "MIDI" is probably not a good descriptor, even if used loosely.
It is though. MIDI is used for almost everything in music. Sure you can use your samples, like in the case or PS1 or 3DS games, not necessarily General MIDI 1 or General MIDI 2, GS.. But once you have the samples in your game, you use MIDI to tell which note and instrument should be sounding,volume, reverb, chorus, etc etc.
Doom 64 for the Nintendo 64 uses MIDI music and sound, the MIDIs can be ripped from the ROM, it's the samples that MIDI uses what does change, so if you have good samples and a decent synth or sound chip, it will sound good, if not it won't sound as good. (say Roland SD-50 vs Sounblaster 16 FM chip)
They are like super grindy Final Fantasy games but with full on Dragonball aestheticLooking nice, but I have never played a DQ game...
You're muddling terms here. MIDI is a cross-music communication protocol. It features in General MIDI soundbanks loaded in hardware in devices. That's what 'MIDI music' means, and what I've always understood you to mean when you talked about loving MIDI (and wondering why! General MIDI music banks tend to sound horribly fake). What you're talking about here is squenced music, or tracker music, or MODs as they were called on the Amiga, where you supply samples and play them back in sequence. There's definitely scope for MODs still in mobile games. mp3 soundtracks are hideously inefficient for a lot fo the musical requirements of games. For console titles though, you want decent audio hardware and/or an orchestra to get the quality of sound that makes the audio, and game, feel significant. Nothing bites quite like General MIDI strings trying to carry some deep emotion - makes everything sounds like cheap kids TV.It is though. MIDI is used for almost everything in music. Sure you can use your samples, like in the case or PS1 or 3DS games, not necessarily General MIDI 1 or General MIDI 2, GS.. But once you have the samples in your game, you use MIDI to tell which note and instrument should be sounding,volume, reverb, chorus, etc etc.
Actually, there isn't a single music format I know of which is as flexible and powerful as MIDI.MIDI is a particular set of standards, and just because one console game used it doesn't mean that it was commonly used. Particularly since the game was a port of a PC game from an era where MIDI was relatively common.
There are many other formats and protocols that can be used to define sequenced music that aren't MIDI and don't have the same limitations.
MIDI is much more than that. I've been using MIDI almost my entire life. You can play music, turns lights on and off..control an entire orchestra, or having it taking so little memory and launch the logo of a console with its sound (like in the original Xbox, which used a very small sound sample and a MIDI file for the sound to go with the Xbox logo)...it is more like a director.You're muddling terms here. MIDI is a cross-music communication protocol. It features in General MIDI soundbanks loaded in hardware in devices. That's what 'MIDI music' means, and what I've always understood you to mean when you talked about loving MIDI (and wondering why! General MIDI music banks tend to sound horribly fake). What you're talking about here is squenced music, or tracker music, or MODs as they were called on the Amiga, where you supply samples and play them back in sequence. There's definitely scope for MODs still in mobile games. mp3 soundtracks are hideously inefficient for a lot fo the musical requirements of games. For console titles though, you want decent audio hardware and/or an orchestra to get the quality of sound that makes the audio, and game, feel significant. Nothing bites quite like General MIDI strings trying to carry some deep emotion - makes everything sounds like cheap kids TV.
Actually, there isn't a single music format I know of which is as flexible and powerful as MIDI.
I propose: ancient sound techologies we're glad are dead.Also, isn't it a good time to make a spin off thread about midi and other sequencing technology to move these posts to? Might atract more people with new insight on the whole matter.
MIDI has so many variables and commands, it's not just "not a awful lot", it is an awful lot of them. 128 keys... how would you want more? No instrument can go over that number of notes -in fact they use and need a lot less across all octaves-, they would be simply too low or two high or a note would become a loop at some point after certain frequencies.You mean, this format? http://www.indiana.edu/~emusic/etext/MIDI/chapter3_MIDI4.shtml
16 channels, 128 keys, 128 velocities, etc, not an awful lot of effect commands.. it doesn't take a lot of imagination to envision something more flexible and allowing more direct access to a particular sequencer's hardware capabilities. Sure, you can still make amazing sounding music with it, especially if there are no real limits on how large your samples can be. And maybe a lot more is captured by extensions, but I guess that kind of blurs the line of exactly what we're talking about.
Maybe Dragon Quest 7 did use MIDI files, I don't really know. I just know that a lot of people use MIDI as a generic term for any music that's sequenced and that's not correct, there were certainly a lot of other formats in use.
ancient? Modern music is basically almost all MIDI --except live performance, and a live performance can be transformed into a MIDI so easily. It's the samples and the after effects that change the music.I propose: ancient sound techologies we're glad are dead.
I give it ten minutes before somebody posts that vinyl sounds better.
We still use the fire and the wheel. Also ancient.ancient? Modern music is basically almost all MIDI --except live performance, and a live performance can be transformed into a MIDI so easily. It's the samples and the after effects that change the music.
someday you and I are going to be an old man grey-haired and attractiveWe still use the fire and the wheel. Also ancient.
I am a hobbyist in that regard, I want o become a programmer (got the best grades in my class during my first year of computer science, 9,2 average this 2015-16 year, but most of all I also got access to superior education via difficult general culture -maths, language, physics, technology, history- exam I had to pass June 20th, where I got the best grades out of other 712 people in my autonomous region who completed that exam, with a 9,25, so I can study programming the next year) but as I said I've been fascinated by MIDI and used it almost my entire life.
thanks, actually I'm as terrified, if not more. It's a couple of months away, so let's just keep up with the dress code for now.Welcome back Cyan, I have missed your ramblings and I am terrified to work with any code you will write.
It's a communications protocol.MIDI is much more than that.
That's what MODs do. In all these synthetic solutions (regarding game music, and not music production which can use software synths), you are playing one or more samples at a given pitch. You can use one sample for the entire range of playback, or multiple samples for different ranges of pitch.With MIDI you can have a single sample from a single note and "calculate" the entire notation of an instrument
MODs can transpose, change tempo, pitch bend, pan, change instrument, etc. A MIDI song consists of a list of instructions to play a sound at a given pitch at a given time, with some other instructions. A MOD is exactly the same, running a linear list of instructions of whatever sample at whatever time.Using MIDI you can transpose notes, increase or decrease the tempo, change the pitch bend, the panning, reverb, chorus, instrument, drums, everything! in real time, so you use the same samples, very little memory and have the flexibility MP3 or CD music can never produce. Nor MODs and S3M for that matter.
You're going outside the scope of talking about MIDI music in games. In games, MIDI music as you call it is a list of 'play this instrument' instructions, normally associated with internal soundbanks AFAIK (certainly on mobile devices) or with a preloaded sample bank. MODs are exactly the same.Additionally, if you play an instrument in real life and can connect it to, say, a synth like the Roland SD-50 (or a Yamaha's, etc), you can play a song at home using your guitar, flute or whatever, and make a MIDI file from it. The synth is going to create a MIDI file which tells MIDI players and synths what to play and when, that is, the exact notes you played.
Yes, that's true, but that's not really what's happening when you're talking about loving MIDI music in games. DQ VII doesn't let you run the MIDI output through your own instruments, does it?That's what makes MIDI so charming and nice, because you can have the same file and get the SNES sound from it, or the Roland sound, or Yamaha's sound, NES sound, etc etc.