HOW MUCH DO Y'ALL LIKE MIDI?

author=Leophard
Is this "Solmire" able to convert them while keeping the loop points, though? Because that would be very helpful.

Nope, Solmire (http://solmire.com/) just converts midis into mp3 and it doesn't keep any loop information.

Well obviously I'm a day late and a dollar short to chime in on this topic, but I registered, so I might as well provide my two cents.

I enjoy midi format. Yes, in general it doesn't have the kind of sound-quality that an MP3 or higher level of sound format has, but there are many things to like.

My greatest affinity with midi is quite simply because I use Finale. I was an avid instrumental performer (on a range of brass instruments {mainly trombone}) all through middle-school and high-school. Sat first chair in our jazz-band...yada yada. I also have some background in music theory, so the easiest and most-familiar way for me to compose music is via programs that allow me to write a virtual paper score, like Finale. Now my version of Finale is (admittedly) rather old, Finale 2k3, but it still gets the job done. One of the many nice things about Finale is that you can instantly save the score you've written as a Midi playback file compatible with any music-player capable of playing midi format. I do have to run it through a midi-editor just to program the tempo changes in, but that can be done in a matter of minutes, especially since I can check the bpm playback speed in each measure of my Finale score. Just program a tempo-change event, type in the correct bpm, and voila. I love that I can write a full orchestral score and then have it instantly converted into digital music. Unfortunately I don't have the money to employ an orchestra...so this is rather useful for me. :p Also, when Finale rips a score into a midi format, it takes into account any repeats you've programmed into the score...so that partially solves the "repeat only this part of the song and not the intro" problem, though you do have to balance midi file length with desire to avoid a repeat of the song's intro.

Midi also has a certain type of nostalgia. Honestly, the types of RPG's we played in youth all used midi. I have RPG XP which is basically the same graphics quality as FFIII, the first Final Fantasy I ever played, and the one that made me Square Enix's B*atch. (Chrono Trigger started it, but FFIII sealed the deal).

I'm just starting to get into sound-fonts. I admit I've never dabbled with them before, so if anyone experienced would care to weigh in on how I should start messing with them, I'd welcome the information. Honestly when I want to listen to my original scores just to listen to them, I play them in the RPG XP sound-test module because they sound so much classier than if I play them in something like WMP. I assume this is because of a more-advanced sound-font in the script, but I've never messed with the scripting itself, so I really don't have a clue.

I guess in a game like one I could create in RPG XP, I think midi file formats are just fine, especially since I can use my original scores. ^^ Most things I've written were inspired by video-game music, which is almost the only genre of music on my phone, so they fit right in. My battle theme works perfectly for fighting off evil octopi and whatnot. :D

Changing to anything else takes up a lot of space. Mp3 take up so much memory! Although I've never looked at many other formats so they might be different. Don't use mp3s!

Okay, here's the deal. MIDI is not a sound file, and that is precisely why it should not be used.

MIDI is instead a file that tells the player when certain sound samples should be played and how. It's more akin to sheet music than a recording. That is also why it has small sizes.

Here's the problem. Different hardware has different sound sample libraries. Just because it sounds good on your computer, you have no way to know how it will sound on others. And to be honest, most of these default libraries are awful.

I think it's possible to install better sounding sample libraries (I will start calling them soundfonts from now on), but I haven't tried it. Still, it wound mean that you would have to bundle the soundfont your music is intended to be played on with your game, plus instructions on how to install it. Hardly worth the trouble, and if this became common, you'd have to switch soundfonts manually each time you played a different game.

As such, using MIDI to reproduce the sound of the good old 16-bit games is a fruitless pursuit. Yes, those games used MIDI files for their soundtracks, but they were made to be played on a very specific soundfont. You can't provide that.

I'll give an example, Mega Man X. Its soundfont is very iconic. High quality guitar samples, heavy orchestra hits, and rough trumpets.

Here's the opening stage of Mega Man X:


And here's a MIDI reproduction of it. It's actually pretty well done. The performance is flawless, every note is where it should be. However, something doesn't feel right about it. The guitar is a bit higher pitched than it should be, and the bass is just off... That's how it sounds on my computer. It may sound different on yours.

Here's Boomer Kwanger's stage, a great example of the orchestra hits and trumpets I mentioned:


And here's the MIDI reproduction. Once again, flawless playing, but even more noticeably wrong samples. The orch hits sound nothing like the originals, and the trumpets lack the "echo" effect. Again, that's what I hear on my computer. Results may vary depending on hardware.

Want to see something cool? Mega Man X: Corrupted is a fangame being made in Flash, in the style of the SNES games, but with open ended "Metroidvania" gameplay. Its soundtrack is entirely original compositions, but with the original soundfont used in the original SNES games. Here it is. Take a listen. It sounds like Mega Man X, because it's using the correc soundfont. (Actually the X3 soundfont if I recall correctly, which is an expanded version of the original, so there are some samples that weren't in the first game there, but you get the point.)

TL;DR: MIDI is bad because you have no control over how it will sound on different computers. If you want to replicate the sound of the 16-bit games, download a soundfont and make an actual sound file with it. That way it plays the same on all computers.

Yeah, maybe the concepts I talked about are a bit outdated, but that doesn't change the fact that MIDI usually sounds pretty bad unless designed with a very specific soundfont in mind.

i neither like nor dislike it.

midi tunes can be just as good or as shitty as any other tune, imho. i'm speaking of course of general, ineffable "goodness", not actual fidelity.

Unless you made it with the soundfont of your engine in mind. It works out the same (if your engine has a good builtin set of soundfont(s)).

Plus the default windows soundfont is very similar to the Mac and ALSA (most other Unix) ones.

That's not to say you always hear that, though. I have an slightly older Creative Sound Blaster in my computer, and it has a very extensive set of hardware soundfonts that I hear instead of ALSA soundfonts (or the MS soundfonts, when I have to brave the beast). But that's not a good reason not to midi, either. It sounds even better, and has true hardware reverb and vibrato available just for Midi, and the only cards that have things like this anymore are usually given a better-than-default soundfont(s) anyway.

I'm going to use some MP3s, haters gonna hate.
Even if everyone here still uses a crude budget computer from the 1995s that gets immediately clogged after you download one MP3 file.

I remember 2012