CYBERDAGGER'S PROFILE

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author=ProfessorDemetri
So I hear we like vidja games.

You are correct.

Anyway, welcome! I'm looking forward to see what you've got. Just watch out for the landmines on your way in. They're marked with strawberries, so you can't miss them.

author=FlyingJester
The soundfont can be supplied with the midi or (much more often) the program that plays it. For games the latter can work out well.

Which is how the onld SNES games did it. They supplied the soundfont in the cartridge. If you do that, then please go ahead and use as much MIDI as you want. You have gone through the steps necessary to make it sound good. But most people don't know how to do that, and simply glue a MIDI file on the game and call it a day. Provide the soundfont, and all my objections are null.

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.

I guess an Octopus tank would draw attention. Satisfy your curiosity by searching it.