Can we have some place or way for storing (and downloading) the MIDI music from good map packs in HQ audio formats?

[Sirius104x]

Currently if I like a MIDI soundtrack to a good map pack, for example Sigil or Eviternity (or Revilution & Devilution) the only option besides playing it in GZDoom and hearing tracks perfectly as intended with Fluidsynth playback, is to try and find the soundtracks on youtube videos. Often these are going to be different soundfonts such as Arachno soundfont which is popular. It's hard to simply find a good "fluidsynth" standard soundtrack online for any of these map packs. Also I'd like if there could exist a place online where these MIDI soundtracks would be downloadable in a high quality MP3 or FLAC format.

 

I don't know about you, but whenever I play back MIDIs in Windows using Winamp or whichever player of your choice supporting MIDI, it doesn't seem to sound the same good as GZDoom playing back the songs in it's internal Fluidsynth player. Even trying to audio capture the playback from GZdoom's fluidsynth, doesn't come out the same. The bass tends to be heavier in the wave files I've recorded. So in short, I am having a hard time simply getting these MIDI soundtracks of these great albums to be saved and sounding "correctly". If anyone knows how to properly save MIDI tracks as MP3 or FLAC to replicate the exact sound that's being output by GZDoom, please share your method.

 

However even better would be if there was a way we could start saving these soundtracks (which from my understanding are generally free and non-copyrighted MIDIs as they are included in free and non copyrighted map packs for Doom) to a website where people could easily download them in the quality they're accustomed to hearing when playing in GZDoom. If for nothing else than the fact that many playback devices can't play MIDIs. I know no car I've owned ever had that ability. Also it could further spread the influence of these amazing MIDI makers that normally people only hear when playing within the map packs. I would have loved to show friends some of these awesome songs but couldn't because there's no way to just link a good quality file. I dare not send a MIDI because I don't even know if or how that will end up sounding on some people's setups, so it's not a reasonable method. For example I'd love to show off Eviternity's Dehydration map track. It's one of the best.

 

Has anyone else struggled with this before? Anyone else seeking an all-around solution like me? I've been hunting online and there seems to be no good solutions. Downloading an Arachno soundfont version of a map pack from a youtube clip just ain't cutting it.

[Higo Doragon]

to hear midis with any soundfont you want, i recommend to use "audacius", it has a midi input mode ( it also suports alot of formats, even videogame music like .spc ) it's just a really cool music playback program in geral.

 

to make your midi music sound like gzdoom, you can use gzdoom's soundfont file, you can get it from the "soundfonts" folder inside your gzdoom folder, you can even use in other doom sourceports if you want.

a geral place to store community made midis would be really really good for presevation! but for now, you can check the wiki for midi authors and midi's used in wads.

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Adding_custom_music#Finding_MIDI_files

[Shepardus]

3 hours ago, Sirius104x said:

If anyone knows how to properly save MIDI tracks as MP3 or FLAC to replicate the exact sound that's being output by GZDoom, please share your method.

There are various utilities that have been mentioned in other threads that I can't be bothered to search up right now, but the most foolproof one for someone who's already familiar with GZDoom is actually GZDoom itself, using the "writewave" command. For example, "writewave D_RUNNIN D_RUNNIN.wav" will play the D_RUNNIN lump to a file called D_RUNNIN.wav. You can then feed the WAV file to any audio converter if you want it as MP3 or FLAC. Might get tedious doing that for an entire soundtrack, but maybe it can be automated with some scripting.

 

When using other utilities, if they accept .sf2 soundfont files you can get them to sound like GZDoom by pointing them to the gzdoom.sf2 file that comes with GZDoom. That's what defines the "FluidSynth" sound that you describe; GZDoom and FluidSynth can be configured to use other soundfonts such as Arachno. FWIW gzdoom.sf2 has some differences from the Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth (the Windows default) or an actual SC-55, so I wouldn't call it "perfectly as intended," but if that's how you want it I won't stop you.

 

Now that I think about it, it'd be real nice if SLADE had this functionality, since I already use it to extract MIDIs from WADs and it can play MIDI files using Fluidsynth or Timidity.

[prfunky]

I just got my box out of storage last week. In the past, I did some recording of the output

of Doom MIDIs played by this. I really liked the sound of this unit, a Roland SC7, and that's

when I developed a much better appreciation for Doom music. I think I originally recorded

to WAV and then did my conversion/compression down to MP3 so I could take the tunes to

go into my car. The keen observer will note the $3.99 Goodwill price tag..., yes, that's right!

Spoiler

 

[Sirius104x]

Dang, these responses have been more detailed and useful than I could have ever imagined! Thank you. Even if there is no such place (yet) online that holds popular map packs' soundtracks, I can now go through and get the songs out from the WADs directly to wave, and in whichever soundfont I like. More than likely I will just use the GZDoom soundfont because I do like the way most songs sound best in it. For example when comparing some of the best tracks, in my opinion, from Devilution and Eviternity between different soundfonts, I find that most of the instruments and overall sound is best in GZDoom Fluidsynth. A really good example is the music for Map 12 called "Anion Rings" by Xaser. Sounds really good in all of the various parts of the tune using GZDoom Fluidsynth. But when played on some other soundfonts there's parts midway in the song where the instruments go quiet and fade into the background. But are louder and more present in the GZDoom font. Anyway perhaps I am biased since I heard these songs originally in GZDoom's soundfont when playing the maps. And that's how I've gotten to like them. But to each their own!

 

I will definitely be doing my rips of these soundtracks to WAVE and then making 320kbps mp3s for driving around. Thanks for the help from everyone. Prfunky it would be interesting to check out a recording of Devilution, Revilution, Eviternity and Sigil's MIDI soundtrack in your SC7 if you think they'd make for a pretty cool rendition on a lot of those songs. I'm hard pressed to find better soundtracks than those WADs off the top of my head, that is why I keep mentioning them. Plutonia Experiment's track "Plug Ugly" by Bucket is a great one to try converting as well.

Of course there are many, many WADs I still need to get to such as Speed of Doom, Ancient Aliens, etc, which I honestly can't believe I haven't played yet. I'm sure there is much great music ahead for me!

[Tangra]

17 hours ago, Sirius104x said:

I don't know about you, but whenever I play back MIDIs in Windows using Winamp or whichever player of your choice supporting MIDI, it doesn't seem to sound the same good as GZDoom playing back the songs in it's internal Fluidsynth player.

 

Open Winamp, go to Options/Prefrences/Input/Nullsoft MIDI Player - press Configure and set it to midiOut/Microsoft MIDI Mapper, or midiOut/Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth - Press OK and restart Winamp, have another listen at those midis and write back if there's an improvement. 

[Sirius104x]

Thanks Tangra666, they do sound better in Microsoft GS Wavetable. Perhaps I will also try doing winamp Wave writer output by playing back the MIDIs this way and see if it's the same good as writing a wave with GZDoom's method. I have a feeling GZDoom will be slightly better since it uses their soundfont. But we shall see. This is mostly for being able to listen wherever I want to. I listen to music mostly when I am driving.

[Sirius104x]

I made a post in another thread where they were detailing the extraction method using writewave command and other methods. I had finally figured out how to "script", in a way, the writing out of all the music tracks in an automated way. Inside GZDoom using writewave command.

Here's the link to the post for anyone who wants the technical details:

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/post/2699860

 

[Faceman2000]

Something else to bear in mind is that some of the more prolific midi artists in our community sell MP3s of their work - for example, Jimmy has the aforementioned Sigil soundtrack on his Bandcamp:

 

https://jamespaddock.bandcamp.com/album/sigil-the-midi-soundtrack

 

It’s a great way to support community members.

[Sirius104x]

I will check that out Faceman2000. I did not mean to undermine any artist who sells their tracks in high quality formats. I was simply trying to get the midi's I heard in-game to be played elsewhere sounding the same as they do in GZDoom. I hope no one has been negatively impacted by my curiosity with this. I am just a simple Doom music audiophile, it would seem!