Doom II MIDI Instruments

[eall1232]

Hi. I'm trying to make my own music for a Doom II map. I'm using Slade 3. I'm confused about MIDI, MUS, and General MIDI.

I thought MIDI was just score information. But Slade exports samples inside of the converted MIDI files. Are those samples soundfonts? Are those free to use? Like, doom2.wad > .mus > .mid > sample. 

I would like to not use samples. Or soundfonts. Just MIDI triggering a synth. I'm not sure how though. Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth? FluidSynth?

Anyone know how this works? Or any good threads? Thanks.

Edited April 1, 2024 by eall1232

[eall1232]

I'm using OpenMPT to compose. 

[eall1232]

I'd like for it to work with Chocolate Doom.

[plums]

15 minutes ago, eall1232 said:

I thought MIDI was just score information.

It is.

 

15 minutes ago, eall1232 said:

But Slade exports samples inside of the converted MIDI files.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, but no actual sound samples are exported in MIDI, because there are none there to begin with.

 

When you playback a midi, typical midi players (like fluidsynth) use a soundfont to play back music. The Windows GS soundsystem uses a dls file which is basically a soundfont.

 

MUS is just a butchered form of MIDI used by early versions of Doom. Even vanilla Doom can use MIDI files as long as they're not too big. Vanilla Heretic and Hexen still need things converted to MUS I think. All Chocolate ports can just use MIDI directly with essentially no limits.
 

In general people tend to compose so that the music sounds good or at least OK with Windows GS midi, since it's sort of the "standard" among Doom. If you hate the sound of it (I do) finding a SC-55 soundfont and using some software to get midi output that way is a good option because Windows midi is based on a downscaled version of the SC-55 sounds.

 

BTW you can edit your post to add extra information instead of making several posts in a row, which is generally good forum etiquette. (Don't worry about it here.)

 

Edited April 1, 2024 by plums

[eall1232]

[eall1232]

So I dragged and dropped D_RUNNIN.mid into OpenMPT... It shows you sequences, patterns, samples, and instruments. In the MIDI file. From Slade 3.

Oh, yeah. I won't do multiple posts. Sorry.

Edited April 1, 2024 by eall1232

[plums]

Right, I forget exactly how OpenMPT does MIDI, but the samples are actually from whatever MIDI device is being used for playback I think. In any case they're not from the MIDI itself. When you export a MIDI with OpenMPT, it will export the notes etc., but no actual samples. It's just that because OpenMPT is a sample-based composition tool, it needs samples to make any sound.

 

This also means that, compared to tracker music, you don't get as much control over how the output will sound, because you can't control what kind of soundfont or other output device will be used for playing it back.

Edited April 1, 2024 by plums

[eall1232]

2 minutes ago, plums said:

Right, I forget exactly how OpenMPT does MIDI, but the samples are actually from whatever MIDI device is being used for playback I think. In any case they're not from the MIDI itself. When you export a MIDI with OpenMPT, it will export the notes etc., but no actual samples. It's just that because OpenMPT is a sample-based composition tool, it needs samples to make any sound.

 

This also means that, compared to tracker music, you don't get as much control over how the output will sound, because you can't control what kind of soundfont or other output device will be used for playing it back.

Oh. What do people use to compose Doom II music then?

[Plerb]

1 minute ago, plums said:

Right, I forget exactly how OpenMPT does MIDI, but the samples are actually from whatever MIDI device is being used for playback I think.

AFAIK when you import MIDIs into OpenMPT it'll use whatever soundfont you set it up to use, and it converts the instruments from the soundfont into instruments in a tracker format, and actual MIDI devices don't come into play.

 

Just now, eall1232 said:

Oh. What do people use to compose Doom II music then?

People use a wide variety of software, mostly MIDI sequencers, but there are a few people that use OpenMPT for composing MIDIs, myself included. It's a bit more convoluted of a process than simply directly composing MIDIs vs composing .it files and converting them to MIDI, but I'm far more comfortable working with tracker interfaces.

[plums]

OpenMPT is fine, as long as you're not getting yourself confused about what it's actually doing. I don't think it does pitch bends or volume changes very well for MIDI export, but if you can work around that, it's fine.

 

If you want to try a pure MIDI composition tool, Sekaiju is often recommended. Pretty much all MIDI software uses piano rolls, so if you prefer a tracker interface then you can just stick with MPT.

Edited April 1, 2024 by plums

[eall1232]

3 minutes ago, Plerb said:

AFAIK when you import MIDIs into OpenMPT it'll use whatever soundfont you set it up to use, and it converts the instruments from the soundfont into instruments in a tracker format, and actual MIDI devices don't come into play.

 

People use a wide variety of software, mostly MIDI sequencers, but there are a few people that use OpenMPT for composing MIDIs, myself included. It's a bit more convoluted of a process than simply directly composing MIDIs vs composing .it files and converting them to MIDI, but I'm far more comfortable working with tracker interfaces.

Sweet. That makes sense now. Thanks for your help.

Yeah, I like using my computer keyboard to compose in a tracker. It feels like a drum machine to me.

[eall1232]

2 minutes ago, plums said:

OpenMPT is fine, as long as you're not getting yourself confused about what it's actually doing. I don't think it does pitch bends or volume changes very well for MIDI export, but if you can work around that it's fine.

 

If you want to try a pure MIDI composition tool, Sekaiju is often recommended. Pretty much all MIDI software uses piano rolls, so if you prefer a tracker interface then you can just stick with MPT.

Awesome. Thanks for your help.

[Plerb]

Here's a few things to keep in mind when composing MIDIs with OpenMPT:

Certain pitch bend commands don't export, like Tone Portamento or Vibrato. Portamento Up/Down works okay, but if you have two notes playing the same pitch bend that get exported to the same MIDI channel, they'll be added together and the pitch bend will sound more extreme than it should. Panning information and volume fade-ins or fade-outs don't export at all. For the stuff that doesn't get exported, I have to recreate it using a sequencer.

 

(I've wanted to make my own tracker-to-MIDI converter for a while that doesn't have the problems of OpenMPT's built-in exporter, but it's a pretty daunting task at least for me, and I've never gotten further with it than experimenting with some C MIDI libraries.)

[eall1232]

1 minute ago, Plerb said:

Here's a few things to keep in mind when composing MIDIs with OpenMPT:

Certain pitch bend commands don't export, like Tone Portamento or Vibrato. Portamento Up/Down works okay, but if you have two notes playing the same pitch bend that get exported to the same MIDI channel, they'll be added together and the pitch bend will sound more extreme than it should. Panning information and volume fade-ins or fade-outs don't export at all. For the stuff that doesn't get exported, I have to recreate it using a sequencer.

I think I can live without that stuff. Vibrato would be nice. 

[plums]

8 minutes ago, Plerb said:

(I've wanted to make my own tracker-to-MIDI converter for a while that doesn't have the problems of OpenMPT's built-in exporter, but it's a pretty daunting task at least for me, and I've never gotten further with it than experimenting with some C MIDI libraries.)

There's a midi tracker called zTracker that I have used before, along with an update called zTrackerPrime that improves some stuff and breaks others. Both have numerous problems of one sort or another, but they are workable. I would like to work on them to fix bugs but actually getting them to compile for me on Linux has been beyond my basic abilities as a coder. Anyhow you might want to try them out as they are now, regardless.

 

schismtracker (Impulse Tracker clone) converts all its tracker functions into the appropriate midi CC commands for midi output, but it lacks an actual midi export feature, and its midi timing isn't perfect so recording its output into a proper midi sequencer will not sound great.

 

I like tracker interfaces too but actual midi trackers are not really a popular thing.

Edited April 1, 2024 by plums

[eall1232]

3 minutes ago, plums said:

There's a midi tracker called zTracker that I have used before, along with an update called zTrackerPrime that improves some stuff and breaks others. Both have numerous problems of one sort or another, but they are workable. I would like to work on them to fix bugs but actually getting them to compile for me on Linux has been beyond my basic abilities as a coder. Anyhow you might want to try them out as they are now, regardless.

 

schismtracker (Impulse Tracker clone) converts all its tracker functions into the appropriate midi CC commands for midi output, but it lacks an actual midi export feature, and its midi timing isn't perfect so recording its output into a proper midi sequencer will not sound great.

 

I like tracker interfaces too but actual midi trackers are not really a popular thing.

Renoise?

[plums]

6 minutes ago, eall1232 said:

Renoise?

Last I tried Renoise its midi export was about the same as OpenMPTs, I think.

[wumbo]

Not too related, but I personally use Signal, a completely open MIDI making software to make my music. It's completely free; you don't have to sign up for anything if you don't feel like it, you don't have to download anything, etc. Its interface is super simple, yet it allows for things like vibrato, modulation, pitch bending, reverb for advanced soundfonts, etc. If you feel like OpenMPT's interface is a bit too complicated, this DAW is for you, as I use it for pretty much anything. You can even import soundfonts and save them if you sign up for free. Just a suggestion, if complexity was the issue you had. You can also use MIDI devices, however I don't believe you can record with them so maybe its not for you, in fact.

Edited April 1, 2024 by wumbo

[eall1232]

21 minutes ago, wumbo said:

Not too related, but I personally use Signal, a completely open MIDI making software to make my music. It's completely free; you don't have to sign up for anything if you don't feel like it, you don't have to download anything, etc. Its interface is super simple, yet it allows for things like vibrato, modulation, pitch bending, reverb for advanced soundfonts, etc. If you feel like OpenMPT's interface is a bit too complicated, this DAW is for you, as I use it for pretty much anything. You can even import soundfonts and save them if you sign up for free. Just a suggestion, if complexity was the issue you had. You can also use MIDI devices, however I don't believe you can record with them so maybe its not for you, in fact.

Aren't you worried someone online is going to jack your beats?

I have a separate offline computer. 

Edited April 1, 2024 by eall1232

[wumbo]

1 hour ago, eall1232 said:

Aren't you worried someone online is going to jack your beats?

 

Does that mean stealing songs? If so, I've been to their discord server and the owners seemed pretty genuine. Unless jacking someone's beat means something else...?

[eall1232]

1 hour ago, wumbo said:

 

Does that mean stealing songs? If so, I've been to their discord server and the owners seemed pretty genuine. Unless jacking someone's beat means something else...?

Yeah, it does mean stealing. Taxing. Jacking. Like car jacking. 

I don't trust anything connected to the internet when it comes to doing work on computers. All these "free" services online are probably "free" for a reason.

[Shepardus]

36 minutes ago, eall1232 said:

Yeah, it does mean stealing. Taxing. Jacking. Like car jacking. 

I don't trust anything connected to the internet when it comes to doing work on computers. All these "free" services online are probably "free" for a reason.

FWIW it's open source so you can run it locally if you want.

[eall1232]

Ok, I'm still having trouble. I got this free midi editor called Sekajiu. https://openmidiproject.opal.ne.jp/Sekaiju_en.html 

 

I can't pan the instruments in Doom II with the MIDI CC parameters. https://professionalcomposers.com/midi-cc-list/ 

There's a whole whack of them.

Is there a list of what CC parameters work in Doom II somewhere? Or is there a way to pan the instruments?

 

I'm also now wondering how much control you get. Like adsr envelopes, filters... Like, I can change instruments. Control note cut-off. Control volume. That's it.

 

Thanks.

 

Edited April 6, 2024 by eall1232

[eall1232]

Nevermind, I got panning to work in Sekajiu. You got to do it through automation and not the "track list view".

All is well.

[eall1232]

ALL IS NOT WELL!

Ok. Now I can CC10 pan, but it pans everything. You can't pan instruments? The drum soundfonts are all over the place it seems. 

Edited April 3, 2024 by eall1232

[eall1232]

I'm starting a list of stuff you can do with MIDI:

 

1) You get 16 Channels. Not sure about the number of voices.

2) Channel 10 is just for drums. It has General MIDI keys.

3) You can change the "Program Number" of channels. Including the drum track. Changes the instrument or drum kit.

4) You can control note "Velocity". Some soundfonts are one shots (crash). Some soundfonts are gated (kick drums). Some soundfonts are chokeable (pedal hat on the open hat).

5) You can use CC numbers to control the notes more. 

6) CC#10 will pan the entire channel.

7) CC#11 is volume.

8) CC#2 is volume modulation on some instruments.

9) "PitchBend" bends the frequency. Of everything. I think.

10) CC#120 is "all sound off".

 

11) Program 78 "whistle" is pretty much a sine wave. 


There's probably way more. I'll add them as I come across stuff.

Edited April 7, 2024 by eall1232