XMPlay MIDI plugin

[jairmoreno]

I have a small question, what is the difference between in_midi from support.xmplay.com in winamp plugins and this plugin?.

[raina]

In_midi is a winamp plugin that works with XMPlay if you take the time and caution to set it up properly. It can only serve XMPlay with DirectMusic synthesized audio, using other devices doesn't work properly and if there's problems with the plugin there's nothing Ian, the XMPlay developer, can do about it. Xmp-midi is a native plugin that's built for XMPlay, supports soundfonts and whatnot and was written by Ian himself. So, you get better sound and support with this plugin, do you need more reasons?

[Tsorovan]

Not necessarily better sound; if you're using a high quality MIDI module it won't be.

[raina]

But if you set in_midi to use an external device, XMPlay loses the seek ability == doesn't work properly. Or is my info outdated?

[Tsorovan]

I think so, but that doesn't have anything to do with sound quality. You're making this unnecessarily drawn-out! I doubt the guy has a MIDI module anyway.

[Xenobioz]

I have problems playing some Midi tracks.
Some of them freeze XMplay on load, like this one.

http://shellkonto.nu/xenobioz/buzz/Air4trax.mid

It may work the if XMplay is closed, but if you already loaded another midi before and load this one it freezes.  You can close Xmplay but it remains still running in the background until you end it from the taskmanager.

[Ian @ un4seen]

That file seems to be fine here. Maybe it's the previous file that's the problem?

Btw, what soundfont are you using?

[Xenobioz]

I use 032.1mg Mega V2.5 Bank.SF2 it seems as i works fine now though. Maybe i just needed a reboot or something.

[Knurek]

Umm, does anyone know of any free DLS to SF2 soundbank converter?

You see, this site: http://d.hatena.ne.jp/loveemu/ has posted some nice MIDI+DLS conversions from a few NDS games, and I'd really like to listen to them in XMPlay...

Any helpers?

[Keith Logan]

Ian

XMPlay is now my player of choice for both mp3 and midi music. There are many rivals on the mp3 side of things but I find XMPlay to be a "cleaner" more musical player than the others. This sound is not enhanced (to my ears) by any DSP (with the notable exception of the built in reverb). But it is the midi player that shines above all rivals such as my previous favourites, TiMidiity and Synthfont. It plays all the soundfonts I have tried and if I may recommend one in particular, it is SGM-180 at http://www.geocities.jp/shansoundfont/ along with Equinox Grand Pianos from the same site. The sound at 96000 sample rate with 32 bit resolution is so natural that I find it hard to believe I am listening to midis.

Keith - the happy chappy

[Maserati]

sf2midi.com doesn't accept such large SoundFonts, so I had to upload it to another website

Shan's Equinox Grand Pianos @ megaupload.com
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=2J91Q22X

You will need a program to unzip the archive and SFPack.

ftp://ftp.personalcopy.net/pub/SFPack.zip

[piovrauz]

Just when I was trying to load the sf2 some post above, I discovered that on my "job-PC" I can no more change soundfont. The table has no sf loaded, ad if I try to load a sf nothing appens... what is going on? (This is an ME machine)

[Ian @ un4seen]

What does your "Soundfonts" entry in XMPLAY.INI look like? Also, which soundfont from "some post above" in particular are you referring to?

[piovrauz]

Work fine at home:
SGM-180
Shan's Equinox Grand Pianos

String at work:
[MIDI]
CheckSameName=1
Soundfonts=E37037D81C5DFC5D9959B2FAD8562D25D0FD18F0F1E5FCF2806DF6BF0200
AutoLoop=1

no prob at home, at work can' load...

ed: I copy&pasted all the [MIDI] section from home to work ini file, and now it works! new section is:
[MIDI]
Soundfonts=0000433A5C57494E444F57535C73797374656D33325C457175696E6F78204772616E64205069616E6F732E736632000000433A5C57494E444F57535C73797374656D33325C53474D2D3138302076312E352E73663200
CheckSameName=1
AutoLoop=1

[Ian @ un4seen]

String at work:
[MIDI]
CheckSameName=1
Soundfonts=E37037D81C5DFC5D9959B2FAD8562D25D0FD18F0F1E5FCF2806DF6BF0200
AutoLoop=1

I'm not sure how it would've happened, but that "Soundfonts" entry has gotten corrupt (it contains gibberish).

[piovrauz]

So if I just kill the line I can enter new sf info?

[Ian @ un4seen]

You should still be able to add new soundfonts even with that dodgy "Soundfonts" INI entry, at which point the dodgy entry would automatically be removed. But, yep, you could also remove the entry to start afresh.

[raina]

I'm trying to render some game soundtrack MIDI files with the Chorium soundfont to listen to on a portable mp3 player. Everything works fine but some of the MIDI files have no silent padding at the end to allow the instruments to decay and reverb in peace, instead the sound gets cut abruptly. Could there be a manual padding setting in the plug-in, or could the song be automatically given more time to finish smoothly when it's not silent by the time the file time line ends? A bit like the logic behind the track Auto loop function.

[deus-ex]

Have you considered to render to WAV instead and do the desired tunings using Audacity (free Audioeditor, http://audacity.sourceforge.net)?

[raina]

Well I AM rendering to WAV but I don't see a way to generate the missing sample data with Audacity or any other wave editor. I'm not talking about sustained notes that could be faded out just before the cut but things like percussions and cymbal hits that are triggered just before the end of the time line. It happens you only get to hear the attack of the notes before the sound is cut.

[piovrauz]

...

I suppose you could add an extra pattern at the end of MIDI file, then render it. but it's quite a pain to found a MIDI (free) sequencer to do this. Maybe some freeware stuff?

[raina]

I already tried padding the file in Anvil Studio, but it read the file wrong resulting in missing and ill-timed notes.

[deus-ex]

Can you post an example file?

[raina]

Attached

[deus-ex]

Checked. Timidity is the answer.
Example attached using EAW GUS-Patches.