1.32.02, creating and exporting MIDI

[Marwellus]

Hi there,

First off, I'd like to thank the developers working on OpenMPT. As a beginner, it's currently my tool of choice and I'm gradually finding my way around. :-) While I already scan these forums for answers I would appreciate any help more specific to my own, current problems :-)

My background is that I'm currently working on a retro DOS game and want to create MIDI songs for it, specifically for the AWE32. That's a topic in itself, but it's not what I'm getting at here. I want to use OpenMPT specifically to create these MIDI songs and have started with one. Basically, it's a 16-channel MPTM song - I don't need many more channels right now. For this, I've also loaded the same SoundFont in OpenMPT that I use for the AWE32 and mapped it via drag & drop to the instruments I'm using.

This means the instruments are set to MIDI channels (10 for drums, etc.). I'm using far fewer than 16 instruments, so each instrument is set to a specific MIDI channel, with drums naturally set to channel 10. The MIDI channels are not mapped to the tracker channels - they're independent of each other. I've also looked at how other MIDI songs are loaded and configured by OpenMPT, and what their tracks look like, to get an idea of which MIDI "quirks" I should consider. Delay, for example, is quite important - otherwise it won't work.

I'm working my way through all of this. I haven't tried creating MIDI songs before, only have some experience with MOD editors, which is why I came to OpenMPT - it's a tracker that can export MIDIs ;-)

The problem is - even though I explicitly do everything to let OpenMPT know what's what, which instrument I'm using on which MIDI channel, the export still doesn't produce a usable MIDI song. The instruments work fine, that part functions, but the channels get mixed up sometimes, the drums are fully there at first, then disappear completely after a drum roll, the volume control just doesn't fit.

My first question here is - what can and must I still do to make the export understand what to do? Basically, it doesn't need to do anything special or "interpret" anything - it's already a MIDI song. Just keep it straight? I've looked at all the options related to MIDI and tried various things, but it tends to get worse rather than better.

To be frank: does the export really work, or is it more of a "work-in-progress" feature that only gets developed when someone feels like it? More of a "nice-to-have-but-it-still-doesn't-work-as-intended"? (no offense meant)

When I load the exported MIDI song back into OpenMPT, by the way, things get really wild. That doesn't correspond to what even the Windows MIDI player plays anymore.

The thing is, I don't really want to work with DAWs - their complexity is a topic in itself. All I want is to build a few simple MIDI songs without a lot of fuss around it, to be played by an AWE32. Is this ultimately possible with OpenMPT, or not?

I'm willing to work through everything, but I also need to know if it's worth it in this case ;-)

Thanks! :-)

[Saga Musix]

Welcome to the forums.

This would be a lot easier to analyze with an example file, so please cut down your problematic file as much as possible (remove parts that don't contribute to the problem, etc.) so that we can look at it. If MIDI channels have been specified correctly (double-check also in the export window), there should be no such issues.

To be frank: does the export really work, or is it more of a "work-in-progress" feature that only gets developed when someone feels like it? More of a "nice-to-have-but-it-still-doesn't-work-as-intended"? (no offense meant)

There may always be unknown issues, as well as known limitations (perfect MOD to MIDI conversions are simply not possible), but general, you won't find any half-finished features in OpenMPT. Either the feature is considered to be done or it's not released to the public.