i would like to hear the soundtrack in midi

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kingalexander
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i would like to hear the soundtrack in midi

#1 Post by kingalexander » Sat Oct 01, 2011 2:19 pm

it would be awesome and it would feel more like a kings quest soundtrack to me as i grew up playing the games with midi soundtrack before i was given a mt-32.

also u think kq3 soundtrack wil be released soon nevertheless digital or midi?

DarkMistress89
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Re: i would like to hear the soundtrack in midi

#2 Post by DarkMistress89 » Sat Oct 01, 2011 6:52 pm

I also think it would be inquisitively titillating with an release of both KQ2+ and KQ3+ soundtrack in MIDI files. Though if you only want to hear the soundtrack through the game, you can use the Internet Archive and download an earlier version of Romancing the Stones. Note that the game will be installed under Tierra, not AGD Interactive.

If your computer is adroit enough, you could record the soundtrack with the help of virtual MIDI ports.

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Re: i would like to hear the soundtrack in midi

#3 Post by goatmeal » Sat Oct 01, 2011 7:12 pm

Personally, I'm waiting for the PC speaker version of the soundtracks...

:rollin

MusicallyInspired
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Re: i would like to hear the soundtrack in midi

#4 Post by MusicallyInspired » Sat Oct 01, 2011 8:37 pm

That definitely won't happen with KQ3Redux. Half the source files weren't even in MIDI to begin with and the other half were lost in a hard drive accident. The SE OST I'm making right now is made with advanced software and a lot of non-General MIDI compatible plugins. It would be an ordeal in itself to scale it down to something General MIDI compatibile.

I can't speak for Tom on his KQ2+ soundtrack, but I recall he was always against his MIDI soundtrack as it was very limited when compared to the digital version.

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kingalexander
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Re: i would like to hear the soundtrack in midi

#5 Post by kingalexander » Sat Oct 22, 2011 12:16 pm

how do i record it from game then?

i finally managed to get down an earlier version of kq2 which is in midi.

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Re: i would like to hear the soundtrack in midi

#6 Post by DrJones » Sat Oct 22, 2011 12:34 pm

Buy a cable, then plug one side on the audio port and the other end on the microphone port, then you can use any audio recording program to record all the sound from your system into a file. :p

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Re: i would like to hear the soundtrack in midi

#7 Post by MusicallyInspired » Sat Oct 22, 2011 12:41 pm

Not the Mic input, the Line input. The Mic input is not stereo and is usually loaded with computer noise. The Line input is too but not as badly. When you record, though, set the setting somewhere in volume control or your recording program that allows you to record WITHOUT monitoring or else you'll get major feedback which might damage your sound card, its inputs/outpus, and/or your speakers. A better way would be to record from your MIDI device internally by selecting your MIDI output in volume control as the device to record from. This works in XP but not any longer in Vista/7 for some abominably stupid reason.

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Re: i would like to hear the soundtrack in midi

#8 Post by DarkMistress89 » Sat Oct 22, 2011 4:30 pm

I actually have a USB stereo cable which I use to record from my Yamaha synthesizer. It should work just as good at anything else. The output is a regular 6.3 mm stereo cable and the input is plain USB. You will need a 3.5 mm adapter for the computer's audio output though.

Something tells me that you might have been referring to the actual recording of MIDI signals and I still haven't found a solution for Vista/Win7. If you're using XP or older you would just need a MIDI sequencer and virtual cables but when it comes to modern PCs this is a far more intricate issue.

However thanks to MusicallyInspired and Collector I learned of DosBox's recording options but I would love to be able to record from non-dos games. So far I've only managed to get some other games to work in Windows 3 through DosBox, like KQ7 and the Windows version of KQ5.

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Re: i would like to hear the soundtrack in midi

#9 Post by MusicallyInspired » Sun Oct 23, 2011 4:24 am

There's always the MIDI loopback drivers which allow you to record MIDI data in a sequencer while playing through a separate player. I'm not sure exactly how it works as I've never tried it, though.

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Re: i would like to hear the soundtrack in midi

#10 Post by DarkMistress89 » Sun Oct 23, 2011 12:18 pm

MusicallyInspired wrote:There's always the MIDI loopback drivers which allow you to record MIDI data in a sequencer while playing through a separate player. I'm not sure exactly how it works as I've never tried it, though.
The problem is that I haven't gotten any MIDI Mapper to work. The exe-based ones simply can't find any MIDI device and the Vista Midi Mapper won't show up among the other 32-bit applets in the control panel.

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Re: i would like to hear the soundtrack in midi

#11 Post by kingalexander » Sun Oct 23, 2011 3:52 pm

i meant recording to midi file. i have a vista. Is there any freeware that allows you to record MIDI? i would love if you could do it with one click like in dosbox.

Is there any program that allows you to decompile ags games? i would also love some music from qfg4.5 which i haven't been able to trace.

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Re: i would like to hear the soundtrack in midi

#12 Post by Collector » Sun Oct 23, 2011 6:12 pm

MusicallyInspired wrote:There's always the MIDI loopback drivers which allow you to record MIDI data in a sequencer while playing through a separate player. I'm not sure exactly how it works as I've never tried it, though.
You mean like MIDIOX?

It may not be of any help with the Windows AGS games, but for DOS games you can use DOSBox's capture abilities to record raw MIDI.
DarkMistress89 wrote:The problem is that I haven't gotten any MIDI Mapper to work. The exe-based ones simply can't find any MIDI device and the Vista Midi Mapper won't show up among the other 32-bit applets in the control panel.
Have you tried Putzlowitsch's? It is 32-bit as well, but should show in the 32-bit Control Panel on Vista. On Win 7, the 32-bit applets appear alongside the 64-bit applets. You can also access it by just double clicking the PLWMidiMap.cpl file. There could also be UAC issues with using any of them as they all make a registry change. If they don't seem to work, try running them as administrator. If worse comes to worst, you could make the registry change yourself, if you feel comfortable with working with something as critical as the registry.

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Re: i would like to hear the soundtrack in midi

#13 Post by DarkMistress89 » Sun Oct 23, 2011 10:37 pm

Collector wrote:Have you tried Putzlowitsch's? It is 32-bit as well, but should show in the 32-bit Control Panel on Vista. On Win 7, the 32-bit applets appear alongside the 64-bit applets. You can also access it by just double clicking the PLWMidiMap.cpl file. There could also be UAC issues with using any of them as they all make a registry change. If they don't seem to work, try running them as administrator. If worse comes to worst, you could make the registry change yourself, if you feel comfortable with working with something as critical as the registry.
Yes that's the one. I follow the instructions, but like I said, it won't show up. I can see all the other 32-bit applets along with the 64-bit applets but that one is nowhere to be seen.

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Re: i would like to hear the soundtrack in midi

#14 Post by DarkMistress89 » Sun Oct 23, 2011 10:54 pm

I'm such a fool. When you said click. I actually located it in the system32 folder where I had put it before and clicked on it there. Nothing happened.

Now I tried moving it to any other location and then it worked clicking on. Though first I just played up a MIDI file in Windows Media Player which it wouldn't record. But then it worked brilliantly with a game, more specifically KQ2VGA.

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Re: i would like to hear the soundtrack in midi

#15 Post by Collector » Mon Oct 24, 2011 1:46 am

On x64 Windows it should probably be in SysWOW64 instead of the system32 folder. Also, you may want to check that the file has been unblocked (right click > Properties > click the "Unblock" button).

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Re: i would like to hear the soundtrack in midi

#16 Post by Anonymous Game Creator 2 » Mon Oct 24, 2011 9:56 am

I've uploaded all of the original MIDI files from the King's Quest II: Romancing the Stones remake.

Download here

Since the game doesn't use MIDIs anymore, I figured there was no point in letting them gather dust, not being heard. We opted to go the "digital music only" route because a lot of instruments sound different with MIDI on various sound cards. And we wanted to be sure everyone was having an identical in-game audio experience. Still, Tom put a lot of work into optimizing these MIDI files and they sound great.

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Re: i would like to hear the soundtrack in midi

#17 Post by MusicallyInspired » Tue Oct 25, 2011 2:49 am

Very nice! Let the remixing commence! :D

I feel it's worth mentioning that I recall Tom saying that these MIDIs were composed to be played and heard best from a Roland SC-55 MKII module and/or an SCC-1A/SCC-1B internal ISA card because of the extra polyphony they provide (28 voices), as opposed to the regular Roland SC-55 module or SCC-1 internal ISA card which only has 24-voice polyphony. Attempting to play them on either of the latter group will result in random muted instruments (I've tried it). Sadly I don't have a MKII or SCC-1A/SCC-1B.

Of course this means nothing if you're using plugins, but again it's worth mentioning that those modules are how the soundtrack was meant to be heard and composed best for. I'm not sure how the Windows Roland GS waveset will work with it as I'm not sure of the polyphony limitations it has, if any.

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Re: i would like to hear the soundtrack in midi

#18 Post by DarkMistress89 » Tue Oct 25, 2011 11:27 pm

Thank you very much. Is there music here not available on the KQ2+ Digital soundtrack on QuestStudios or is it just split into more parts?

I was thinking of renaming them.

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Re: i would like to hear the soundtrack in midi

#19 Post by MusicallyInspired » Wed Oct 26, 2011 2:21 am

A lot of them are in pieces due to programmability.

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Re: i would like to hear the soundtrack in midi

#20 Post by DarkMistress89 » Wed Oct 26, 2011 11:57 pm

MusicallyInspired wrote:A lot of them are in pieces due to programmability.
There wasn't really much difference. About your encouragement that all start remixing.. Wouldn't it be interesting if people tried digitalizing the tracks not available on QuestStudios?

There are a whole bunch of cues that aren't on the page but you will find most of the titles on the Songlist. I've renamed all of the MIDI files according to the track order on the song list. And also, some cues that exist in MP3 and OGG on the Soundtrack page are nowhere to be found on the Songlist so I left them without track number. Then there are 26 MIDI files which there's no info about but some of them are just short tones or sound effects. It was a long time since I played KQ2+ but I'm suspecting that a few are variations and also plain outtakes and omissions. I haven't listened all yet of course.

I think this MIDI upload is really exclusive for us who wants to listen to the soundtrack and downloaded the digital soundtrack from QuestStudios. Remember, Tom has uploaded about 80 MP3s from the soundtrack. This upload on AGDI consists of 130 MIDI files and the cues really aren't so much divided as I first thought. Especially not compared to real Sierra games.

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