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Paul D

how to convert a .mod to a .mid or .mus?

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Hi folks. I want to take music from another game and make it so I can play it in Doom. The music from the game is in .mod format as stated in title.

How do I convert a .mod into a midi? I've tried a couple programs and I can't figure out how to do it right, if only due to total lack of experience or knowledge on the subject.

Would I have to sample the instrument channels and re-write the track from scratch?

Alternatively: Is there a way I can turn a .mod into a .mus without having to make it into a midi first?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/39292814/blackur.mod

Here is a link to the .mod file. I don't really want somebody to do it for me, but maybe can somebody walk me through it? Thanks.

If anybody wants to know, it is the Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah theme from Star Control 2.

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A .mod (or module file) is not compatible with midi. Module files are built using their own sample library and a timed differently. You would have as much luck trying to convert an MP3 to midi (which would create equally broken results).
Edit: Come to think of it, it would work out better then MP3, but the sample replacements would come out horrible.

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Well that sucks, cause I don't know how to write midis.

I found a program that could re-sample the instruments from the .mod and convert it to midi, which works pretty well, but the problem is those sounds aren't in any midi soundfonts, so when you go to play the track, it has the timing of when to play the notes right, but the instruments are all wrong.


But I see the issue now.

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2midi It's on this website: http://www.un4seen.com/

However it doesn't help for what I am trying to do, so meh.

But it takes the different sounds from the .mod and turns them into samples, then it re-arranges some things to get the timing of the notes right. So I guess if you could find out what midi instruments were the closest to the samples you could make it into a midi.

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Guest DILDOMASTER666

Since the note data and timing are all part of the MOD to begin with, you can pretty easily figure based on that what to write into a MIDI; the problem is that the same pitch cannot be assumed for every sample in the tracker file, so the process would be far from automated.

For the best results, open the MOD and examine the samples by hand. If you have a good ear, you can figure out roughly what octave/pitch the instrument begins in, and then transpose it as per the note pitch data on the module's pattern table and adjust as necessary until it sounds right. 2MIDI is a scam -- there is no such thing as "balls on" conversion from digital samples to an arbitrary format like MIDI.

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You could try asking Nathan Lineback from toastytech.com. He made about 30 mod->midi conversions for his megawad MARSWAR, so he probably knows a lot about this.

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http://cd.textfiles.com/audio11000/WIN3/CONVRTRS/MOD2MID/

I'm pretty sure that this is the program I used years ago to pull off this very task. It's not a perfect conversion (as a perfect conversion is impossible) but it's pretty good for many .MODs.

MIDI and MOD are close enough in concept to be convertible back and forth but different enough in nature to make the conversion difficult. It's virtually impossible to convert an MP3 to MIDI, since MP3 is a streaming format and contains no note data.

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Thanks for the replies guys.

So, does anybody know some good mod trackers or midi trackers I could use to just transcribe it from scratch? I don't really know what program would be good and I'd rather ask than just dig through a pile of internets.

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modplug (openmpt)

This song is very beat and large ambient wav oriented with little melody so probably not very fit for midi.
Melody just goes:
c, c, a, e
(all same octave except 2nd c is 1 octave higher, each lasts 64 rows)
beat goes

bassdrum
-
-
-
-
clang
clang
-
snare
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
also a 'blip' thing functioning as a repeating cymbol I guess every 4th row above.
(only space that out 2x) so clang SPACE clang SPACE SPACE SPACE snare
etc.
this probably makes no sense, whatever.

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Wow I'm glad I screwed around with FamiTracker a few years ago to make shitty "8 bit remixes" of songs, because I didn't realize that making a .midi or a .mod is basically the same thing except with far, far more options.

I can probably turn this into a midi pretty quickly, but as you said, it's kinda hard to make an ambient track with midi, but given how short and simple the track is, it at least shouldn't be too hard to make a working model.

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