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Sinfis

Midi or mp3?

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When I discovered ZDoom and its many features, like you can use mp3 music instead of midi music, I was amazed. I thought that damn, now my wads can have real, cool sounding music with neat effects and mixing, and I don't have to convert my Reason files into midi-format.

But later, I considered does mp3 sound too modern and good quality for 256 color sprite filled Doom world. My wads are visually that traditional pixelmuddle Doom, and so my music have to be too, I think. And almost every fps-game of that era has midi music, so it would have some nostalgic value too.

Or maybe another reason for that is my mp3s sound like "try-sound-real", when midis are honestly computer generated music. They doesn't try to be different than they are.

Or what you think?

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From a players perspective - it's a matter of personal preference. Most times I'm content to listen to the midi track. Others will turn the game music down and play a favourite CD or MP3 playlist.

From an authors perspective - Midi has the advantage of a small filesize. The folks at id couldn't have crammed shareware Doom onto 2 floppies if they were using MP3's.

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I know exactly what you're talking about, how higher quality MP3s sound out of place in Doom.

Take your mp3 and lower the bitrate. It actually does wonders in Doom and it's actually not quite as bad as it sounds. Of course, you can always go for tracker modules, many of which can sound more at home than MP3s...

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It really depends on the music. I prefer quality. Which means that for MIDI I use Timidity to play them. The good ones sound almost as good as a MOD/MP3.

Regarding MP3 in general, better use OGG Vorbis if you compress the music yourself. You can get much lower bit rates with it while keeping decent quality.

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EarthQuake said:

I know exactly what you're talking about, how higher quality MP3s sound out of place in Doom.

I don't think that's settled for everyone always, because only ports support MP3s, along with their own enhancements. I can't say an MP3 stays bad along a modern Doom modification.

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EarthQuake said:

Take your mp3 and lower the bitrate. It actually does wonders in Doom and it's actually not quite as bad as it sounds.

Hmm... I've gotta try that. :)

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Well as I should have said, lowering the quality of the MP3 doesn't always sound better. It just depends on what type of music the MP3 is, and what instruments are used. Tracks with a lot of percussion, particularly cymbals, for example exhibit that noisy muddled sound when the bitrate is reduced. I've found that techno/industrial genres work best with this method.

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EarthQuake said:

Of course, you can always go for tracker modules, many of which can sound more at home than MP3s...

How do tracker modules work, anyway? I can't seem to get any of them to play when I extract them from a .wad.

Regarding MP3 in general, better use OGG Vorbis if you compress the music yourself. You can get much lower bit rates with it while keeping decent quality.

I wish source ports were compatible with .wmas. Just like OGG, you can get a far better quality at a lower bitrate than mp3, plus .wmas are more easily availible to make, at least for windows users.

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Jim Rainer said:
How do tracker modules work, anyway? I can't seem to get any of them to play when I extract them from a .wad.

They're enhanced MIDIs that can contain custom sound fonts/patches. If you extract them from a wad be sure to do it as raw lumps, but then you need to apply the proper extension (MOD is one of them, but there are others). Finally, you need an app that plays them. Just look for a MOD player (Winamp and TiMidity can play many of them).

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Thanks.
Just out of curiosity, is there a way to convert these files to a different format, or would the only way to do that is record it via sound recorder or a similar program.

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Jim Rainer said:

I wish source ports were compatible with .wmas. Just like OGG, you can get a far better quality at a lower bitrate than mp3, plus .wmas are more easily availible to make, at least for windows users.



I don't think so. There's more than enough good tools out there that can create OGG - in fact I think there's much more of them than tools that can create WMA.

FMod can play WMA so it is supported by ZDoom. However, keep in mind that WMA is a M$ proprietary format so support on Linux does not exist. WMA use is strongly discouraged.

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EarthQuake said:

If you're using them for ZDoom, just import it into your wad as if it were a MIDI or other music file.

I meant converting them to another format for listening in itunes/wmp and being able to burn them to a cd.

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According to the help file, it can only do that in the pro version, and I'd rather not have to pay just to convert them. Guess I'll just have to settle with recording them.

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There is something... I don't know...
like tasting a fine wine, enjoying an old-movie, or appreciating 16mm film in acknowledging the limits placed upon the music writer when it came to the General Midi sound set (MIDI is too narrow a question in your post, you mean the GM soundset).

MP3 obviously is a format not hindered by the limits of 127 instruments. But appreciating what was accomplished BY those 127 instruments can be enjoyed outside of what you can do now with MP3.

Grasshopper, embrace and appreciate the past. It is the road behind you that carried you to this future.

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Jim Rainer said:

According to the help file, it can only do that in the pro version, and I'd rather not have to pay just to convert them. Guess I'll just have to settle with recording them.



No, you don't - at least the version I have comes with the Disk Writer output plugin that's needed for it. I already used it countless times to convert music.

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Lifted from the WinAmp FAQ-

Can I convert my music files from one format to another using Winamp 5?

Yes. Winamp 5 comes with a Transcoding Tool for converting between MP3, WMA, M4A/AAC, OGG, FLAC and WAV formats (MP3 Encoding is available in Winamp Pro only). To use the Transcoder, right click the file(s) in the Media Library or Playlist window and select “Send To > Format Converter”.

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That's only a digital->digital conversion. What's much more interesting is the ability to convert MID and MOD files. And for that you need the disk writer (and of course an additional MP3 converter but these shouldn't be too hard to find.)

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I would definitly go for the MOD format. Not so much better than the mp3's but wahay better than MIDI.

Take a level for instance. A MIDI will play from A > B no matter what happens in the game. Changing position in a MIDI is hard. Sometimes notes get stuck and that sounds annoying. MP3's ain't much better off in that case either. With MOD's and XM's you can say start with a calm theme while you walk through a hallway. Then as a hidden door opens up revealing some imps ready to claw at ya, the music theme is replaced with a little more paced theme. As all the imp's are dead the music goes back to the same mellow loop. But as you pick up a berserk pack and lost souls are starting to teleport in on you the music is changed to a much more highpaced pounding heavy metal loop. If they kill you then you have a special sad theme for it. This is actualy how GoldenEye on N64 works.

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Sinfis said:

But later, I considered does mp3 sound too modern and good quality for 256 color sprite filled Doom world. My wads are visually that traditional pixelmuddle Doom, and so my music have to be too, I think. And almost every fps-game of that era has midi music, so it would have some nostalgic value too.

I know exactly what you mean.

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jobro said:

I would definitly go for the MOD format. Not so much better than the mp3's but wahay better than MIDI.

Take a level for instance. A MIDI will play from A > B no matter what happens in the game. Changing position in a MIDI is hard. Sometimes notes get stuck and that sounds annoying. MP3's ain't much better off in that case either. With MOD's and XM's you can say start with a calm theme while you walk through a hallway. Then as a hidden door opens up revealing some imps ready to claw at ya, the music theme is replaced with a little more paced theme. As all the imp's are dead the music goes back to the same mellow loop. But as you pick up a berserk pack and lost souls are starting to teleport in on you the music is changed to a much more highpaced pounding heavy metal loop. If they kill you then you have a special sad theme for it. This is actualy how GoldenEye on N64 works.

Quite a few games do that, including the halo series. Still, I didn't know .MODs could do that.

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Jim Rainer said:

Quite a few games do that, including the halo series. Still, I didn't know .MODs could do that.

I think that, in ZDoom, SetMusic and LocalSetMusic can do this. When activated, it jumps to a defined pattern in the .MOD, although the composer should disable any looping sample (in instruments, for .XM) which aren't replaced by other instruments in the pattern jumped to.

A classic game that uses .MODs for all the music and sound effects is Pinball Fantasies. Sound effects are in the .MOD as samples, and the game jumps to a different pattern in the .MOD whenever a player starts, completes a ramp, gets a multiball, loses a ball, etc.

Of course, composers should make sure to predefine their loops correctly in the .MOD; you don't want to have it play your death sequence right after your ambient sequence finished playing.

Edit: SetMusic and LocalSetMusic

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To properly set the loops you need to apply a Bxx command where your loop should end. So if you have 4 patterns 0-3 playing the main ambience then you should set the B00 effect in any channel at the last line to get it loop back.

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jobro said:

To properly set the loops you need to apply a Bxx command where your loop should end. So if you have 4 patterns 0-3 playing the main ambience then you should set the B00 effect in any channel at the last line to get it loop back.

Wildly assuming that you would in fact go for .MOD or .XM, and because I'm just nuts about visual aids, here you go, an illustration using a screenshot of my favorite tracker.

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It should be noted that anybody who see's that they can put MP3's in wads and thinks "WOW I CAN PUT IN RAEG AGAINST TEH MASHINE CUZ IT ROX AND PPL WILL LOVE MY WAD, THERE MUSIC REALLY SPEEKS TO ME! SMASH TEH SISTIM!!" will likely be ridiculed to death, like Doom Rampage who stuck a load of that kind of music in his shitty project simply because he could, and vastly inflated it's file size and the music was completley innapropriate for, well, anything.

Also i beleive the archive rejects wads containing MP3's out of hand (unless you specifically email them and explain yourself), a rule i'm forced to agree with because of the above attitudes

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200% agree! If you don't have BOUGHT the right to USE the track then you have no right to include it in your projects whatsoever if it's a one room filled with cyb's or a complete 80 level megawad filled with cyb's.

It's a huge bit of a difference when it comes down to me, who compose music and therefore have all the rights to USE my music in any way I like, even upload it to the archive if I so desire. Copyright is a necesery evil. Verve made Bittersweet symphony and sampled strings from Mick Jagger, they got sued in court!

Bottomline: If you can get hold of royaltyfree mp3's then use them instead of using hard working artists work.

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jobro said:

200% agree! If you don't have BOUGHT the right to USE the track then you have no right to include it in your projects whatsoever if it's a one room filled with cyb's or a complete 80 level megawad filled with cyb's.

Of course, if you're making a wad with no intent to distribute it to anyone, and just play it on your own computer, then it doesn't really matter whether or not you bought rights.

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