Music cut short?

Hi, I'm new to modding Doom and I've got a question I was hoping could be answered. I created a new, perfectly working .mus file using midi2mus and put it into the game with XWE, but even though it works perfectly, at a certain point, it restarts the song from the beginning. Could anyone help? Thanks.

What happens if you use the original MIDI as the lump, instead?

The only disadvantage of not passing a MIDI through Midi2mus is that Doom95 won't play it.

The DOS executable plays many MIDIs, and source ports all of them.

Hmm, I'm not quite sure how to do that(use the original midi as the lump). I am new at modding, after all. Could you enlighten me?

Use Load (raw data) in the Entry menu. You can rename the MIDI before importing it, to d_runnin.mid or whatever name according to the level, or simply rename the lump in the PWAD (with right-click) after importing it.

Well, I did it, but it still cuts off at the same point. Could anything else be wrong?

Is the MIDI file very big? I've used a MIDI over 800 KB in size and it was okay in source ports, though. Does it play and loop properly in a MIDI player? What engine are you running the PWAD with?

The midi plays fine in players, but I'm not sure how to find out which engine I'm using. I used a different midi file for another song, but I hit "replace(raw data)" and it worked perfectly fine. I tried this again with the previous song, but it kept being cut off at the same point. The file size doesn't make much of a difference-the one that worked fine is only 38 kb big, while the one that messes up is only 48 kb.

By the engine I mean the game executable. I guess you're using the standard DOS executable. It may be that the MIDI has something in it that is incompatible with the "MUS format" used by DOOM. It essentially supports any type 1 MIDI that can be translated to a 64 KB or less MUS lump. In your case, the size shouldn't be a problem because MUS lumps are even smaller than MIDIs. There might be some function in it that doesn't work for type 1 MIDIs or an error that external MIDI players don't mind.

Hmm, how do you think I could find out what type of midi it is or what function might not be compatible? Hope you don't think I'm too dense.

Maybe a MIDI disassembler might help. At least to rewrite the MIDI and see if any chinks get removed.

Well, since it is cutting off at the same point check out what is in the song at that point. I guess if you didn't make it yourself, though, you probably won't know how to do it - you'll have to find and learn how to use a free midi sequencer to examine the song.

I may be wrong but I thought in vanilla doom songs would cut off if they were longer than the original song? Like the song length was hard coded or something?

Who knows

Well, I know what's past the point at which it cuts off, so I guess I'll just try the midi disassembler. Also, interesting new development- remember the working song? It doesn't loop! In other words, when it's done, it doesn't play again.

I've inserted many MIDIs and never had either problem, nor have I heard of similar issues from others.

magicsofa said:
Like the song length was hard coded or something?

The only size limit is 64 KB for the lump. If the lump is bigger it generally doesn't play. Some music can also cause Doom to close, but I think that's when the format is different.

Yeah. Arrgh, I always seem to have problems nobody has a definitive answer to.

Maybe you could post the midi and tell us when it restarts? I could open it up and have a look at it.

Well, it's kind of embarassing, but the midi is of Lady Gaga's "Poker Face." The version that I found a link to(it's exactly the same) doesn't restart, but it does freeze at the same exact point as the other one and holds the note until the end of the level. The problem always occurs halfway through the second verse. If you know the song, you know exactly which point I'm talking about. Here's a link.
http://www.cool-midi.com/midi/l/lady_gaga-poker_face.mid

Well the midi seems to play fine in Skulltag, if I just load it and changemus to it.
I'm not sure what could be causing it to freeze.
Do you know the exact time it freezes at? Maybe play it in WMP and record the time that it says, that you remember as freezing.

On my system, running Doom (DOOM2.EXE or DOOM.EXE) on windows 98, the MIDI makes the game crash.

I was messing around with the MIDI disassembler and got it to work in Doom, but only after stripping some advanced stuff including the Program event function that was remapping the instruments. The result works but sounds piano-based (although we could say that in DOOM II the synthesizer improves it a bit due to how GENMIDI is mapped.)

I think I didn't remove anything Doom's player could use, but I'm no expert. Maybe it could be reassembled in a better way.

Some of these newer MIDIs use newer specifications that don't work well with the commonly used MIDI standards of 16 years ago.

pf.zip

The midi stops at 1:30. I like the piano version, though I'll see if I can tinker around to have it still work and sound kinda like the original version.

Hmm, odd. Even though I haven't done any tinkering, it still sounds like the original version in the game and still has the same problem.

I had an idea. Is there any way I can change the length of the time allotted for the midi?