Is it possible to request musicians to midify the existing track for free?

[Dexiaz]

Hey there.

 

While working on random things, including musical practice, I've got a clear understanding the fact that demaking mp3/ogg/flac/etc into good .midi is far from easy tasks.

But for years I have been thinking about particular track which doesn't exist (yet) as midi music:

 

 

Usually, if I had a great need to get a "midified" version of this track, I'll just pay someone for this (seems logical).

But in this particular situation I'm just thinking that this midi could be used in future mods (not by me, though) for Doom or Duke Nukem 3D. I mean, I'm just imagine that someone (for no reason, lol) will do this eventually. But it's already 20+ years, so this is just ridiculous.

 

Still, seeing on Doomworld a lot of talented composers, maybe it's possible to ask someone to do this? This is just my suggestion, not a real request/commission.

So, if it's not possible at all, it wouldn't be a big problem.

 

(The possible reaction to my post: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

A track with those kinds of complex effects in it is going to sound awful in MIDI form.

It'd be a bit like trying to make a MIDI out of an industrial track that makes heavy use of samples.  It can't be done.

[Rytrik]

The other side of it is the legality of midi-fying a track. Would the creator of a track need to be contacted for permission to midi-fy that track? It is their creative work. If not necessary for legal reasons, doing so would at least be a polite gesture. 

[Dexiaz]

1 hour ago, Rytrik said:

The other side of it is the legality of midi-fying a track. Would the creator of a track need to be contacted for permission to midi-fy that track? It is their creative work. If not necessary for legal reasons, doing so would at least be a polite gesture. 

 

I'm getting Bobby Prince' flashbacks about legality of midi-fying tracks by Pantera, Metallica, etc.

[NeedHealth]

Bobby Prince was a laywer and  knew exactly how much he could steal when he made the doom midis.

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

6 minutes ago, NeedHealth said:

Bobby Prince was a laywer and  knew exactly how much he could steal when he made the doom midis.

Unfortunately, that oft-repeated story is not true, as explained by Bobby Prince himself in this interview.

[NeedHealth]

Thanks for correcting me.

[Maes]

On 2/10/2021 at 5:13 PM, TheUltimateDoomer666 said:

A track with those kinds of complex effects in it is going to sound awful in MIDI form.

It'd be a bit like trying to make a MIDI out of an industrial track that makes heavy use of samples.  It can't be done.

 

FWIW, some eons ago I used a program that converted (sort of...) Amiga MOD and other kinds of tracker music formats to MIDI. It was MOD2MIDI (which, conveniently, is placed into idgames O_o ). Using that program was more of an art, than anything. I remember spending countless hours with a printed MIDI instrument table in hand, trying to find the best fit for each sample, and as you mentioned, special effects and speech samples were among the hardest to acceptably convert.

 

Other things that just didn't map well to MIDI were pitched/melodic percussion (MIDI treated percussion separately from regular instruments, so no pitch, no effects, etc.), the sound of distorted guitars (at least with FM synthesis, there was no way you'd get that characteristic "Amiga Metal" sound out of MIDI files....), and dialing in instrument transposition was also a chore. And yet, it gave me a small sense of accomplishment when I finally dialed it in somewhat acceptably :-) I still have all the settings files somewhere...

 

What perplexes me if is that there's an online tool that purports to do the same, yet it requires no input from the user....probably leaving all of the instrument matching work for later.