IMF to MIDI converter for Windows

[The_MártonJános]

So, that's it...

Recently I was talking with Grain of Salt about some Duke Nukem 2 music, that was originally ripped and converted into MIDI by an unknown person who later uploaded it to Mirsoft. These were only five out of the twenty, and their quality was partially ruined.

Being not satisfied, I ripped the music with WOMBAT 1.0 and they're now in .imf format. Successfully installing AdPlug for Winamp, they can be played now - but they still can't be used in doom wads yet.

Still hunting for the best solution, I picked Google again and downloaded four converter files, but all of them were NOT compatible with Windows, especially with XP. My blood pressure just went over 9000 by this. I can't understand why people aren't able to go alongst the years passing by. It's 2011, damnit!

However, I didn't give it up yet... I'm asking you whether you either can handle with those converter files somehow, or know another solution to convert all the .imf music to regular MIDI files. I tried to open 'em with DosBox as well, but it didn't work either.

[Csonicgo]

it's "id music format". It's not a Midi type thing. it's not something you can just go "convert to midi" because it's not even close to that format. the voices would have to be chosen, as they are not "voices" in the GM sense.

[Gez]

It's Adlib music, not MIDI. Some ports may be able to play IMF files directly. ZDoom does, at least.

[The_MártonJános]

How a shame. It has to mean that I will never be able to convert 'em, and, unless I play my wad using the soundtracks with ZDoom, I can't even get the IMF musictracks work. Crap.

[Aliotroph?]

If you had five of the Duke Nukem II songs as MIDI files they were probably the ones Bobby Prince used to have on his website. He had songs from Duke2, Wolf3D, Spear of Destiny, RoTT, Doom, Blake Stone and a couple that didn't end up in any game. The page had text describing what he was trying to do with the different pieces and how they got their names. Archive.org won't show it thanks to a robots.txt he put in at some point. Bah.

[The_MártonJános]

Whatever. I was just fed up with DOS windows popping up and then disappearing when trying to get the converter run.

The most genius ideas will never be realised!

[Megalyth]

They can actually be converted to MIDI, but they don't always sound right, as Csonicgo said, because the instruments don't always translate well across formats. I converted some Commander Keen music to MIDI this way.

As for the window popping up and disappearing, programs such as DRO2MIDI are command line programs. You can't just open them, you have to set the parameters for it to work.

[The_MártonJános]

Command line programs? They're like what? And I don't have any ideas where to "set the parameters".

[Gez]

What version of Windows do you have?

If it's Vista or 7, click on the address bar of the explorer, where it shows you the path to the folder with the converter thingies. Click it and select the entire path. Type "cmd" instead to replace that and hit enter. It'll open a command window in that folder.

And then it's time for the magical world of the command line interface. Type the name of your program then enter. It'll tell you more then.

Generally, you'll type something like dro2midi /? or dro2midi -h or dro2midi --help to learn more about the parameters you can give.

Also generally, the command to convert a file will be something like dro2midi input.imf output.mid.

[Megalyth]

http://www.shikadi.net/keenwiki/DRO2MIDI

This page has some more info about that particular converter. Apparently you can remap the instruments, but I never got that deep into it. I just needed MIDI files to load into FL Studio.

[Aliotroph?]

I wonder how that thing figures out tempos. Songs converted from Duke Nukem II tend to play at ludicrous speed while songs from Wolf3D tend to be slower than normal. This is opposed to Adplug, which without a database for imf files will play all of them at the some incorrect tempo.

[Megalyth]

That's strange, wouldn't the tempo info be stored within the file itself, no matter which format it's in? All of the Commander Keen songs I've converted retained the correct tempo.

[The_MártonJános]

Aliotroph? said:

I wonder how that thing figures out tempos. Songs converted from Duke Nukem II tend to play at ludicrous speed while songs from Wolf3D tend to be slower than normal. This is opposed to Adplug, which without a database for imf files will play all of them at the some incorrect tempo.

That caught my attention... DN2's E1L1 music was converted into MIDI in the folder of an another converter, and I couldn't even figure out what it's about, it was just sprinting through my mind in whattaf*ck speed. My enthusiasm dropped a bit, but I suppose someone has a better solution.

[Gez]

Megalyth said:

That's strange, wouldn't the tempo info be stored within the file itself

Maybe not. If a game expects to always use the same tempo for all music tracks, maybe that info is left out of the file itself since it'd be "redundant".

[andrewj]

There is no tempo information in IMF files. IMF files consist of nothing but Adlib register data and delay counts. That's why they are very difficult to convert to a proper music format like MIDI. (I'm the author of one of those stupid command-line converter programs, heh)

[AndrewB]

OMG, are you really the author of MIDI2MUS/MUS2MIDI? I've never been in the presence of a celebrity...

[Gez]

MIDI2MUS was written by Dave "Automap Asteroids" Taylor. MUS2MIDI by Joakim Erdfelt. QMUS2MID by Sébastien Bacquet.

Andrewj wrote glBSP, EDGE and OBLIGE -- those would give him more a claim at being a celebrity around here than some IMF converter. :p