Replacing MIDI Files in FFVII

[Gnomish]

Hello. I am an aspiring composer who hopes to write music for video-games some day. I thought it would be fun to play through FFVII using some of my own music (in the form of MIDIs) as a way of sizing up what my compositions would look like when put into practice, but I seem to be in need of guidance on how to go about doing this. All I want to do is to replace the MIDI files of the PC version of the game with my own MIDI files, which sounds like a simple enough task, but I don't exactly know how to carry this out.

I have downloaded Ficedula's LPG Tools, FF7 MIDI, and FF7 Music programs but still cannot seem to get them to do the job for me. As far as I can tell, the FF7 Music sticky here seems to pertain only to MP3 playback, which does me no good. Additionally, after I begin replacing the MIDI files using LPG Tools and have changed more than about 4 or 5 of the files out for my own MIDIs, the program either stops replacing files along the way or it freezes altogether (and continues to do so when I restart the program and try again).

Am I doing something wrong? Is there more efficient software for this kind of thing?

Also, for reference, when running LPG Tools and picking a .lpg file from Final Fantasy VII\data\midi, I am supposed to be editing the MIDIs in midi.lpg and not awe.lpg, xg.lpg, or ygm.lpg, right?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[sl1982]

I dont see why you couldnt use ff7music to play your midi files. Just use a different winamp plugin, the program is modular.

[Gnomish]

You suggest that I try using FF7 Music to play FFVII using my own MIDI files. However, I have found that LGP Tools makes so much more sense to me and was hoping to be able to use that program. I trust your judgment if you say that FF7 Music is better and am more than willing to try it, but I seem to have one little issue with this program: I cannot seem to get it to bring up any songs under the "Files" tab. And to make matters worse, I cannot seem to find any suggestions in the stickied thread here about how to get the "Files" tab page to work at all. All I seem to be able to do is to create a profile name, but after that nothing happens and I am uncertain where to go from there.

Sorry for being such a newb, but if you can help me with this I would be appreciative.

[sl1982]

Well another option is to try something other then lgp tools to repack the lgp. Aali's lgp/unlgp programs usually work without problems.

[Gnomish]

Thanks for your speedy replies. I'm going to try another LGP program then, as you suggest.

By the way, could you tell me which of the four .lgp files in the Final Fantasy VII\data\midi folder is the right one to edit for this task? I am assuming that midi.lgp is the right one to be tinkering with, but I notice that awe.lgp, xg.lgp, and ygm.lgp also have most of the MIDI files in them.... I wouldn't want to finish replacing the files in one of the .lpgs only to find that I have to repeat the process for these other three if there's any way to avoid that.

[Goku7]

By the way, could you tell me which of the four .lgp files in the Final Fantasy VII\data\midi folder is the right one to edit for this task? I am assuming that midi.lgp is the right one to be tinkering with, but I notice that awe.lgp, xg.lgp, and ygm.lgp also have most of the MIDI files in them.... I wouldn't want to finish replacing the files in one of the .lpgs only to find that I have to repeat the process for these other three if there's any way to avoid that.

Hi Gnomish.  Glad to see another person here who has an interest in MIDI.

To answer your question, you'll need to jump to the MIDI tab in the FF7 config program, and look at the "MIDI Data" entry.  That will tell you which data set the game is trying to look in.  Each one has all the files, but they are custom-made for the different MIDI standards.  You'll only need to modify the one that's selected in the MIDI Data entry.  As for the which set is what:

General MIDI = MIDI.lgp
SoundFont MIDI = AWE.lgp
Yamaha XG-MIDI = xg.lgp

YGM.lgp is a special case set for use with the S-YXG70 synth included with FF7.  Its data set is nearly identical to that of XG.lgp, but with some tweaks made in mind for that particular synth.  FF7 config reports it as using General MIDI data, but when it detects that its using the S-YXG70, it interally re-routes the MIDI requests to ygm.lgp.

Additionally, when FF7 plays its files, it's looping mechanism looks for two MIDI markers, labelled "loopStart" and "loopEnd", spelled exactly that way, in each individual file upon its playing.  If you want FF7 to loop your stuff, then you've gotta get those markers in.

[Goku7]

....I've forgotten how to delete a post.  This message was a double-post of my previous one, so just ignore it.

[Covarr]

You suggest that I try using FF7 Music to play FFVII using my own MIDI files. However, I have found that LGP Tools makes so much more sense to me and was hoping to be able to use that program. I trust your judgment if you say that FF7 Music is better and am more than willing to try it, but I seem to have one little issue with this program: I cannot seem to get it to bring up any songs under the "Files" tab. And to make matters worse, I cannot seem to find any suggestions in the stickied thread here about how to get the "Files" tab page to work at all. All I seem to be able to do is to create a profile name, but after that nothing happens and I am uncertain where to go from there.

Sorry for being such a newb, but if you can help me with this I would be appreciative.

Post a screencap of your files tab, and I might be able to help with that.