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Archive / Re: Clear guide to MIDI files
« on: 2007-05-23 23:33:32 »
I've taken to building my own (I use Vista32). I use Cantabile as a host, with two copies of sfz to render the MIDI streams with soundfonts. Two copies because there's some problem where bank 128 (the drums) isn't selected. So what I've done to solve that is have Cantabile send everything BUT channel 10 (almost always drums) to the first instance of sfz, and then send channel 10 to the second copy, which I set to bank 128 for drums.
I use it primarily for playing MIDI files (which Cantabile has a built-in player for), which includes the FF7 MIDI files with either the FF7 soundfont or a generic higher-quality one, but Cantabile as a music app of course supports MIDI input. So I use a loopback driver for that.
I've never tried FF7, though (which I don't have installed atm). Attempts to route entire midi files through the loopback (from WMP or winamp) to cantabile produced strange timing issues (In other words, it didn't work properly, although all the notes were played), but it works fine for simple stuff like a single MIDI instrument when I mess about with Virtual Midi Keyboard. I don't know if FF7 would work properly, and to be honest I haven't tried the loopback setup in Vista yet, just the internal MIDI parser.
Still, if you're motivated, you can get stuff done yourself
EDIT: I recently tried it with FF7 PC on Vista. It worked, but Cantabile/SFZ doesn't quite like the original FF7 soundfont. Maybe they did some strange out-of-spec things that SFZ doesn't like. It sounds much better with higher quality GM/GS soundfonts anyhow.
The timing issue is there, but not as bad as it was with WinAmp -> Cantabile. I'll have to look into it further.
I use it primarily for playing MIDI files (which Cantabile has a built-in player for), which includes the FF7 MIDI files with either the FF7 soundfont or a generic higher-quality one, but Cantabile as a music app of course supports MIDI input. So I use a loopback driver for that.
I've never tried FF7, though (which I don't have installed atm). Attempts to route entire midi files through the loopback (from WMP or winamp) to cantabile produced strange timing issues (In other words, it didn't work properly, although all the notes were played), but it works fine for simple stuff like a single MIDI instrument when I mess about with Virtual Midi Keyboard. I don't know if FF7 would work properly, and to be honest I haven't tried the loopback setup in Vista yet, just the internal MIDI parser.
Still, if you're motivated, you can get stuff done yourself
EDIT: I recently tried it with FF7 PC on Vista. It worked, but Cantabile/SFZ doesn't quite like the original FF7 soundfont. Maybe they did some strange out-of-spec things that SFZ doesn't like. It sounds much better with higher quality GM/GS soundfonts anyhow.
The timing issue is there, but not as bad as it was with WinAmp -> Cantabile. I'll have to look into it further.
