Midi writing

[Jabbo]

Does anyone here write music/midis? I have a few, located at http://www.geocities.com/jabbo999/midis/midis.html . They really aren't the greatest things ever, but I was just wondering if anyone else had any to share.

[Impossible]

I write Band Brothers music... sort of...

[Vaylos]

aye, I write with midi quite a bit. some of my older versions got turned into tracker files, and they're up on Modplug Central under the artist name "Mazrim" Also, some of the music I tinkered with when I was up at UNF can be found at:

http://www.unf.edu/~penj0006/examples.html

I've written a few things since then, but they're still on my backup CDs.

Oh, and I'm currently working on some techno music for one of my friend's final game dev team project for his course work. Had another friend upload it for me. the mp3 can be found at

http://students.washington.edu/cazovi/S ... hicken.mp3

Fair warning: techno isn't really my strong point, but I think it sounds okay. *shrug*

[Glenn47]

Techno is my specialty.
Pretty good overall. If I had to say one criticism, it'd be that techno always crescendos. That way the person just keeps getting more and more into it. After the 8th measure you take out the main part, where most techno songs would have introduced the main part after the 8th. I did like it for the most part.
If it were being made for me, I'd have requested cymbals coming in on the 9th measure, something like a "chuka-tsss chucka tss" with the "tss" on the upbeat, if you have any clue about what I'm saying.

Although, with this being a repeating song on a game, I suppose that wouldn't work out well. Oh well, I just like the cymbals doing that.

[Springfield]

im gonna post somethin on this just for the sake of posting.

i like cheese

[EmperorJeramyu]

im gonna post somethin on this just for the sake of posting.

i like cheese

Yeah. Don't do this. Don't spam.

[Squiggy]

im gonna post somethin on this just for the sake of posting.

i like cheese

Yeah. Don't do this. Don't spam.

yeah, i don't think that telling him not to is going to work, i know him, if you say "no", he just does it more, the only solution is to boot him...

[Vaylos]

No worries Glenn, I think I know what you're talkin about. (mostly because my composition instructor would use vocal effects to try and get points across...it amused me to no end ) Anyways, I'm still polishing the music up (although now i'll nearly have to re-write it, since my HDD was wiped, and I happened to not have had the music backed up >_<) ah well, I mostly remember what I did...er...though the backbeat drum patterns might turn out differently if I attempt a rewrite >.> *kicks himself* But c'este la vie I guess.

I was planning on tinkering with the drum pattern a bit though. I was happy with the first half of the tune, but the second half I kinda wanted to rework a bit. Luckily I still remember the pattern I used for the first half, albeit roughly

'course, I might just leave it as is, and start pondering the other 3 main tunes I have to write, not to mention a title/menu theme, win/lose, and probably something for a scoreboard type page

Kinda scary really. I've never really written anything for a project like this before. They'll be submitting their project to the IGF (Independant Game Festival) as well, and my name will be in the credits as the musician/composer....kinda scary indeed. !^_^

[Inderos]

Jabbo's are pretty good.

[Lord_Ehrgeiz]

um... can someone give me an url of midi-creating program??

[Impossible]

Good ones cost money.

[Lord_Ehrgeiz]

that sucks! and are the bad ones (which are free) so bad??

[Vaylos]

Actually, depending on how complex you want to make your music, yeah, the reallygood ones cost money...sometimes lots of it =/ However, for simpler tunes, I'd say grab Finale Notepad. It's pretty decent. Basically for music composition in general, but it exports to midi file. As for a sequencer...um...*does some searching around real quick*

Well here's a classic...Anvil Studio sequences midis, and they have a free version. Has a Staff/Score view, but I think it's also got a piano roll. I tried it once a few years ago, and it was "okay" but they've probably improved since then.

One thing that's kinda handy for creating drum patterns in midi format:
MusicLab has a demo (time trial) of Drum Tools Performance Designer. It's quite handy for ppl like me who suck at writing their own percussion lines

http://www.frieve.com/english/musicstd/musicstd.html
Here's another one that seems to be free, and worth a look, but I haven't tried it myself. Think I might grab it actually, and give it a go.

And of course, Fruityloops has a demo version available, only problem is you can't save as project file, but you can export to midi/wav/mp3 formats still.

Of course, it'll take time to learn the software and get used to the layouts, and what you can do with them.

There's also some more stuffs on

http://www.synthzone.com/midiseq.htm

And I'd also hunt around electronic musician (Least I think that's the name of the site)

Also, if you have a soundcard that supports soundfont (SF2) files, you might want to take a look through http://www.sf2midi.com for instrument samples. Be sure to read the reviews though. (the ones written by ppl who look like they know what they're talking about. Ignore the ones that say "ooh this is teh best1st th1ng 3V4R!")

As for some tips on getting started (being that I don't know how advanced you are with music writing) Grab Finale Notepad, it's a free download, and write up a melody with it, maybe add some chords or harmony, and some drums if need be. It also supports dynamic markings, which actually do work during playback, and they get exported along with the rest when you save as midi file.

Step 2: open the midi file in a sequencer and tweak it a bit, modify volumes, velocities, and tempos if need be. (At least that's what I use midi sequencers for. I generally -write- the music with notation software like Finale)

Step 3: (going that extra mile) You can grab something like fruityloops or some other sample based music software, and import the midi. Switch out the instrument patches with higher quality patches and experiment with different effects, tweaks, Equalizer settings, etc. (one of the reasons I adore Fruityloops, actually) And export to wav or mp3 when your satisfied with it. ALthough certain demo plugins/FX things probably won't export.

My preferred method for step 3 is using various high quality soundfonts. One place that's great to look for these is http://www.sf2midi.com Also, I'd recommend grabbing whatever the last release of the Fluid Soundfont by Frank Wen. Although it's a whopping 150mb or so -.- But they work well in fruity with some tweaks.

Anyways, hopes this helps you all a bit. I'm no pro by any means, but I think I do fairly decent work considering I'm an amateur and hobbyist hehe. There's a really nice Fruityloops bible/faq/tutorial/guide forum on the remix forums over at Overclocked Remixes. If you do end up using Fruity, I highly recommend doing some reading over there.


My personal current Software: Finale Notepad (whatever the current version is)

Cakewalk Homestudio 9 (for midi sequencing)

and FL Studio 5 demo (AKA Fruityloops)

Damn this turned into a long post *cough* sorry bout that...I tend to get a bit chatty/helpful when it comes to writing music

[Aegis]

It's funny 'cuz you posted this now, and lately I've been worrying about where my game team is gonna get someone to do the music. I'm not gonna find someone who meets our requirements here, but still funny coincidence.

[Impossible]

Dammit, another VG Cats avatar!