Midi files of all used compositions so far available?

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toclipboard
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Midi files of all used compositions so far available?

Post by toclipboard »

Are the midi files of all currently used compositions available anywhere? The idea is, instead of creating totally new, trying to do some variations to already available, accepted and liked compositions.
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Tyler Johnson
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Re: Midi files of all used compositions so far available?

Post by Tyler Johnson »

I can't speak for anyone else but for me, that would be impossible. It's not like these MIDI files are clean versions you can just load into sibelius and it will play back fine. My MIDI files are very sloppy, a lot of notes not quantized exactly (actually, 99.9% of my notes are not quantized) so you end up with 64th notes tieing over the bar, and 128th note rests and it just looks like crap.

Some tracks I use 15-20 tracks for strings, it's not like 1 track for violins, 1 for oboe, etc. I am old fashioned in the sense that if I have a staccato track and a suspended track for the same instrument, instead of using keyswitches I'll have 2 separate tracks. That's just how I work.

I don't even know if I can get a hold of any of my old compositions for MIDI files except for sad.ogg.

One other thing to consider is the fact that when played through my machine, it will sound different than when played through your machine.

MIDI is just language, not audio. You turn MIDI on, and it triggers something (a very small WAV file in this case which produces the sounds you hear).

So unless you had the same exact setup as say, West, or I, or any other composer here, there's no way you could just ADD to / Arrange the track as an updated version.

I hope this answers your question.

-Tyler

EDIT: That being said, here is the MIDI file for sad.ogg. All MIDI automation has been removed and every note has been quantized (except the harp track).
toclipboard
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Re: Midi files of all used compositions so far available?

Post by toclipboard »

Thanks for taking the time to answer. I know what midi is. Why did you quantize sad.mid?
As far as I could see the most often used songs in Wesnoth are
- wanderer/battle, 7 times
- knolls, 6 times
- underground/the dangerous symphony/revelation/nunc dimittis/loyalists, 4 times

Those would be the songs to create variations of first, I think. Especially for wanderer, battle and knolls.

Two more facts: Luckily nowadays we have also other technologies to convert audio to midi, to a certain degree at least. The main melodic lines might be extracted this way. Secondly you can also share your ProTools or Reaper projects, if you want.
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Tyler Johnson
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Re: Midi files of all used compositions so far available?

Post by Tyler Johnson »

Yeah but that's like asking us to bear our secrets and show he we create. For me, this is something I like to have for myself. All of these techniques etc. I have learned on my own, and I believe everyone should as well.

As far as melody lines, just transcribe them. Learn the piano keyboard up to the point where you can hear a melody line and already know what it is without being next to a piano. Develop your relative pitch. If you have a mac, use this program:

Aquallegro
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lipk
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Re: Midi files of all used compositions so far available?

Post by lipk »

Luckily nowadays we have also other technologies to convert audio to midi, to a certain degree at least. The main melodic lines might be extracted this way.
There's also an ancient method: pick up the guitar and learn by ear :wink:

I'm not sure why do you want to 'create variations'. If you really know how to compose music, it'd be simpler to just create your own tracks instead of digging up old (and potentially non-existing) MIDIs, if you don't, you won't be able to edit these songs while maintaining quality. It's like that you can't paint a good picture by downloading something by Leonardo and then simply 'editing' it. Actually, you have to be nearly at his skill level to be able to do that.
Disclaimer: I'm not a professional musician.

(ninja'd by Tyler)
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perseo
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Re: Midi files of all used compositions so far available?

Post by perseo »

Well, I have no idea 'bout composing on a pc but I know some things about composing in general, and one thing is true: if you want to compose a whole piece from the begining to the end (an orchestal one I mean) you need some music knowledge in form of armony studies. That's my opinion, of course, this studies doesn't have to be official, you can learn armony and music in general by yourself. And like lipk's said, if you paint over the "gioconda" protrait the result will be probably discouraging... try to start with little melodys, for example: variation and fugue over lilibulero. :D
¡Salud!
Note: I'm not a professional musician but I have studied 10 years on a conservatory so I think that I know what I'm talking about.
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Efinari
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Re: Midi files of all used compositions so far available?

Post by Efinari »

lipk wrote:It's like that you can't paint a good picture by downloading something by Leonardo and then simply 'editing' it. Actually, you have to be nearly at his skill level to be able to do that.
I'd like to say that I am rather good at editing other people's artwork (especially making graphics for Wesnoth units), but simply cannot even begin to draw anything on my own. So there are at least some people that would be better at creating variations than actual compositions.
Kallin Efinari
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(Working on 1.12 port of "7p - Afterwards")
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Maroon
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Re: Midi files of all used compositions so far available?

Post by Maroon »

Tyler Johnson, you say “MIDI is just language, not audio.”, I am new to all of this but I choose to open files as they are, and there is a plenty of ways to open midi, here they offer quite a few ways to do that http://www.askwiki.net/How-to-Play-Midi-Files, it works for me so far, but maybe I don’t understand something, as I said I am new to this.
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Captain_Wrathbow
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Re: Midi files of all used compositions so far available?

Post by Captain_Wrathbow »

MIDI files do not contain actual sound data, like a WAV, MP3, or OGG file does. Think of it like this: those formats are a perfect recording of sound, but a MIDI file is essentially just a digital format of sheet music. The computer reads that sheet music and produces differently-pitched beeps to make the "music". But it is not actually playing a recording of the music, so one computer might make those beeps in a certain way, but it may sound slightly different on another machine.

I'm sure a LoM or anyone more knowledgeable could explain it much better than me, and you could probably also find some info by googling around.
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West
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Re: Midi files of all used compositions so far available?

Post by West »

More to the point: there is a huge difference between the midi files of yore and today's DAW projects. A midi file has only 16 channels -- 16 different sounds -- and is limited to the instrument selection of the General MIDI standard (google it) and its various descendants like GS and XG.

When you use midi in a DAW on the other hand, you can have as many midi channels as you fancy, as a DAW uses software instruments and is not affected by the 16 channel limit of hardware. Meaning, when your first software instrument runs out of channels, you just load another instance of it. And another. Etc.

Moreover, using a DAW and virtual instruments you are not bound to any standard sound bank either. You could have 16 channels of just a violin section playing with different techniques, i.e. sustain, detache, pizzicato, tremolo, trills, runs, and so on.

People who are interested in working on music for Wesnoth need to drop the notion that mainline composers are sitting around making music with 16 channels and General Midi. Forget GM and midi files, it's a thing of the past.
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