Which MIDI players have you tried? Only DOS ones? Remember that DOS itself has a 640K limit, and unless the MIDI player jumps through hoops with EMS/XMS, that is going to be the limit.

I've been meaning to make a thread like this for quite some time, I'd like a solution to this too... tried mfplay/gsplay and they don't work with big midis... anyone knows of another player that does not have this problem?

Cubic Player?

Have you tried munt player? I can't remember setting any limits there and e.g. QS MIDIs play just well. I don't think DOS players exist which rely on EMS/XMS or use a DOS extender. The point is standard MIDI file was always thought as quite compact musical file format 😀

NewRisingSun wrote:

Which MIDI players have you tried? Only DOS ones? Remember that DOS itself has a 640K limit, and unless the MIDI player jumps through hoops with EMS/XMS, that is going to be the limit.

Yes, pretty much all DOS versions. I'd like to be able to play everything in DOS. Obviously I could just use modern gear and Windows, but it doesn't have the same feel. So it is the conventional memory that's limiting the whole thing and there's nothing one can do with EMS/XMS/RAM?

I'm afraid nothing. But you can sure do something with MIDI editors (like Cakewalk). As you want to feel like good old times, you need to use old MIDIs. I'm sure there were no 512 KB files before.

The primary reason of growing MIDI files is they are captures made with high MIDI tick frequency (about 1 millisecond). This approximately doubles MIDI file size vs. old-fashioned values like PPQN 24. Another obvious reason is attempting to put a whole game MIDI soundtrack into a single file. Usually, games use multiple of files compressed, so should you dealing with pure DOS.

Zup wrote:

Cubic Player?

I'm in doubt if this thing is capable to produce MIDI output at all. It seems to me it's a softsynth rather. At least, the doc says only about GUS patches.

i vaguely remember there was a program to 'compacting' the midi file size, its works by removing unnecessery midi opcodes and various stuff like minimizing the number of tracks chunks (not to be confused with midi channel). And because of that, even the playback are mostly unaffected the optimized midi file became more annoying to edit.

sergm wrote:

Another obvious reason is attempting to put a whole game MIDI soundtrack into a single file. Usually, games use multiple of files compressed, so should you dealing with pure DOS.

Yes, that is the problem right there. I'd like to be able to listen the whole soundtrack without pauses, that's why the file is so big as it contains more than an hour of music. But glad to know my hunch was correct, thanks!

sergm wrote:

Zup wrote:

Cubic Player?

I'm in doubt if this thing is capable to produce MIDI output at all. It seems to me it's a softsynth rather. At least, the doc says only about GUS patches.

Cubic Player indeed does not play MIDI files out of the box. It can play them if provided the GUS patches, probably the way the GUS would play them, and not as FM MIDI. Usually sounds better.

That makes Cubic Player useless in MT-32 world, unless they someday incorporate either libmt32emu or MIDI port handler.

I doubt they are going to incorporate anything new at this point. My understanding was that the point of Cubic's MIDI support was to play back MIDI files as high-quality digital audio, not pass them to some external MIDI handler. But I believe you are right - MIDI written for MT-32 will not sound right if played through GM/GUS.

P.S. I only now noticed that the thread was opened in the MT-32 forum, so perhaps the OP is referring to MT-32 soundtracks specifically.

Well, GUS provides an "emulation" for MT-32 😀 Unfortunately, it's way too far from being perfect...