VOGONS


First post, by count23

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Hi folks,

I'm poking around some old dos games like Star Trek 25th anniversary where the MIDIs can't be extracted properly from the archives for various reasons and i was hoping someone might point me to the right workflow for extracting the MT-32 output and saving it either as an XMI or midi track (to go into something else to update the instruments with a newer soundfont) or at least just extracting them with the sysex intact.

Right now my workflow has been to basically use the dosbox midi capture function ctrlaltf8 and save those as midi's, i can't seem to get any consistent information if those save the sysex if i start the capture fast enough or if it's purely just GM and no mt-32 elements in the capture. Playback on MUNt seems ot be hit and miss, if i pin the synth using a track i captured before MT32 loaded it seems to play all the audio fine, if i hit the individual captures of tracks it seems to be less relaible, so to me that says that the sysex is loaded once at the start of the gameplay and not when each individual track is loaded or something, but MIDI is not really my strong suit.

Any help would be appreciated in guidance on this or workflow. I want the MIDIs/XMIs rather than a raw wav export if possible.

Reply 1 of 2, by Spikey

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Recording from DOSBox is your best bet, otherwise you'll need to extract the files. There is no other way to do what you're wanting. Using DOSBox to record the SysEx is a requirement, you will need to send the SysEx data before you edit things outside of the game, so you can send the SysEx to MUNT/hardware before you edit the MT-32 data. Once it is edited, you can then convert it to General MIDI. That is a whole other topic of complexity however and will not be covered here. If files use basic MT-32 instruments I may be able to convert them for you.

However, it appears this game is General MIDI compatible, so it would make more sense to use that driver and record directly as GM, and work from there, not worry about the MT-32 side of things.