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How to play MIDIs on computer that were made on an old (dumb) phone?

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First post, by UCyborg

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I have a handful of MIDI files I made with an application on an old Sony Ericsson (I think it was K530i). Newer smartphone with Android 7.1.2 plays them, haven't tried Android 14 yet, but I want to play them on my computer and have no idea how. AIMP can't play them (it plays MIDIs from https://www.angelfire.com/fl/herky/sounds.html).

MediaInfo bundled with K-Lite Codec Pack doesn't give any clue, the information about the unsupported file, besides the size, is exactly the same as with working file.

Arthur Schopenhauer wrote:

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Reply 2 of 6, by UCyborg

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I found these:

https://gist.github.com/raphsilva/01cb94b67e1 … 51eb5bba9b66105
https://github.com/vishnubob/python-midi/issues/88

I didn't find anything about the mysterious SEM1 header that's there after the standard MThd header, but removing it makes the file playable.

When I mentioned Android, I meant that at least Music app that comes with LineageOS 14.1 plays it. Stock Android 14 doesn't seem to include dedicated music player. Didn't try stock Files app. MiXplorer version 6.43.1 I have on the older smartphone with LineageOS 14.1 doesn't play MIDI with that header either.

Arthur Schopenhauer wrote:

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Reply 3 of 6, by Jo22

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Hi, maybe there are emulators of your cell phone?
Back in the day, there had been emulators of Pocket PCs and Palm PDAs.
They could emulate a given model, for the purpose of software development.
I've used a Palm emulator on my Windows 98SE PC in ca. 2000, I vaguely remember.

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Reply 4 of 6, by UCyborg

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It won't be necessary, those MIDIs are easy to fix and now they play everywhere. Running an emulator just to play MIDI is rather clunky.

Arthur Schopenhauer wrote:

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Reply 5 of 6, by darry

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UCyborg wrote on 2025-04-12, 09:26:

It won't be necessary, those MIDIs are easy to fix and now they play everywhere. Running an emulator just to play MIDI is rather clunky.

And how did you fix them ? This may help others in similar situations.

EDIT: Oh, I see you used the the software which you linked to in Github. Sorry, that was not immediately obvious to me.

Reply 6 of 6, by UCyborg

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You can do it easily with hex editor as well, just remove the part at the beginning that starts with SEM1 until and not including MTrk:

JC2SXx0.png

BTW, I think this thread could be moved to Sound sub-forum, I forgot we have it when I made the thread.

Arthur Schopenhauer wrote:

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

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