ok, I have a few questions.
First of all, I've come across a few sites where people seem to have taken midi files and then DONE SOMETHING to them that makes the midi instruments sound more like... real instruments. And then saved them as MP3s. How is this done? :(
Secondly, I'm looking for some software recommendations... I need something to mix together say, you know those short radio station jingles? Things like those. Preferably something nice and simple :)
And maybe some recording software too...
Any recommendations from you good AGSers?
You could always record midi, then tweak some EQ, add a small reverb and compress the whole thing.
The how part:
I guess you're talking about samples. You get a "real" piano sound, and record it, so everytime you trigger a certain note, it's not your soundcard playing midi sounds, but the very specific piano sound. Same goes for all instruments.
For a really long answer go here: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=31637.0 and check my really long post, for suggestions as well.
For recording: You need some kind of audio interface. Something where you will "plug in" your mic and then the sound will go into the computer, etc. Prices start from around £150, if not mistaken. I don't think that a normal sound card as found in your motherboard will cut it, and the mics for skype and the rest are simply awful to do anything good! Hope it helps
Have you ever considered opening google and doing your own research before making yet another 'Yufster's vague question of the day' thread?
Slightly off-topic, but Nikolas, do you have any experience with USB microphones? I've been looking at this one (http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=1810) and I was wondering if using USB to circumvent my crappy mic port would be an alternative to getting a semi-pro audio card?
i think what you're talking about are soundfonts that take the place of midi instruments.
while the best ones aren't free there are quite a few decent free ones out there, but then you also need a player capable of using soundfonts. or it could just be you have a rubbish soundcard, the midi sounds on my card aren't too bad.
it's also possible that what you were hearing was the result of midi playing through a hardware synth or keyboard.
Quote from: radiowaves on Thu 30/08/2007 17:11:20
You could always record midi, then tweak some EQ, add a small reverb and compress the whole thing.
I remember seeing on this forum a long time ago a program that took MIDIs and made them into more realistic sounding MP3s. I have no idea what it's called but I know that it does exist somewhere.
Guys... All my tracks in my site (www.nikolas-sideris.com), in the commercial section (not classical cause there it's only live) are made starting out with midi. Just go and listen.
I believe that this is rather realistic (there are better of course)... I don't think that midi sounds will cut it, unless it's realy heavily tweaked, PLUS midi sounds different in every soundcard. It may soun dperfect in you rsdouncrad and crap in another. This is why early games with midi had different versions: Adlib, soundblaster, rolland... etc...
GarageGothic:
Depends on why you want it man. If you want something "decent" you will need to spend a bit more than 40$. But it may not sound bad really. I've not heard it. The frequency response is not really great (what the mic captures), and it certainly goes low after the 10 k which is not nice... (humans hear from around 40 hz to 16 khz. but there are hypersonics above that which do give something and make a difference).
On the USB issue, I've never tried a USB mic, so I don't know, but the main thing would be latency.
Still on 40$, I don't think you can really go bad. Just buy it. (Or maybe I'm a bit deaper to what I spend generally), but 40$ is practically 1 game. So save up. It's not THAT much.
The alternatice could possibily be something like 300$ (audio interface + mic) so it's quite a leap...
Nikolas, thanks for the advice. I should clarify the 40$ figure on the site is only for the shock mount, the microphone itself sells for 80$ on Amazon but the retail price (such as in local music stores) is much higher, around 200$. The reviews I read (http://www.macintouch.com/samsonc01u.html) also mentions the latency as a problem, but since I'm mainly going to use it for voicework and sound effects that's not really an issue.
I don't mean to hijack the thread, but if anyone has a better suggestion for a good all-round microphone (for use with a laptop as recording device), please let me know.
Quote from: Adamski on Thu 30/08/2007 17:21:33
Have you ever considered opening google and doing your own research before making yet another 'Yufster's vague question of the day' thread?
I do quite often open google and doing my own research. However, sometimes it's nicer to have things explained to you by actual people who know what they're talking about, and who can answer your questions should you have them.
I'm quite surprised you have a problem with threads like this, considering that so many of the other threads on this forum are completely inane bullshit... if you really have a problem with me asking questions you should probably just avoid these threads, instead of trying to be all smart-ass and clever about it.
Apart from that, did you get your answer?
QuoteI do quite often open google and doing my own research.
You wouldn't have thought so with the amount of threads similar to this you've started over the last few months. If you had used google for five minutes you would have come across countless website, forums and articles that are completely dedicated to this sort of thing, and you probably would have gotten loads more information than you could gleam from here.
Only trying to help!
there are more people than yufster who start seemingly pointless threads here instead of just using google or making their own decisions. i think this is a pot calling kettle black type situation we've got here.
My foot hurts.
Please help.
Quote from: Zooty on Thu 30/08/2007 18:20:24
My foot hurts.
Please help.
You tried peeing on it?
Quote from: Meowster on Thu 30/08/2007 18:03:32
if you really have a problem with me asking questions you should probably just avoid these threads, instead of trying to be all smart-ass and clever about it.
Do you know what a hypocrite is?
Try "WinGroove".
Works wonders for me.
http://www.cc.rim.or.jp/~hiroki/english/
Soundfonts are indeed what you are looking for, Meowster.
Lots of soundfonts here:
Homemusician.net (http://soundfonts.homemusician.net/)
Soundfonts.it (http://www.soundfonts.it/)
And Synthfont (http://www.synthfont.com/), which is a soundfont player and editor, is pretty groovy; it will let you assign multiple soundfonts to midi files, by channel and such, and will also output to .wav, etc.
And it's free. Well it's shareware, but it remains fully-functional forever. So it's free! :D
I agree with DS (who doesn't start superfluous threads, so is not a pot), this seems to be another in a long line of threads about things you could easily have figured out through Google. I understand the idea of wanting to get opinions from knowledgable people you know, but maybe you could've pm'd some of the forum's music people instead of starting yet another thread?
Honestly, can't you put your energy into discussing more important things?
I've already contributed to the thread's original topic, so I feel I can take a bit to discuss this other issue a bit...
...surely, if a thread is deemed useless, it's best to let it die? It WILL die eventually. If it does not, then it wasn't useless. It was fun, or thought-provoking, or informative. That's pretty much all there is to it, isn't there?
I've started some similar topics, one of them not so long ago about expansion packs. And in all of them (except the expansion packs) I was linked to google searches that told me what I was looking for... but, and here's the thing, I simply had no idea of how to word the search. Plus, even when I did find something, I always found myself out of my depth. So I asked here. Some people helped and explained in a way I could understand, some people told me to google. Guess who helped me the most.
And there's a tendency here to say "The people who told you to google". Nope. If anything, the people who showed me *how* to word my search. But *actually*, it's the people who have taken the time to help me understand something.
If you don't like a thread, let it die. Or make your own thread, "why do people post rubbish". Is it that bad to have yet another thread around?
EDIT - Also, is it just me or is the community becoming a tad too unforgiving? I'm pretty unforgiving myself, I know, but still, I don't know... there are members of the community I just can't imagine condoning for their non-standard behaviour, Yufster and DGMcPhee being the ones at the top of my mind. There are some other members whose posts I throughly enjoy even if I don't agree with them, such as Helm and LimpingFish (an oldie and a not-so-oldie, curiously), and others such as m0ds, MrColossal, voh, Darth Mandarb... m0ds has taken a turn to the slightly offensive, lately - I assume he's fed up with catering to n00bs, or something. But hey, if a friend needs to let a little steam off, you let him, and wait till it blows over, and just make sure he doesn't go overboard. And although we're not "friends friends", we're a community and we work this way.
Anyway, my point is: for as long as I've known Yufster (not long at all, but I've read many posts, and many older posts) she's been like this. She's always been rather cherished (sp? And don't tell me to google spelling) around here. What has changed, recently, to make her the focus of this kind of discussion?
Then why contribute to it, allowing it to survive? :P
I put it to you that if you *really* want to avoid useless threads a better course of action would be to PM the thread-starter. That keeps it nice and private. Instead, an off-topic discussion has been started which will enlarge the thread you disaprove of.
BTW, I don't think you saw my edit, I finished it just before you posted. Maybe you'd like to read it as well.
EDIT - BTW, I hope I'm not getting all mixed up. Yufster IS Rusalka Clarke, yes?
Thing is that a PM is private so the information pretty much stays private.
In the thread that I linked, there's lots of information, for anyone to pick up. Furthermore, btw, Garagegothic found the opportunity to ask me (and anybody else who knows of course), something else.
Now, I'm not saying that any question in mind should be made into threads (for which I've been guildy myself a few times), but some stuff you just feel that the AGS communtiy will be more helpful than 100,000 links in google, which you don't know where to look cause you honestly don't have a clue about what to look even. In this thread, I'm talking about samples, while the rest are talking about soundfonts (which are quite simmilar if not the same, quality changes), but there does seem to be a bit of misunderstanding... So why not throw a bit of light towards that direction? For the shake of all people.
After all if a PM was all that would be needed, I guess the critics lounge could go dead and Progzym loominous and another 10 people who are really frequent with really long posts, would be flooded with PMs.
I personally prefer the critics loung as is, and this thread as is!
Thanks Adam and Pesty! ^_^ I thought I was the only feeling like that about this "threads". :)
Nacho, it has been a big thing for ages. People just don't like to question someone that has been around for a long time I guess, to their faces...
Rui, if we didn't lock and delete useless threads, the forum would be even worse than it is, believe me... ignoring stuff is a bad approach to keeping things working. Unmoderated forums die fast. Like littering, it's about the cumulative effect.
I don't think this question is too bad, at least it's related to game making perhaps, so I wouldn't have gone off at Yufster on this occasion, even if she has been using the forums as a personal google for the past few months.
Yes, yes, the reaction is funny considering Yufster destroying people's well intentioned threads. I think this discussion is probably done now. Probably best to lock it if it continues as it is.
Well, so far it has been an informative discussion about soundfonts and whatnot.
QuoteRui, if we didn't lock and delete useless threads, the forum would be even worse than it is, believe me...
Oh, but I don't question the moderators. If they feel it's time to lock or delete, then they should do it, and the forum will be better for it. But until then, well, there's little point in people, to paraphrase a golden rule, pretending to be one. Yes, I know that's not *exactly* what they do, but you know what I mean.
Look, this thread didn't turn into yet more pointless shite until somebody decided to post about how this thread was turning into more pointless shite.
Adamski could have easily PM'd Meowster. Maybe he wanted to make a general point to the community, or maybe he was just having a good-natured jibe.
But once people see that a thread has started to turn, they put the boot in. It's happens all the time: "Oh look! Somebody has deemed this thread unworthy of bandwidth! Let's fill it with guff in an obvious guff-filling manner and see how fast we can get it locked! How we will laugh!"
This post here, still formulating in my brain as I type, is also pointless guff, brought about solely to point out the other pointless guff in this thread!
Meowster asked a question. Again. Some people answered it. What's the problem?
This thread would be a lot smaller, and possibly more informative, if we all went about our merry business.
This forum is too serious!
Quote from: Rui "Trovatore" Pires on Thu 30/08/2007 22:36:04
others such as m0ds, MrColossal, voh, Darth Mandarb...
:=
On the topic of "useless" threads. A thread is only useless if nobody responds to it. If you don't find it interesting, leave it alone and worry about it in your own time. As soon as you post going "Oh my, now what made you think this was a good idea?", you've gone down the same path you're condemning. A useless post to a thread deemed useless by yours truly.
Tssk, I say. Tssk.
I really dislike the whole conventional MIDI setup, unless it's as an interface to use an actual keyboard. Have you considered sample-based tracker software like SKALE, Goattracker or Renoise? Renoise coupled with vsti's is what I use and I can tell you the results sound a hell of a lot better than fiddling with midi, even if you're at an amateur level.
Quote from: Rui "Trovatore" Pires on Thu 30/08/2007 22:44:31
Then why contribute to it, allowing it to survive? :P
I put it to you that if you *really* want to avoid useless threads a better course of action would be to PM the thread-starter. That keeps it nice and private. Instead, an off-topic discussion has been started which will enlarge the thread you disaprove of.
BTW, I don't think you saw my edit, I finished it just before you posted. Maybe you'd like to read it as well.
I totally cannot PM you. I think it has something to do with your name having " in it. I cannot be sure. But now I cannot PM you and that makes me sad. Is there some kind of secret
other way to PM you?
Thanks, most people, the information in this thread has been very helpful.
Everything else has just been slightly irritating. Chill out everyone, it's an internet forum, not your entire social life. One would hope.
his real nick is redruM, you can see it by hovering over the Rui name. Try PMing that.
(http://dasjoe.de/tmp/pm.png)
I feel mislead by the topic of this post but I wouldn't say it's a stupid thread. Anyway, something else to discuss rather than Yufster's posting tactics? Mods will remove any threads that are pointless, offensive or completely dumb. Just like they have for the past 8 years.
Quote from: m0ds on Fri 31/08/2007 22:52:19
Mods will remove any threads that are pointless, offensive or completely dumb. Just like they have for the past 8 years.
Since when are you refering to yourself in the 3rd person plural?
He is mOds, then there are the Mods. (The rest of the gang) :)
I know, I was just trying to be funny. >.>
Aaah! You make funny!
If you want your MIDIs to stay within your game as MIDI files, then soundfonts are the way to go. If I understand sound setups correctly, though, that'll only work on your own system or for someone who's also set up with soundfonts.
You could import your MIDIs into a sequencer and play or export them using a virtual instrument. The exported files won't be MIDIs - they'll be WAVs, MP3s or OGGs - but they'll sound a lot better.