Midi Player

[jbullfrog]

How do I get midis to work on my sansa e250?  I tried looking at this page, http://rasher.dk/rockbox/WikiRescue/SoundCodecs-r1.100%20-%2008-27.html  but whatever I tried did not seem to work. 

Here is what I did.

I downloaded the patchset.tbz2 file, and extracted patchset.rar.  I then extracted patchset.rar, and got the folder patchset.  I opened patchset, and placed all the .pat files into my rockbox folder on my sansa.


I then put some midis into a folder called "Midis" in my "MUSIC" folder on my sansa.  I navigated to the Midis folder using rockbox and selected one of the midi files.

I got an error saying "No Midi patchset found.  Please install the instrument"
Can anyone please help?   

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Another thing:
I know how to convert my midis to wav files, but is it possible to reduce the size of the wav file that is outputed?  Each midi file I convert goes from a couple of KB to MB!

[MarcGuay]

That link is from August 2005!

Here's the proper link to that page:

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SoundCodecs.

Not sure how much has changed in the MIDI section, though...

[karashata]

First of all, you need to put the patchset files into a folder called "patchset" in the .rockbox folder.  The midi player plugin searches for that folder for the patchset so it can play the midis.

Second, .wav files typically will be quite large because they're uncompressed PCM data.  You will probably want to convert them to .mp3 or .ogg format with audio editing software, I would think something like a 128 KB/s .mp3 file would preserve the audio quality decently enough and shrink the size of the file by quite a significant amount.

[jbullfrog]

Now when I try it out, I get the following message

"Loading instrucments
Loading drums
Okay, starting sequencing"

However, I don't hear anything.

I think I might give up on this...

I am currently using Winamp to convert my midis to wav files, but this takes forever!

I have searched for a good midi to mp3 converter but have found nothing!  (Freeware)

Can anybody help?  Thanks again

[LambdaCalculus]

Have you tried Audacity?

EDIT: iTunes has the ability to import MIDI files and convert them to MP3s, but these will only sound as good as the MIDI system on your computer. Plus, you also have to know where the resulting files are going to end up on your system, so that you can retrieve them.

[jbullfrog]

Well, I found out that I could use Winamp to create mp3s directly from midi files.

This is will work out, even though it is really slow.   :'(

Do any of you know what is the equivalent  mp3 kb/sec for a midi file?

For example is a midi file equivalent to a 32kbps ABR, stereo mp3 file?

Thanks

[Chronon]

I think the quality that MIDI produces depends upon the quality of your patchset.  MIDI is not an encoded waveform like mp3 or ogg.  It's a sequence of instructions for synthesizing a piece of music.  The actual music (waveform) that gets produced depends upon the particular patches that you use to play the music.

So, I don't think you can make a direct comparison like that.  You will probably have to play around with it and see what sounds good to you.

I will try out MIDI playback on my e280 shortly.  I have not had any issues on my Gigabeat, but have yet to try it with my Sansa.
========
No problems on my e280.

[jbullfrog]

Thanks Chronon,

As of now, I am converting all my midi files using winamp into mp3 files with a bit rate of 112kbps.  A one minute midi file turns out to be roughly 1MB.

Good luck trying to get midi files to work.

 

[Chronon]

Another Sansa user is having problems (though different from yours, it seems) with MIDI here: http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=16451.0

[bascule]

Now when I try it out, I get the following message
"Loading instrucments
Loading drums
Okay, starting sequencing"

That is correct, it should start playing. Are you sure it's not just the volume turned down or something silly?

[karashata]

I'll note that most midi files are much quieter than MP3s or other music files, you usually the volume needs to be turned up quite a bit.  Just remember to turn it down again before you start playing MP3s again you you'll get a bit of a shock to your ears...

[jbullfrog]

I turned up the volume full blast..and heard nothing.

[karashata]

It's possible the Midi you're trying to play uses only instruments that aren't included in the patchset.  As far as I can tell, the patchset only includes instruments from the General Midi set, not the XG or other instrument sets.

[kfb]

Are there any places where one can download patches with the other instrument sets?  (hopefully free of charge?)

[karashata]

I wouldn't know, personally.  I would have to say to try searching with Google and see what you can turn up.  Even if you can find more complete patchsets, though, who's to say whether or not the Midi plugin in Rockbox will recognize the extra instruments..?

I recall finding a patchset somewhere that was identical to the one provided by Rockbox, and one that was similar with extra instruments and a slightly different configuration file.  The identical one worked, the other one didn't (the plugin returned an error saying no patchset found or whatever it is exactly that it says when there isn't a patchset).