#midiswaps

[sylvyspritii]

Oh I didn't realise it had to be a question question, sorry!

I do have a question then: you're a music creator right? And you did some work for SiIvaGunner? There's some ideas I have often for doing some instrumentation swapping in music I hear, making one song have the instruments/sound font from another. However, I'm really not experienced at all in music production and it can feel a bit daunting trying to understand it, I'm not sure where to start.

What are some resources you'd recommend to someone trying to start music work like that? Both the editing software itself (is GarageBand still a thing? Does it cost money?) and also how to go through songs and figure out stuff like what instruments they're using to repurpose them?

No worries! I just prefer actual questions over random meme pictures, i have no idea what i can add to those or how i could respond besides "ok" Yes, i'm part of SiIva, but i was more active in the earlier years I'm mostly busy with original compositions for games nowadays If you want to make melody/soundfont/MIDIswaps, the first thing you will need is a DAW, Garageband will work fine (i think?), but i can't say for sure, i use FL Studio myself, so i'll answer with my knowledge based on using FL Studio primarily For the sake of this tutorial, we will focus on games that used sequenced music, which usually means MIDI files and soundbanks/soundfonts (for more advanced non-sequenced/MIDI recreations, you will usually have to recreate songs from scratch, or invest in expensive hardware in the case of Touhou music for example) There is an FL Studio demo available, it's pretty good, but personally i just reccomend obtaining it legally since it's pretty cheap (and if that is not an option, then, well, yarr harr, you know (note to cover my ass from a legal perspective: i am a professional and i do not use pirated software)) Download VGMTrans (and the ROM of the game you wanna fuck around with, legally of course (wink wink)), it's software that can extract MIDI (the notes) and .dls (the instruments) files (you can also extract .sf2 files, which are the more traditional "soundfont" format, but .dls is easier for editing existing songs from games since the MIDI data and the .dls can get imported together to be more accurate, more on that later (basically, export .dls for accuracy, export .sf2 for fucking around if you just want 1 instrument from a game)) Okay, so now you have a DAW (we use FL Studio in this example), the MIDI file, and the .dls file So, now, open FL Studio, drag the MIDI file in a new project, and then it will ask you what you want to import it as (do not use FLEX, use MIDI OUT with LSD) (fuck FLEX all my buddies hate FLEX) Then you will see this thing

Okay so click the little folder icon on the top left, and then select the correct .dls file you exported for that MIDI file with VGMTrans Then, if you did everything correctly, you will hear the MIDI file WITH the correct instruments from the game, and it will sound (mostly) like how the original game sounds From there, you can start, then, you can edit the little bits, change the instruments easily, change the notes, and add funny fleentstones if you want So, tl;dr quick version: 1. Download FL Studio 2. Download VGMTrans 3. Throw ROM file in VGMtrans 4. Export the MIDI and .dls data from a song from the ROM 5. Throw MIDI in FL Studio, choose "MIDI OUT with DLS" 6. Choose .dls soundbank file with the little folder icon 7. The song will now sound like how it is in the game (or at least, close enough), so now you can go crazy and replace instruments and/or melodies and have fun

[moonsidesong]

god tiny shangri-la is so good. thankyou zun for music

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 17/04/2024

Super Wonderful World

Season 2 Featured on: The Voice's Highest Quality Video Game Rips

Ripped by Marrow

(Curious about the abnormal audio embed? Read more here)

It's kind of ridiculous that I've taken this long to actually write something about Marrow that isn't so directly tied to his passing, isn't it? Like, yes, Telling Fish Tales is an absolutely beautiful rip, it is still likely my favorite of all of Marrow's output, don't get me wrong...but there was more to the guy than just his death, you know? The tributes have all been beautiful, to be sure, I love 8​-​bit Fish With Dreams in particular, but I want to discuss Marrow's own rips more as well as those. Because while I might not have known Marrow, and can't claim to know anything about him as a person, I know he was just a genuinely good, sincere, funny ripper, and Super Wonderful World is just a damn fun rip.

I've been wanting to cover something from Super Mario Sunshine on here for a very long time - it has almost as much of a notable presence on the channel as its older brother on the Nintendo 64, particularly in the early days. Super Mario 64's Slider theme is unbeatable, of course, WA-HOO DISCO and its brethren can't be toppled, but there's a case to be made that Super Mario Sunshine's iconic acapella-driven Secret Course theme is a more fun listen in terms of rips. There's just something inherently funny about remixing voice samples, even in an acapella context - there's tons of rips of Secret Course in particular because of this, that all play with those deews and doos to great effect.

Super Wonderful World is no exception to that, and the joke of it is made apparent just a few seconds into your listen, arranging Louis Armstrong's lovely What a Wonderful World with those aforementioned acapella sounds, yet...for some reason, it is still likely the one Secret Course rip that has stuck with me the longest. I'm not even sure if its due to any one reason I can pinpoint other than just "Marrow Magic": maybe its my attachment to What a Wonderful World from hearing it at a young age in the original Madagascar, or maybe its the sheer juxtaposition of such a silly sound being used to play such genuine beautiful jazz...OR maybe its the fucking hilarious visuals on the video that you need to be scrolling up to look at now that I've pointed it out. Spaghet. No matter what it is, it clicks - though I think that second point in particular is where the trick lies. Sort of like A Mambo Moment, a lot like My Dr. Eggman Can't Be This Evil!, the contrast in tone between the two tunes is the kind of thing that you'd only get from SiIvaGunner, or at least the only place where you'd get it done in such a genuine, high-quality way. This isn't just some midiswap, this has every bit and piece from What a Wonderful World, every part of its backing and every additional instrument playing throughout, recreated with such finesse - all to push a bit that, as the rip visuals emphasize, is mostly just meant to be funny.

There's an effort made in Super Wonderful World to make the bit not just funny, but very pleasant and listenable as well, is what I'm getting at. The SiIvaGunner ethos, distilled so perfectly in just one simple rip, distilled into a rip that for me has stayed endlessly replayable since its release, striking that perfect balance of novel and pleasant. And sure, there's a part of me that still wishes to dig further, to know lots more about Marrow than I do, to investigate and snoop about and maybe even find out what the Spaghet image is even about...but its also, in some way, just as pleasant to listen to his tunes in bliss, enjoying his work for what it is, not hung up on wishing I'd known more.

I wasn't Marrow's friend, but what he left behind still means a lot to me. And so, continue to celebrate it I shall - more than a long-gone name to be mentioned in SiIvaGunner event recaps, Marrow was downright fantastic at what he did - and I hope we'll all continue to remember and cherish that about him.

[stevos-stuff]

This is my Touhou Secret Santa submission for @catboycafe. I'm a particularly huge fan of a little game called Cruelty Squad, and I thought that your fave, Urumi, would fit nicely in it. She would particularly excel in its fish stock market.

(I made the midiswap and the picture. WARNING: If you do want to play Cruelty Squad, it's an affront to all decency, but that's why I love it.)

[titleknown]

Because what the world needed was a remix of Dancing Mad in the Banjo-Kazooie soundfont!

Tho, I did not do the original midiswap/basic editing, that was @shinyjiggly’s work, I just tweaked it, and also made this nice little sprite edit of LOG as Kefka. Hope y’all dig it!

[abandonedjajahhd-blog]

(bel)

[magneticplexiform-blog]

I was jamming to the Toejam & Earl OST the other day, and since I love the sans soundfont so much, I thought I'd try it out on one of my favourite tracks, and I really like how it turned out. Those sprites were fun to make too.

[stevos-stuff]

Gensokyo Festival Day 11 - Animals

Here, have a midiswap of what fanon Aunn is like.

[abandonedjajahhd-blog]

*reposts* whoops

[magneticplexiform-blog]

Here’s a thing I made. I don’t know why, but I did. I think it’s kinda cool though.

[magneticplexiform-blog]

Hey, would you look at that! It’s been a while since I made something that wasn’t a pure midiswap! This is still far from something original as only one midi track was changed, but I liked it anyway. 

[catboycafe]

THIS OWNS SO FUCKING HARD, I LOVE IT!!! i've never played cruelty squad but i've heard a ton about it - i love love love the juxtaposition of these aesthetics AND I LOVE THIS MIDISWAP!!! i keep replaying it!!!!

This is my Touhou Secret Santa submission for @catboycafe. I'm a particularly huge fan of a little game called Cruelty Squad, and I thought that your fave, Urumi, would fit nicely in it. She would particularly excel in its fish stock market.

(I made the midiswap and the picture. WARNING: If you do want to play Cruelty Squad, it's an affront to all decency, but that's why I love it.)