Make EQ's music (MIDI) sound Significantly Better.

[Kaa]

Thank you! I actually had deleted that post, I'm glad you saw it and responded before I deleted it, I worried I was asking a 'stupid question' but your answer proves otherwise. Thanks and thanks for all your hard work on fixing EQ's music -- I look forward to the day when hopefully the combat music and underwater music work right too.

[norova]

Awesome work Maestrobob!! Updated the reverb/chorus to 127 and loaded your updated soundfont and things are sounding better than ever. Much appreciate the time and effort put into this!

[torusnc]

Windows 10, running WinEQ. I seem to be having problems getting P99 to pick up the OmniMIDI configuration. I have this list directly assigned to the P99 eqgame.exe.



Here is my current setup, very simple:


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I've tried the flags as 1 1 0 0 over 0 0 1 1, and 0 0 1 1 over 1 1 0 0 in addition to the settings in the picture above. I haven't heard any difference whatsoever. Also have tried the creative 8MBGM soundfont.


Any ideas/input? Thank you.

[Maestrobob]

I've found and fixed an issue with the synthusr-samplefix.sf2 not processing reverb, chorus, and mod wheel data correctly on modern software synths. The MP3 soundtrack .zip has also been updated with this change.

The updated soundfont is here -> https://bit.ly/307B2VT

The updated MP3 .zip is here -> https://bit.ly/30TOD1X

Big thanks to shortok for capturing audio from real AWE32 hardware for comparison.

[Maestrobob]

Originally Posted by Maestrobob [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I've found and fixed an issue with the synthusr-samplefix.sf2 not processing reverb, chorus, and mod wheel data correctly on modern software synths. The MP3 soundtrack .zip has also been updated with this change.

The updated soundfont is here -> https://bit.ly/307B2VT

The updated MP3 .zip is here -> https://bit.ly/30TOD1X

Big thanks to shortok for capturing audio from real AWE32 hardware for comparison.

Here's a quick soundfont update - Messing around a bit more this morning, I was able to fix the wind instruments (along with some other issues). There's a cutoff filter that was defined in the soundfont, but wasn't translating right in BASSMIDI. Assigning the value manually to the instrument global made it work.

Here are some comparisons between a real Awe32 (in Win98 + EQT client, recorded by shortok) and the new soundfont used in XMPlay:

Qeynos Bard's Guild on real Awe32 - https://sndup.net/5n2f
Qeynos Bard's Guild on new soundfont - https://sndup.net/4dkw

Qeynos Tavern on real Awe32 - https://sndup.net/2p2y
Qeynos Tavern on new soundfont - https://sndup.net/7hjf

It also changes some other instruments, like Halo Pad and Choir Aahs:

Qeynos Caster Guild on real Awe32 - https://sndup.net/3vpz
Qeynos Caster Guild on new soundfont - https://sndup.net/7ssk

For anyone interested, the original links above to the soundfont and MP3s to all music files have been updated.

[Kaa]

Thanks for updating it again!

When you say the original links have been updated, do you mean in the original post a few pages ago? (I.e. not in the previous post of yours from the 27th?)

Also: Do you believe there's any chance of restoring the underwater music and the other battle musics?

Thanks.

[pdub]

This is a TL;DR of what I had to do to get EQ music sounding right on Win10 , Feb 2021. Big THX to Maestrobob for doing his musical magic and fixing the soundfont file manually somehow!! Bob is doing The Great Work!!

1. Download the soundfont file that Maestrobob graciously provided. I will quote it here, but check his original post to make sure he hasn't provided a newer version:

Originally Posted by Maestrobob [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The updated soundfont is here -> https://bit.ly/307B2VT

2. Download OmniMidi here, install it (get latest setup exe): https://github.com/KeppySoftware/OmniMIDI/releases

3. Run OmniMidi Configurator, click the + button on the right hand side, browse to & select the soundfont .SF2 file (that you downloaded in step 1). It should be the ONLY soundfont file loaded in OmniMidi Configurator. There is no need for the 1mgm.sf2 or any of those other soundfont files; ONLY load the one provided from maestrobob!!

NOTE - I open OmniMidi configurator every time i start up windows / before I play EQ, because Win10 seems to 'overwrite' the default MIDI device. OmniMidi will check this when it starts up, and ask you if you want to fix it (click yes)

4. I also use the Coolsoft MIDI Mapper prior to launching EQ to quickly ensure that OmniMidi is set as the default MIDI device. I dont think this is required, but it is a nice tool to view and set the Default MIDI device without having to manually browse/update registry values.

5. Also, it seems like in-game you need to turn ON "Enviroment Sounds" in the options, as apparently some (if not all) music in game is considered an environment sound. Unfortunately, this means you will also hear the annoying wind tunnel noises, or ocean breeze noises in some areas. I manually toggle environment sounds off when those annoyances start playing, and then turn them back on otherwise so i can hear music.

Again many thanks to Maestrobob for his excellent work on the fixed soundfont file, it makes the music sound great.

[Maestrobob]

Originally Posted by pdub [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This is a TL;DR of what I had to do to get EQ music sounding right on Win10 , Feb 2021. Big THX to Maestrobob for doing his musical magic and fixing the soundfont file manually somehow!! Bob is doing The Great Work!!

1. Download the soundfont file that Maestrobob graciously provided. I will quote it here, but check his original post to make sure he hasn't provided a newer version:

Thanks, pdub. That bit.ly link will always redirect to the latest version of the fixed soundfont.

As an aside for those interested; The SoundFont spec itself went through several revisions back in the mid to late 90's and there are some features that were removed/changed. For example, version 2.01 (the version used by Miles SS in the EQ engine in 1998) had a velocity to filter cutoff modulator that was removed in version 2.04 of the spec, to which BASSMIDI and other software synths adhere.

The end result is that while it is very close, the music will never be 100% faithful to what it sounded like on a real AWE32 under Win9x with period correct drivers. Until we have completely accurate 2.01 emulation, this current method will be the absolute closest we'll get to having correct sounding music playback on modern hardware.

I would like to also give huge thanks to shortok, who has put a ton of time, money and effort into recording EQ's music on real hardware (you can find his captures here). Having those references for comparison has been a massive help.

[VII]

Originally Posted by Maestrobob [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I've found and fixed an issue with the synthusr-samplefix.sf2 not processing reverb, chorus, and mod wheel data correctly on modern software synths. The MP3 soundtrack .zip has also been updated with this change.

The updated soundfont is here -> https://bit.ly/307B2VT

The updated MP3 .zip is here -> https://bit.ly/30TOD1X

Big thanks to shortok for capturing audio from real AWE32 hardware for comparison.

how does this work? do i have to extract all the mp3 to a folder somewhere in the EverQuest install first then setup the soundfont? or are these just mp3 of how the game will sound using this soundfont and they're just for reference?

[Maestrobob]

Originally Posted by VII [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

are these just mp3 of how the game will sound using this soundfont and they're just for reference?

This is correct. The mp3s were created using XMPlay to play the game MIDI with the fixed soundfont. They represent what the music should sound like in-game with the soundfont configured properly.

There is a method to replace most of the classic .XMI zone midi's with mp3 on the p99 client, but it's rather involved and requires editing all of the zone emitter files in the EQ directory.