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  #101  
Old 07-13-2020, 08:52 AM
Lilcea Lilcea is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Maestrobob [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
Ah yes... the boat music. Here's what I remember from the year 2000! The boat music was always a little bit... buggy? It definitely didn't loop continuously though. I also don't think there was any other music, at least when taking the old world boats like from from Freeport to BB.

I'm an auditor on EQClassic, which uses the trilogy client. As far as I can tell, all of the .xmi triggers there seem to work exactly as I remember. I made a recording of the boat ride from FP to BB with the music below so you can hear exactly what happens.

https://youtu.be/YAZZuaonjpU

You can hear the music plays through completely once then loops once, but with most of the channels muted. Eventually the all come back in and then it ends. What's interesting is as soon as a different .xmi trigger event happens (for example the battle music), the boat music starts over again, etc. I'm thinking the .xmi was always on a zone-wide trigger, but after one loop, it's supposed to drop all of the channel volume to 0 until the next trigger. Just a hypothesis, as I haven't dove into the deep end yet.

I'm definitely curious to see what you can come up with on this issue.
Thanks, just watched it. I think the second tune that is a little quiet may be a separate track, I'm probably wrong though. I can lower the volume of the track at another trigger point that may have the same effect.

The other tune I mentioned remembering is track 8 in the gl.xmi. Maybe it’s from one of the other boats and I’m just remembering it wrong. I’ll try and investigate more later this week when I have some more free time.
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  #102  
Old 07-13-2020, 06:55 PM
Maestrobob Maestrobob is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2013
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaa [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
Just to be clear (for those of us who are more 'technically challenged'), we would download your synthusr-samplefix.zip and copy its contents into the Everquest directory, then run Everquest with BASSMIDI or VirtualMIDISynth loaded alongside EQ? Or, what do I have wrong...I'm very excited about this (and about the possibility of getting the combat music to shuffle properly between tracks, bring back the underwater music etc.), thank you for your hard work on it :-)
Download the synthusr-samplefix.zip, you can unzip the synthusr-samplefix.sf2 into any directory you want, doesn't have to be the Everquest directory.

The key here is that you have to load the synthusr.sf2 into BASSMIDI or VirtualMIDISynth first and as your only soundfont.

The next step is to make sure BASSMIDI or VirtualMIDISynth is set in Windows to be your default MIDI playback device. Microsoft removed MIDIMapper from Windows 7 and all versions since. You will need to use Coolsoft's MIDIMapper (or similar) to set VirtualMIDISynth to default. You can find it here -> https://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/midimapper

Now you can start up Everquest and the music should play correctly. You can start EQ in a window, then pull up VirtualMIDISynth's mixer just to make sure it's going through there.
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  #103  
Old 07-13-2020, 07:06 PM
Kaa Kaa is offline
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Join Date: May 2019
Posts: 28
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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.
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  #104  
Old 07-27-2020, 10:05 PM
Maestrobob Maestrobob is offline
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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.
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  #105  
Old 08-01-2020, 05:33 AM
Maestrobob Maestrobob is offline
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Quote:
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.
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  #106  
Old 08-01-2020, 09:50 PM
Kaa Kaa is offline
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Join Date: May 2019
Posts: 28
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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.
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  #107  
Old 08-02-2020, 08:49 AM
Maestrobob Maestrobob is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2013
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The links in my original post and from the 27th are to the same versioned file on my google drive, so yes. You can use those links to always get the latest versions.

Unlike the zone music, the different combat, underwater, bard instruments, sneak, etc. music are part of a global midi file (gl.xmi). The triggers for those seem to be hard coded into the EQ binary, which were screwed up when they switched over to DX8 and/or added support for the MP3 playback in PoP.

I'm pretty sure the only way to get those working again is to find a way to hack or otherwise redirect those calls externally (can't be done as far as I know).
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  #108  
Old 08-02-2020, 07:58 PM
Shortok Shortok is offline
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All my recordings be here.
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  #109  
Old 08-03-2020, 06:10 PM
Kaa Kaa is offline
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Join Date: May 2019
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Thanks Shortok, that's fuckin rad

I'm guessing the different racial versions of the character creation screen is also unfixable? I.e. each race when clicked on had a different musical arrangement or theme, originally. That would be awesome to bring back in P99 but if it's impossible, alas
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  #110  
Old 08-04-2020, 03:36 PM
Shortok Shortok is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2011
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I recorded each race for 3-5mins so those audacity projects(and for everything else) are available if anyone wants to mash it together better than me pushing buttons. It took the instruments a while to switch out after the click so it gets sloppy in places.

I have to figure out if I can do velious with a velious client/emu or if I need to edit the xmi's/etc to get this dumb kunark client to play them. If anyone has solutions or wants to help edit the files or even VNC the 98 box, lmk.
Last edited by Shortok; 08-04-2020 at 03:40 PM..
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