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

[AbstractVision]

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

Thanks for sharing a way to hear this music as it was meant to sound! I enjoyed it in P99 for a while, but I had to stop using it after I ran into some technical issues between VirtualMIDISynth and other games.

In December, I read someone's post on the P99 reddit about adding new music into Kunark zones using a tool to convert the sound trigger files into the newer, less cryptic, EMT format. Since then, I've done a similar conversion for all Trilogy zones with Maestrobob's mp3 transfers instead.

TrilogyEMT v0.1

The install is detailed in the readme, but it's basically drag-and-drop into your EQ folder. The EMT conversions aren't perfect and there's more I hope to add to them. Please share any feedback if you try it out.

I wish you posted this as its own thread, I have had nothing but trouble trying to get music working in P99 with several different MIDI programs... and I install this and BAM everything works better than it ever has. There is music changing in cities... vendor music, bank music, guild music, arena music, login music, etc As the legendary scoundrel Todd Howard once said "It just works.". Thank you for this and seriously make it its own thread, people are still looking at the original post in this thread that hasn't been updated since 2012 and its breaking music in game.

[Jazzi]

Just thought I would add to first post, If you use synthusr.sf2 from an original Everquest Trilogy install it sounds pretty much 100% perfect, Not sure why with titanium synthusr.sf2 some of the Qeynos audio is not perfect guess next step is check other towns anyway give it a go and see if any of you guys notice the difference.

[Knuckle]

Sorry not sorry to bump this thread. Any configuration tweaks recommended for the basic omnimidi approach? I just dumped in maestrobobs soundfont to omnimidi and set omnimidi each restart.

1.) Anyone found some good configuration tweaks to get more out of omnimidi, such as any settings to instruments, etc.?

2.) Anyone found something they believe to be vastly superior with no downsides? I'm quite happy with it but still get annoyed by sour notes from time to time.

[Eloora]

I also have followed the last few pages of this thread and grabbed Maestrobob's soundfont file, loaded it into OmniMidi etc. I couldn't really tell if the underwater music is supposed to be fixed/play with this file or not - is it?

[Maestrobob]

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

I couldn't really tell if the underwater music is supposed to be fixed/play with this file or not - is it?

Unlike zone music, which is triggered by the zone emitter files, the triggers to play the underwater music, sneak music, bard instruments, and cycling through the 3 combat songs from the global XMI were broken a long time ago. When the PoP client came out and introduced a MP3 soundtrack, the existing MIDI playback engine was butchered in the process and was never fixed.

There's currently no way to get those songs working in the Titanium client. The soundfont I created serves only to make what songs do work sound like they originally did on AWE32/64 hardware back in the day. Even then, there are still major problems with Titanium's MIDI playback that a soundfont can't circumvent.

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

2.) Anyone found something they believe to be vastly superior with no downsides? I'm quite happy with it but still get annoyed by sour notes from time to time.

Unfortunately, the only way to avoid out of tune notes is to work around Titanium's MIDI engine entirely by going the route of changing the .emt files to use MP3's instead.

[Eloora]

Thanks for the reply, Maestrobob! Shame about those midi files being borked beyond reasonable repair [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]. I listened to a sample of the sneak music (I'd never heard it before) and loved it - so mischievous!

[Knuckle]

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

XMPlay is only if you want to listen to the MIDI files outside of the game.

The easiest and quickest method for getting the in game music to sound like this is to use BASSMIDI or VirtualMIDISynth, as outlined by the OP of this thread. Then, instead of using 1mgm.sf2, synthusr.sf2, or a combination of both, load my soundfont I posted earlier and all the in-game music should sound like the mp3s.

As a quick note, VirtualMIDISynth limits the max MIDI reverb and chorus to 64 by default. You will need to go into options and change both to 127.

There is one other way - which involves making the client use mp3 files instead of the .xmi. It's much more complex as you have to edit a ton of .emt files in the EQ folder, but you can see the details of what's involved on this post.

Yeah they didnt have great instructions im a bit confused. I THINK I know what to do, but could use a confirmation.

EDIT:

So FIRST I followed the README instructions:

---Installing---
1. Back up all existing .emt files in your EverQuest directory.
2. Copy all .emt files in the EMT folder to your EQ directory. Overwrite any files that already exist.
3. Copy the /music folder into your EQ directory. What is this step doing? And I was supposed to move the entire folder so that I have a "music" folder in my eq directory, or just paste the files inside into the main directory?
-Optional
4. Back up combattheme1.mp3, combattheme2.mp3, deaththeme.mp3, and eqtheme.mp3.
5. Copy the four files from the optional folder and replace those in your EQ directory.

Based on this screenshot from the spreadsheet in the download:
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

EDIT: So with having followed steps 1-5 in the readme, is this spreadsheet simply explaining what was already done when I overwrote the EMTs? Or is this an additional step that needs to be done?

I am taking the downloaded mp3 from the music folder, making multiple copies of it with the name of the xmis in my everquest directory, and overwriting them with the same name? So I am taking a copy of the mp3 "theme" and renaming it "freportn.3" and pasting it into my main directory as a mp3? Am I missing a step? And why would that play in lieu of the xmi file if they have different file types?

Last, am I supposed to be doing anything with the XMI to MP3.ods file?

[Maestrobob]

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

Yeah they didnt have great instructions im a bit confused.

EDIT: So with having followed steps 1-5 in the readme, is this spreadsheet simply explaining what was already done when I overwrote the EMTs? Or is this an additional step that needs to be done?

I am taking the downloaded mp3 from the music folder, making multiple copies of it with the name of the xmis in my everquest directory, and overwriting them with the same name? So I am taking a copy of the mp3 "theme" and renaming it "freportn.3" and pasting it into my main directory as a mp3? Am I missing a step? And why would that play in lieu of the xmi file if they have different file types?

Last, am I supposed to be doing anything with the XMI to MP3.ods file?

It's explaining what was already done. The only folders you need to worry about are the music, optional, and EMT folders. It's a lot simpler than it looks.

1. Copy the entire music folder into your root EverQuest game directory (so that it's a subfolder in your EverQuest folder).

2. Copy the .emt files from the EMT folder directly into your root EverQuest game folder overwriting the existing .emt files (probably good idea to back these up first.)

3. If you want the main EQ theme, combat themes, and death theme, copy the .mp3 files from the optional folder directly into your root EverQuest game folder.

Done.

Alternatively, you can just download and extract my .emt's and music directly into your EverQuest folder (overwrite any existing files): https://bit.ly/3paKc0w

It's larger, much less optimized and includes redundant songs, but accomplishes the same thing as bivouac's package.

[Knuckle]

Thanks for responding Bob, looks like I am all set then!

[Eloora]

Is there a way to replace the main EQ theme music with a silent file? I enjoy having the periodic zone music enabled but the theme that plays on repeat when sitting at character select has worn on me, and prevents me from being able to just camp out and walk away from my PC if I need to.