Hardware MIDI

[Solanacean]

Are you getting it to respect a default MIDI device (as picked with something like MIDI Mapper) or is this tied specifically to BASS? My original hope with all this was to get Grimoire playing out of real hardware. From what I remember, Cleve's code was hardcoded to the Windows softsynth, which I think is always Device 1. Device -1, however, would always go to what is set by something like MIDI Mapper.

In any case, impressive work so far!

Thanks!

In this prototype, it's tied specifically to BASSMIDI, which is of course a pure software synth. My original intention was to get the game playing out of any synth, by first letting one choose from a list of available MIDI output ports and then forcing Grimoire to use the one which was selected instead of the one nailed to that Microsoft Synthesizer abomination. I thought this would let me kill the proverbial two birds with one stone, i.e. please both hardware synth owners and users of software emulators such as VirtualMIDISynth. Unfortunately, it didn't work out so well. I have no idea why, but VirtualMIDISynth seems to have a problem with Grimoire, at least on Windows 10. Sometimes it worked, but much more often it didn't - VirtualMIDISynth driver would detect Grimoire opening its port but then, a few seconds later, it would suddenly drop the connection. My log of function calls shows that everything is perfectly normal - each function returns a value indicating success. I've contacted the author of VMS, but he doesn't seem to be very interested in finding out what's causing the problem (maybe I'm judging too quickly though), and the problem is clearly on the side of VirtualMIDISynth as my prototype did work fine with Munt MT-32 emulator, and I imagine it would work fine with a real hardware synth as well.

 

[Solanacean]

To demonstrate the earlier prototype and also to give you a good idea of what Grimoire would sound like on Roland SC-88. I'm using Sound Canvas VA VSTi module here which is supposed to be VERY faithful to the real hardware synthesizer.

 

[Solanacean]

Just to inform you guys, the music patch for Grimoire I was working on is mostly finished (I’m using the term "patch" here, but it's actually not altering any files — I wouldn’t dare doing anything of the sort knowing how Cleve would react to that).

After listening to Grimoire playing out of Sound Canvas VA I decided to remove support for soundfonts and, for that matter, MIDI, and focus on adding support for mp3, so that one could just drop the music files rendered with SC-88, SC-88Pro or SC-8820 to a folder and enjoy the soundtrack the way it was meant to be listened to. And there’s more: when the promised orchestral remake of the soundtrack finally comes out, it can be plugged in to the game just as easily. Further plans include adding support for multiple music folders (music packs) and making them switchable on the fly with a hotkey.

Oh, and about system requirements: the "patch" needs at least Windows Vista. Not because I couldn’t be bothered to flip some compiler switches in the project configuration menu, but because it requires WASAPI, which was introduced in Vista.

 

[newtmonkey]

Awww, that's too bad. I was hoping to hear it on actual hardware.

 

[Solanacean]

Yes, I can understand that. While sonically wise, so to speak, you’ll get the same result feeding the digital audio recorded of your SC-88 to my patch, using the real device adds to the experience. Still, I think it’s a really small sacrifice for very substantial benefits. Real device or not, it will sound the same, those who don’t own the Roland hardware will get (again, audio wise) the same experience as well, and those who choose to buy the orchestral remake will be able to use it in the game.

 

[Moonrise]

With the release of V2, I figured I'd mention that the DLS replacement method still works on Windows 10. You just have to give yourself permission to replace the file.

 

[Solanacean]

Just to inform you guys, the music patch for Grimoire I was working on is mostly finished

The word I was looking for was wrapper.
Anyway, it's finished. I uploaded the source code to Github: https://github.com/Solanacean/GrimoireDigiMusicDLL
It is compatible with both V1 and V2, also should work fine on Windows XP now. I will upload binaries and audio files sometime later.

 

[Solanacean]

Could someone with a real SC-88 make an audio recording of NOMAD.MID? I’d like to compare it with what I’m getting out of Sound Canvas VA. It's unbelievable how finicky the damn thing is - it sounds differently depending on a VST host, sampling rate, buffer size and positions of stars in the fucking sky.