Converting to MIDI with separate channels ?

Talk about anything and everything about Sega's 16 Bit console and its addons here - hardware, games, memories. You name it.
Post Reply
Alienator
New Around Here
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Oct 27, 2015 7:20 pm

Converting to MIDI with separate channels ?

Post by Alienator »

Is there any program that can convert VGZ,VGM to MIDI but with all separate channels? I tried VGM2MID and after that when i load a file into DAW (Ableton) all instruments are merged into one channel and that's problem. I am into music for quite some time and i wanted to make covers of the songs with real instruments..guitars,hardware synths etc.

Any help is highly apreciated. Thanks ;)

P.S i wanted accurate versions of songs that's why i am asking this related to VGZ files on this site.
ValleyBell
Board Regular
Posts: 128
Joined: Mon Aug 30, 2010 7:10 am

Converting to MIDI with separate channels ?

Post by ValleyBell »

What do you mean with "channels" exactly - MIDI channels or tracks?

MIDI files support 16 channels that all can play a different instrument and a larger number of tracks.
vgm2mid exports MIDIs that map each VGM channel to a separate MIDI channel. But it writes MIDIs in "format 0", where all channels are mixed into a single track. The alternative to this is "format 1" where each channel has its own track.
Both variants are common, though format 1 is more popular. Format 0 is seen a lot in games and electronic keyboards often record in that format, too. Format 1 is used when sequencing MIDIs manually.

A good MIDI editor should have the ability to split that single track into one for each channel. (Some editors even do that automatically when loading the MIDI.)
User avatar
Duke Nukem
New Around Here
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Jun 28, 2006 2:34 am
Contact:

Converting to MIDI with separate channels ?

Post by Duke Nukem »

I wrote a script once to split the notes into separate channels by instrument. I usually keep the MIDI channel intact.

I was using it to fool around with orchestrations of Mega Drive music.

It took something like 15 minutes to do in Python and a MIDI library. If you have some programming experiment, I suggest you give it a shot.
Post Reply