How do you combine MID files?
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So C3 Con Tools has a great Pro Upgrade Bundler feature that is able to combine a song’s original MID file with the MID file from its pro upgrade. I want to do something similar with an original song’s MID and its RB Harmonies Project upgrade MID. C3 Con Tools wouldn’t do it because the RBHP upgrade didn’t have a guitar or bass part. What else can I use to merge the MID files? I tried using Reaper, but I was hoping there was a way to do it as simply as C3 Con Tools does.
At some point I’d like to rebuild RBHP in such a way that when you merge optional upgrades with core upgrades you just need to make sure you’ve got the right songs.dta and upgrades.dta, and all of the components will be in their own files.
e.g.
song_plus.harm.mid
song_plus.pg.mid
song_plus.keys.mid
song_plus.pd.mid
Until that’s a thing, manual merging in Reaper is your best bet.
Reaper is rather intimidating. Just opening a MID file gives me a prompt with MIDI File import options, and sometimes it asks how to import 2-channel MIDI. Is there a step-by-step guide anywhere on how to do this?
- Open Reaper.
- File > New Project
- Insert > Media > Find the .mid you want (either the PG/PB or RBHP)
- ** Make sure ‘Expand X source tracks to new REAPER tracks’ and ‘merge source tempo map to project tempo map at 1.1.00 are both checked. **
- Click OK.
- Press [Home] on your keyboard to bring the cursor back to 1.1.0.
- Right-click in the blank area on the left under the last imported .mid chart > Insert new track.
- Insert > Media > Find the other .mid you want. Same config.
- ** Make sure there no duplicate tracks! **
- File > Export project MIDI
- Select ‘Entire project’ under Consolidate time, ‘All’ under Consolidate MIDI items, ‘Multitrack MIDI file’ under
- Consolidate output, and make sure ‘Embed tempo map’ is checked.
- Browse to the location of the .mid file you want to create/replace and select it (or type the filename — if you’re packaging with RBHP, this is always the whateverthesongisnamed_plus.mid file).
- Click OK.
- Win.
Reaper is rather intimidating. Just opening a MID file gives me a prompt with MIDI File import options, and sometimes it asks how to import 2-channel MIDI. Is there a step-by-step guide anywhere on how to do this?When it asks to import a 2 (or more) channel MIDI track, always select the option that says something along the lines of “one track with multiple channels” (not exactly what it says, but the other one says to make a separate track for each channel, don’t select that one).
You can also tell Reaper to not bother you with that question again.
When it asks to import a 2 (or more) channel MIDI track, always select the option that says something along the lines of “one track with multiple channels” (not exactly what it says, but the other one says to make a separate track for each channel, don’t select that one).
You can also tell Reaper to not bother you with that question again.
Not the best course of action. If you only ever import Rock Band MIDI is one thing, but if you import music MIDI files to use as reference, sometimes the MIDI tracks are split, sometimes not. Best option is to have Reaper ask and choose.
Ok, so for a test subject I’m using “Self Esteem” by Offspring, because both RBHP and Official PG/PB upgrades are available for it.
I figure I should start out by combining the original and RBHP mids. I used C3 CON Tools to extract the files from the original CON, and found selfesteem.mid. Then I followed all of espher’s steps in Reaper to combine it with the selfesteem_plus.mid from RBHP, and saved it as a new selfesteem.mid (click to download it from my dropbox).
I dropped the new selfsteem.mid and the songs.dta from RBHP into the extracted folder, overwriting the originals. Then I used C3 CON Tools to create a new CON. When I load it in the game it recognizes that it has harmonies. But when I try to play it, it freezes near the end of the loading animation (the one of the crew setting up the stage).
Any idea what might have gone wrong?
Ok, so for a test subject I’m using “Self Esteem” by Offspring, because both RBHP and Official PG/PB upgrades are available for it.I figure I should start out by combining the original and RBHP mids. I used C3 CON Tools to extract the files from the original CON, and found selfesteem.mid. Then I followed all of espher’s steps in Reaper to combine it with the selfesteem_plus.mid from RBHP, and saved it as a new selfesteem.mid (click to download it from my dropbox).
I dropped the new selfsteem.mid and the songs.dta from RBHP into the extracted folder, overwriting the originals. Then I used C3 CON Tools to create a new CON. When I load it in the game it recognizes that it has harmonies. But when I try to play it, it freezes near the end of the loading animation (the one of the crew setting up the stage).
Any idea what might have gone wrong?
Alright, it looks like there is a setting somewhere in REAPER that is inserting a track name event with the name of the original .mid in the first track of each. If you open your .mid in REAPER again (same Insert > Media thing), then double-click on HARM1, you’ll see an event (at the bottom at 1.1.00) named ‘selfesteem_plus’, and you’ll see one named ‘selfesteem’ on PART DRUMS. Select and delete those, re-export, should be fine.
Oh, and look for one also named ‘selfesteem’ on HARM1 since you’re importing /again/ haha.
I have no idea where the option is but I’ll see if I can find it tomorrow.
Ok, I deleted those track name events, re-exported, but I get the same freeze in the same place. Is it possible that Reaper is adding the track name events during the export? There’s always one there when I import.
Ok, I deleted those track name events, re-exported, but I get the same freeze in the same place. Is it possible that Reaper is adding the track name events during the export? There’s always one there when I import.Use Reaper 4.22 just in case, later versions are crap for customs.
When it asks to import a 2 (or more) channel MIDI track, always select the option that says something along the lines of “one track with multiple channels” (not exactly what it says, but the other one says to make a separate track for each channel, don’t select that one).
You can also tell Reaper to not bother you with that question again.
Not the best course of action. If you only ever import Rock Band MIDI is one thing, but if you import music MIDI files to use as reference, sometimes the MIDI tracks are split, sometimes not. Best option is to have Reaper ask and choose.
Then you could run the action “Item: Explode multichannel audio or MIDI to new one-channel items.”
Most items I import personally are Rock Band MIDIs for playtesting, so having to dismiss that popup everytime someone authors more than one channel onto a track is a little annoying. And then for the few cases where I make a custom from a tab and it’s a single track, multi-channel MIDI I can just run the explode action.
Alright, it looks like there is a setting somewhere in REAPER that is inserting a track name event with the name of the original .mid in the first track of each. If you open your .mid in REAPER again (same Insert > Media thing), then double-click on HARM1, you’ll see an event (at the bottom at 1.1.00) named ‘selfesteem_plus’, and you’ll see one named ‘selfesteem’ on PART DRUMS. Select and delete those, re-export, should be fine.
Oh, and look for one also named ‘selfesteem’ on HARM1 since you’re importing /again/ haha.
I have no idea where the option is but I’ll see if I can find it tomorrow.
There isn’t an option to disable it. It’s an undocumented “feature” they added in some time ago with no means of disabling it. Unless they added it recently.
Ok, I downgraded to Reaper 4.22, and sure enough, it doesn’t add any of that track name stuff. Here is the mid I ended up with:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/166 … esteem.mid
I created a new con (with a new name/song ID), but it’s still freezing during the loading animation. Is it possible that I’m not creating the CON right? After extracting the original CON I overwrite the selfesteem.mid and songs.dta, but keep all the other files the same, and package it all together with the CON Creator tool. Am I allowed to link to the resulting CON? I can’t think of what else could be the issue if that mid file is coming out right.
Why are you extracting and recreating the CON rather than just replacing the mid in the CON and saving?
Why are you extracting and recreating the CON rather than just replacing the mid in the CON and saving?Huh, you’re right, that’s pretty silly of me. But I just tried doing it that way, and got the same result.
So I’ve done some experimenting. The original unaltered con works fine. Then I tried a con with just the songs.dta replaced, and it worked fine too (unless I tried to do harmonies, which makes sense). Then I tried a con with just selfesteem.mid replaced, and it froze no matter what I chose. So the problem has to be the .mid. I’m using the correct version of Reaper and following all of the steps, but something is still going wrong. Can anyone look at the mid file and see if they notice anything odd?
BTW TrojanNemo, it blows my mind that C3 CON Tools can merge mid files to bundle pro guitar/bass upgrades in just one click! Learning how to do it manually to add harmonies is turning out to be pretty difficult.
I looked at the MIDI file and everything seems to be in order.
Only problem I can see by throwing the MIDI at Magma: C3’s MIDI Tester (use it…) is that the ticks per quarter is set to 960 and RB3 only supports up to 480. This tells me you have installed REAPER but not the RBN Tools, as they change those settings in Reaper for you.
The best bet is to install the RBN Tools, then do the process again, as you got everything else right it looks like.
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