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I am just about finished with the next soundtrack release for the SNES MIDI Remaster Project. However, this one song is giving me so much trouble that I want to print out the MIDI file just so I can crumple it up and burn it 😆
I'm attaching the offending MIDI file, plus a text version of the same made using the super handy MIDI DisAssembler found here,
http://midi.teragonaudio.com/progs/software.htm
as well as a copy of what supposed to be the final file until I listened to the soundtrack a bunch of times and decided it would bother me for the rest of time if I uploaded this as the final version.
The original audio sounds like so:
https://www.zophar.net/music/nintendo-snes-spc/gradius-iii
It is the song named Continue
The main issue is that the original game audio apparently has glitches in it natively (as it is a console port of an arcade game, and they were new to programming on the SNES at the time), that are not super apparent when played in the original game. However, the conversion to MIDI has greatly emphasized these glitches, where there are terrible transitions between notes, and several sections simply play entirely out of tune.
I've tried all sorts of automated glitch removal. I also tried manually removing all "close" pitch bending, to the point where it was... okay, but still a lot of off tune stuff. I went back to the drawing board and tried to start fresh, and all results today sound just as awful.
Any suggestions on how/what I can modify/fix to get rid of the glitchiness, and end up with something that sounds smooth and in tune? My "final" file is okay, but definitely has tuning issues that I can't easily fix, and make me sad every time I play it back,
Posted : 08/06/2025 8:42 am
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For a little more of this particular file's history, also see my previous post about it
https://midi.org/community/creating-with-midi/splitting-single-track-in-to-multiple-tracks-channels
Posted : 08/06/2025 8:49 am
Topic starter
I've think I've tamed it. I ended up reverting to one of my partway modified files, and made additional changes from there to get something that is pretty good.
By default, there are 6 tracks/channels that play music in this song. Strings are located on channels 1, 2, 4, and 5. I had to clone each of these tracks to another channel using Sekaiju, so 1/7, 2/8, 4/9, 5/11.
I then had to go in with Sekaiju and manually select and delete alternating notes between each pair of channels. One channel keeps all even notes, one keeps all odd. Once that was done, I then had to go back and do almost the same with all pitch bends, though this time not purely alternating. Any pitch bend occurring on the same step as a note off was removed, so only the note on pitch bend would affect a note playing. This eliminated all of the pitch bend-based glitches.
Finally, I had to increase all pitch bends for the strings on 2/8 by +150, and all pitch bends on 5/11 by +200 to eliminate that "sour" sound.
Normally if an instrument is off by a certain pitch in the initially converted file, it's that way for the entire song, but strangely that was not the case for this one.
I have now added my finished file to my "final listen" collection to see if I am satisfied with it before calling it done. 👍
Posted : 14/06/2025 6:03 pm
