I can have a look tomorrow, but in the mean time, a few things to note:

MidiTrail displays notes colored by channel (which I believe is what you are referring to as tracks, but tracks in a midi file are different from how you would think of tracks in a standard audio or video editor). If you are seeing multiple colors during playback, you are seeing your multiple channels. Depending on which visual mode you are using, multiple notes playing at the same time with the same pitch on different channels will cover each other and appear as a single note.

The title shown in the corner of MidiTrail comes from the track name of the first track in the midi file (midi track, not channel in this case). Typically this track does not contain notes, only certain specific commands and data. Some midi editors hide this track, so you may not be able to rename it in the app you are using.

Marshall,

I've tried to get your .MID files, but the DropBox system is not co-operating. I'll try with another computer, using a later OS.

Yes, this forum does not let you attach .MID files. Helpful?? The way around this is to put the .MID files into a .zip file, as this extension IS accepted. If you cannot do that, merely rename the files as .zip, but say in your post that this is what you've done. I think it's better to use .zip rather than .ZIP as well, I know another forum that likes lower case ONLY.

Don't panic. As Jason is suggesting, there may be nothing WRONG with your files, merely that your software is not showing what you're expecting. Other data might be there, but not visible. We have a wide range of software here, something may help.

Geoff

Marshall,

Using my W10 laptop, I was able to download Songs 1 & 2, but DropBox says 3 is now deleted.

I had a quick look in the files using a hex viewer, and there seemed to be valid MIDI data there, but a LOT of garbage, but maybe the garbage was strange midi META (text) items.

So, I used a program that I have called DECODE, which converts a midi file into plain text. Others here have similar software.

This processed the smaller file fine, and reveals a normal midi file, but with a LOT of META items relating to 'Copyright'. Otherwise the MIDI data seems to be OK, various tracks, channels, etc. I'll hopefully re-make the midi file and see if it plays, and see what it looks like in other midi software.

The other file, the larger one, does NOT 'DECODE', giving an error as 'Track too long'. The faulty data seems to be similar to the smaller file, just a LOT more of it, and multiple versions of it. So the file prob CAN be 'fixed', but not with the DECODE program I have. Maybe someone else has a variant that will do this file?

For now, I'll play some more with the smaller file, and see how that turns out.

Geoff

Marshall,

Right, I've remade Song 2 and it loads into SynthFont (the VST sequencer system I use) and it looks fine. I've not tried to play it yet, for reasons that will be clear.

The file shows as 11 tracks. Track 1 has very little in, re Tempo etc, this is normal.

The rest is as follows Tr 2 is set to Ch 3, Tr 3 is set to Ch 2, Tr 4 is set to Ch 1. The other tracks are set to Ch 0.

Tr 9, 10 and 11 just have some META (Text) items in, re credits, Dates, etc. No notes. Some of the tracks have a fair qty of Controllers, re sound mode, all look quite notmal.

Tr 4 is set to Celeste, all the rest are set to Acoustic Gnd Pno, but the file does make it clear that the instruments need resetting as you please. Tracks 2 to 5 contain extra PC (Program Change) commands, but these all reset AG Pno at present. I do not know what you were going to set these to? Any suggestions?

At the moment, the sound would prob be a mess. Seems to be orchestral in sound, no percussion, Ch 10 not used.

The music is showing as just under 2 minutes. I think one of the Tracks shows as near 400 notes, the others are less.

The file for Song 1 is a LOG bigger, but with a LOT more garbage, but I think that there is much more musical data as well. But a similar number of tracks.

How does this relate to what you are hoping is there?

Geoff

So, I couldn't resist playing it.

Actually, it's nothing like 'bad' at all, with all piano and a bit of Celeste.

There's a somewhat disconcerting gap at the start, and the Piano CRASHES in, however the music is clearly complete with a start and a middle and a clear finish, so there does not appear to be anything missing. On my system, the loud bits are too loud, and the quiet bits too quiet, so the set volume levels could do with adjusting, but maybe this is intentional.

Needs a bit of work re instruments and volume levels?

I attach the 'fixed' ??? file renamed as .ZIP but it's NOT a .zip, it's still a .mid as you may not be able to unzip?

Geoff

????

I wasn't sure what would happen, but I tried to load the much biggest file into SynthFont anyway.

It worked!

Still shows a vast amount of garbage (META events mass repeated, etc).

Shows Tr 1 to 5 with more musical data than before, and seems to be masses more Controller events.

Also shows Tr 12 to 16 with more note events, time wise this seems to be on top of the data in Tr 1 to 5.

Music length now shows as MUCH MUCH longer. Has the music data been looped/repeated multiple times?

Some of the tracks seem to have masses of Controller data, but no notes. Need to check Channels re this?

Not so easy in SynthFont to edit out the garbage, but I'll need to try this - may be OK. The 'Events' list is accessible, and items can be deleted.

Geoff

I was only able to download Song 1. I ran it through Sema's midi file tester, and I have roughly 21890 invalid META copyright events.

I ran Anvil Studio's repair option on the file. See the screenshots for the result.

There is only a single channel with notes on it, as Grand Piano. There is one channel set to Celeste, and two more channels set to piano, but no notes on any of those.

I've attached the repaired file as mentioned. Since you are on a phone, I am renaming the .mid extension to .zip, but it is in fact the midi file and not a zipped version of the file.

The title that I see is
Sally.exe - ______ ACT 9 (MIDI) MIDI version.
which is stored using the "Sequence Name" META event.

Song 2 downloaded and repaired as well. Much less "mess" in this one. Still the same single channel with piano notes on it, same title.

.mid file attached as .zip

Jason,

It's not that bad. Song 2 does have 3 tracks set to other than Ch 0, and one of them is already set as Celeste rather than piano, although the Tr changes to Piano at some point. Also, the fact that the notes are spread over 7 tracks means that adding some different Channels, and some PCs, could make a lot of difference easily. The files seem to have been made with the understanding that instrument allocations could be done as required, so although there's a lot of piano now, I don't think they're formal chords?

I'm wondering if Marchall's software (on his 'phone) was getting messed up by the masses of those META events. Having seen the data with a hex viewer, I was surprised that SynthFont just took it all in! It did highlight (in red) some events in the Events List as being duplicate or irrelevant (or incomplete ?)

Geoff

Hello Marshall. The two MIDI files you linked to are kind of a mess. Maybe we can explore if you might have better luck starting over with a different MIDI file editor or a different process. If you can answer any of the following questions it might help us come up with other ideas for you:

What operating system does your phone have? Maybe we can find a better MIDI file editor for you to use.

Can we download the original MIDI file you started from somewhere?

Do you know if the original video game uses songs in a tracker format or an audio format?

Do you know if the original MIDI file you started from was created by exporting from a tracker or by using an audio-to-MIDI converter? If so, maybe we can find a better way to convert the original video game songs into a MIDI format.

Did the original MIDI file contain multiple songs one after another and you were trying to copy them into multiple MIDI files with one song each?

Can you explain more why you wanted to add more tracks to the original MIDI file? Depending on what you want to do, maybe we might find some other process that works better or is easier to do.