midi

[Skull 1ord]

Does anyone know if there is a way to play the midi tracks from the original version of Age of Kings? You used to be able to go to the shortcut on the desktop for the original Age of Kings and type in "-midi " and it would play the midi version of the mp3 songs once you put the midi files from the demo into the soundtrack folder.

[Sir Jasper Trund]

I did a bit of research into this. As far as I can tell, the midi files you're referring to were only included in the trial version - the final retail version streamed music off the game CD, and didn't use midi. As HD Edition's exe is based on the retail version, it's unlikely there'll be any way to enable midi playback, even if you had the original mid files.

The following might help though:

This guy's uploaded the whole of the mid soundtrack to YouTube -

https://www.youtube.com/user/drackp2m/videos

If it sounds like you remember, you can use a youtube ripper site to get the sound files (just Google) and then create a sound mod to switch the music files.

[Skull 1ord]

Yeah, but you used to be able to get the retail version to play the music from the trial version. If you replaced the mp3's with the midi's from the trial version and typed in "-midimusic" in the target textbox of the desktop shortcut, the retail version would play the trial version music instead of the mp3 tracks. I'll experiment with it a bit on the HD version to see if it can be done. I did a lot of research on it back in the day because it frustrated me when I got the retail version after having fallen in love with the trial version that the music didn't sound the same. There wasn't much about it online because most people who bought the game didn't notice that the music was different and/or didn't mind that it was different. After about of week or so of digging, I found a microsoft forum on an issue regarding the collector's version of the original game not playing background music, where some guy said,
"
There is a way to solve this
1. Donwload The demo version of Age of empires 2
2. Take the midi folder from the sound folder of the demo of age2
3. Put that folder in the sound folder of the full Age of empires 2
4. Create a shortcut of the age2_x1.exe in the age2_x1 folder
5. Click properties and add to the target "-midimusic" with quotes
6. Start the game with that shortcut and the game will have background music.

".
This had originally worked for me when I used to have the retail version. I think I tried to get it to work on the HD version too when I bought it a fews months back, but I think I remember not being able to get it to work for some reason. I think it won't work because the HD version uses a different .exe from the original .exe and therefore does not respond to the same commands as the original (such as "-midimusic")...

Anyway, yeah, I'll keep messing around with it to see if I can get it to work.

Thanks!!! :)

[Sir Jasper Trund]

Someone's made this mod -
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=323661334&searchtext=beta+music
- is that related to what you're looking for?

[Skull 1ord]

That's it! Kind of... Whoever made that must of converted the original midi's into mp3 format and in doing so distorted the sound a bit. It seems they were basically trying to do what I was trying to do but the problem is that the music deviates slightly from how the original midi music sounded (most likely due to some sort of conversion to mp3 format). Thanks for finding that though, that's basically what I was looking for.

[Sir Jasper Trund]

Originally posted by Skull 1ord:

That's it! Kind of... Whoever made that must of converted the original midi's into mp3 format and in doing so distorted the sound a bit. It seems they were basically trying to do what I was trying to do but the problem is that the music deviates slightly from how the original midi music sounded (most likely due to some sort of conversion to mp3 format). Thanks for finding that though, that's basically what I was looking for.

Ahh, that's probably down to how midi files work. They're not really a recording, they're more like digital sheet music that your computer plays back. Depending on your computer's hardware or sofwtare, it'll sound different on one machine than it will on another. So that'll be how the YouTube uploader's computer played back the file. (Sorry if you already knew this!)

I remember this with Monkey Island 2. My PC would always play back large parts of the soundtrack with a grand piano, so when it was released on Steam with MP3 recordings of how the midis were supposed to sound, it sounded really odd to me. Turned out my old PC had a midi error back in the day!

[FireStar]

The Midi songs of the AoE1 RoR Demo are also great. unfortunately two of them (for me the best of them) didn't make it into the final game as a real music piece (as the most other did).

[FireStar]

Originally posted by FireStar:

The Midi songs of the AoE1 RoR Demo are also great. unfortunately two of them (for me the best of them) didn't make it into the final game as a real music piece (as the most other did).

Ah found it

https://youtu.be/YE5CaZHC8Tk?t=722 I really love this track, especially its final part. Is there a "real" version of it?

[Litude]

That track you listed was on the Rise of Rome CD. Perhaps you had the Gold Edition? You can listen to it from here[www.vgmpf.com].

[FireStar]

Thanks mate, yes I (still) have the gold edition, does it have only the initial music tracks of AoE1?

[Skull 1ord]

Originally posted by Sir Jasper Trund:

Ahh, that's probably down to how midi files work. They're not really a recording, they're more like digital sheet music that your computer plays back. Depending on your computer's hardware or sofwtare, it'll sound different on one machine than it will on another. So that'll be how the YouTube uploader's computer played back the file. (Sorry if you already knew this!)

I remember this with Monkey Island 2. My PC would always play back large parts of the soundtrack with a grand piano, so when it was released on Steam with MP3 recordings of how the midis were supposed to sound, it sounded really odd to me. Turned out my old PC had a midi error back in the day!

Yeah, you're totally right. I'm not sure if there's a way for it to sound how it used to, now that I have a brand spanking new laptop. If I'm not mistaken, I think when the HD version of Age of Empires II was made, the developers went back in and recoded everything, eliminating the original config files that allowed for midis to be played instead of the mp3's. So, even if my laptop could playback midis, the game itself would probably not be able to play those files. But, it's whatever... I could totally just save myself the trouble and just turn off the in-game music and just listen to a YouTube video of the midis while playing the game. Thanks again for finding that Workshop item. I had searched through the thick and thin to see if anyone had the midis in the workshop but somehow couldn't find them.

[Litude]

Originally posted by FireStar:

Thanks mate, yes I (still) have the gold edition, does it have only the initial music tracks of AoE1?

The Gold Edition CD has a mix of tracks from both the original game and the Rise of Rome. Can't remember the exact tracks off-hand, but I think the majority are from the Rise of Rome.

[Zetnus]

This site has some info about the soundtracks and also lets you download the midi files:
http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=Age_of_Empires_II:_The_Age_of_Kings_%28W32%29

Edit: found something in the workshop; it might be of interest to some of you
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=137514976