Midi Volume (my work around)

I'm trying to turn the volume down on just the music (midi files).

The mixer component doesn't change the midi volume at all.

I also tried the volume object with no effect...

I should note that i'm using HWA beta 10 with Windows 7 Ultimate.

My chosen midi music is too loud and I want to cut it back to about 50% so regular sound effects are not drowned out.

Thanks!


Work around: Converted the midi file to OGG and playing it on a specific channel; setting the channel volume to 50.

That works, but I would rather use midi files and not have to convert them.

There is no convenient way to handle the volume of midi file playback. Sometime the soundcard have an on-board synthesizer, in some cases the sound comes from the Microsoft GM Wavetable synthesizer, or another softsynth. If you have a Creative soundcard, chance is that soundfonts (sf2's) are used.

Now, the volume of the music playback will vary on a lot of factors.

* What volumes (CC7) are specified in the .mid files?
* How loud is the particular synthesizer? Note that the normal thing is that GM synthesizer volume is configured independently from the audio volume but I don't know how it works in Vista or 7.
* In case of a soundfont based synth, how loud is the particular soundfont?
* Does the synthesizer apply dynamic range compression? Some do.

With all these facors in mind, you can never know how to configure your game. Even if the music is way too loud on your PC, it may be too silent on another. Even if you successfully get access to the synthesizer volume, how do you know how to set it so it sounds fine on any other PC than your own? The risk is that you will ruin their settings when they have set up a working relationship between audio and midi volumes.

I suggest don't use midi. They sound different on every computer and usually horrible with the wrong synthesizers. The only way I know to make GM sound good (as in non fake-acoustic instruments) is to use GXSCC which turns them into chiptunes - often with really great results.

If you want small files, start to look into modules instead. MMF2 plays mod, it, and xm files. You can find these on the modarchive and most artists would agree to have their music in your game (but do ask them).

Very informative... thanks!

I've settled on converting the midi files i've chosen, and i'm controlling the volume using MMF2 at this point.

Thanks for taking the time to write a quality answer!