DOS Music? by MoldyPond at 1:22 PM EDT on April 21, 2020

Might be a silly question but is there a repository for DOS music files and/or a music player/plugin for Foobar that can play them? I've tried looking around and can't find anything other than line-in/stereo mix recording. AFAIK it's all MIDI files at best anyways but I'd like to be proven wrong. :)

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated, thanks! :D

by WDLmaster at 3:17 PM EDT on April 21, 2020

What exactly qualifies as "DOS music"? There's no file format which is exclusive to DOS. Some games have proprietary formats (i.e. ADPCM in non-standard containers or different byte layout) but that's done on any other platform too. Midi files are used all over the place, not just in DOS. They rely on the "correct" sound bank so there's actually not THE way to play them. Other games use Tracker music files, which are also used on many platforms. A ton of 90s games use CD Audio […]

Do you have a specific game/file format we should look into?

by MoldyPond at 9:22 AM EDT on April 22, 2020

Thanks for the reply :)

S̶p̶e̶c̶i̶f̶i̶c̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶I̶’̶m̶ ̶l̶o̶o̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶o̶r̶i̶g̶i̶n̶a̶l̶ ̶T̶r̶a̶n̶s̶p̶o̶r̶t̶ ̶T̶y̶c̶o̶o̶n̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶D̶O̶S̶ ̶(̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶D̶e̶l̶u̶x̶e̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶w̶e̶l̶l̶ ̶s̶i̶n̶c̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶a̶d̶d̶e̶d̶ ̶5̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶s̶o̶n̶g̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶a̶n̶ ̶a̶l̶t̶e̶r̶n̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶t̶i̶t̶l̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶m̶e̶)̶.̶ ̶I̶ ̶k̶n̶o̶w̶ ̶D̶e̶l̶u̶x̶e̶ ̶u̶s̶e̶s̶ ̶M̶I̶D̶I̶ ̶f̶i̶l̶e̶s̶ ̶s̶i̶n̶c̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶r̶e̶l̶e̶a̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶W̶i̶n̶d̶o̶w̶s̶ ̶g̶a̶m̶e̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶w̶e̶l̶l̶,̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶I̶’̶m̶ ̶u̶n̶s̶u̶r̶e̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶o̶r̶i̶g̶i̶n̶a̶l̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶I̶’̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶l̶o̶o̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶s̶e̶ ̶p̶l̶a̶y̶e̶d̶ ̶b̶a̶c̶k̶ ̶t̶h̶r̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ ̶a̶ ̶D̶O̶S̶ ̶e̶n̶g̶i̶n̶e̶.̶ ̶ ̶

I̶ ̶k̶n̶o̶w̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶r̶e̶’̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶r̶e̶p̶o̶s̶i̶t̶o̶r̶y̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶w̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶b̶a̶c̶k̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶2̶0̶1̶5̶ ̶(̶w̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶I̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶f̶i̶r̶s̶t̶ ̶d̶i̶s̶c̶o̶v̶e̶r̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶H̶C̶S̶)̶ ̶I̶ ̶d̶o̶w̶n̶l̶o̶a̶d̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶i̶l̶e̶s̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶D̶e̶m̶o̶n̶ ̶B̶l̶u̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶s̶t̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶m̶.̶

Never mind, immediately after I posted this I saw another thread mentioning vgm.hcs64.com and voila, it's there! :D

While I'm still on the subject though, would you happen to know how to get DOS files exported as VGM files? The only other game I'd want extracted is Theme Hospital. It was a DOS/Windows release, so the files are .XMI but run like regular .MIDI files, so I'm wondering how to go about getting these to playback in DOS for extraction, as currently my rips of it are from using stereo mix recording while it's playing back in DOSBox from the Origin version.

Thanks! :D

edited 9:46 AM EDT April 22, 2020

by WDLmaster at 12:24 PM EDT on April 22, 2020

If by "converting to VGM" you mean create a stream out of XMI files then yes, that's possible using Winamp (don't know about Foobar because I never used it). I don't see the benefit of converting sequenced music to streams but anyway:

Winamp can play XMI natively and can write the output do disk. You have to setup the MIDI plugin accordingly. You might be unable to obtain the "correct" soundbank for a specific game unless it's already in DLS format. If it's not, you have to convert the soundbank to DLS first. So the following only applies if you have a DLS soundbank ready to use.

Go to the MIDI plugin settings, under the "device" tab: select "direct music / Microsoft synthesizer with output". Then, under the "direct music" tab: activate "use custom DLS file" and then select the file you want to use as soundbank. That's it for the input setup.

Now, in Winamp's output section select the "Disk Writer" or any other stream converter (MP3 etc...) as output plugin and start playback. I don't know if the actual rendering is fast (max CPU used) or realtime, in which case you have to wait for as long as the duraton of the song.


edited 2:21 PM EDT April 22, 2020

by Kirishima at 12:53 AM EDT on April 25, 2020

You want a vgm file out of dos music, go here:

https://vgmrips.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=107

edited 12:59 AM EDT April 25, 2020

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