This guide will go over the basics on how to import your own midi's into Nintendo 64 games using

N64
Midi Tool.

Things you will need:

A Digital Audio Workstation that supports midi exporting (preferably with DLS support as well). I will be
using FL Studio for this guide.

N64 Midi Tool (http://www.goldeneyevault.com/viewfile.php?id=211).

N64 Soundbank Tool (http://www.goldeneyevault.com/viewfile.php?id=302).

And some time to arrange your midi's with correct instruments.

In this guide I will be dealing with the SNG sequence format. I'll be using Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly
Caliber. This guide will work with any game as well, however, but I'll go over some of the slight
complications of the SNG format.

Part one: Editing your midi and playing with your game's sounds.
1. Open N64 Soundbank tool and choose your game of choice from the drop down menu. (I'll be using
Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber). Click "Load ROM" once you have found your game. Once you
load your game, click "Write DLS Soundfont" and save to a location of your choice. This will save a .dls
file that contains all of the instrument samples in the game used for matching up to midi later in the
guide. You may close N64 Soundbank tool now.
2. Open your DAW and import a midi file. Do note if its a pre-made midi file, you will need to arrange all
of the instrument patches to be correct when importing to game.

3. Load your DLS sound bank into your DAW. In FL Studio if you import a midi, it will automatically open
a DLS player for you. If you are starting a new project, you can load the DLS player (known as Fruity LSD)
by doing the following: View > Mixer then assign Fruity LSD to a empty Insert slot. You can now load
your .dls file by clicking on the folder icon in the top left side of Fruity LSD (next to the "Roland GM/GS
Sound Set" window.
 Here is a picture detailing all of this.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz8PWXTWctXKOGFpRks0c0NiYVE/view?usp=sharing

4. Arrange your midi channel patches to correspond to the DLS file. In FL Studio click on one of the midi
channels to bring up the channel settings window which looks like this:

CHANNEL corresponds to the current channel you've selected. You can change its channel if you wish.

PATCH refers to the current midi patch. This is critical to get the right instruments playing from your DLS
file. For instance, patch 1 in Ogre Battle 64 is a crash crymbal. You will need to manually cycle through
them in order to find the correct instruments you want on each channel. You can also right click on the
patch number to make the patch change depending on the currect bar you put the automation in but
right clicking the patch number > Edit Events.

PORT refers to the current port it is on. You can load several instances of Fruity LSD this way by also
changing what port Fruity LSD uses. If I am using a pre-made midi file, I like to use the GM set on one
port to see what instruments should play on each channel, then another LSD loaded on another port
with my game's DLS file. You can only have a max of 16 channels at a time. You can load more through
another method listed below (SNG sequence format only).
BANK (the right most part of this section) is only used if the game uses more than 128 patches. If it uses
more than 128, you must move that blue circled slot of --- to 1 or higher to play with the other
instruments. This bank section is known as a LSB bank, or Fine Bank.

Reverb is the amount of reverb to apply to the channel. In games that use SNG for their sequences, the
reverb is separated as dry level, and wet level. The first 1-49 % is generally dry. The rest is wet. Wet
simulates the distance of a instrument in most cases. You cannot properly hear this effect until you
import a midi to game.

You can find a named soundfont of Goldeneye and Perfect Dark on Goldeneyevault. The names will
appear in Fruity LSD, however, not this window.

5. Now you can now save your midi file by exporting the midi. In FL Studio, you can do so by doing:
File>Export>Midi file.

Part two: Importing your arranged midi file.

1. Open N64 Midi Tool and then select your game you wish to import your midi to using the drop down
menu then click "Load ROM"

2. Select a "Spot " to replace from the drop down menu. If you are unsure what spot is the song you
wish to replace, you can click "Play Midi". This will give you a small idea of what song is in that spot.

3. Click "Import Midi" once you are done finding what spot to replace.
4. Finally, click "Write ROM". This will save the new ROM file with your new music imported.
 Midi tool extras options:
The "Loop" check box will loop your song at a certain point. You will need to manually place them.
Having loop set to zero will loop once the song reaches the end. In Synthfont1 (free at
http://www.synthfont.com/Downloads.html), you can easily find your spot to loop from by clicking on
Midi events tab then looking in the "When" and "Bar" colums. Type the number from the "When" colum
when you found the value you're looking for in the Loop box in midi tool.

Show Effects Games is generally for sequence's that have a dedicated format (or a variant in commands)
for SFX. It's generally not useful but it can export midi's based on the sequences that use this format.

Separate by instrument (SNG, Konami and Paper Mario only) only effects the exported midi. This option
separates all same instruments with their automation to their own channel. This is generally needed
95% of the time as Sng/Konami exported midi's without this option are chaotic. Instruments and
automation (such as pan, volume, reverb, etc) are placed throughout several channels and switch
between them a lot. This is why this option exists.

In Konami games you will have a option that says Output Loop. This only effects the exported midi.
Output Loop makes the entire song larger by how many loops you put in the box. This checks where the
loop start and end is and extends based on the number you put in the box. Sometimes it is needed to
have at least 1. For instance, this is needed in the song "I am Impact" in Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon.

Extend Smaller Tracks to End is another Konami only option. This only effects the exported midi.
Depending if there is certain special loop makers in a Konami sequence, this option is needed. If your
midi doesn't export correctly (odd spacing, tracks end too short) this would fix it if Output Loop doesn't.
For instance, this is needed in the Mystical Ninja song "Secrets of Old Man Plasma"

No Repeaters does not compress type 1 sequences on import. You generally don't want to check this
option off.

Debug Text File will show you how SNG, Konami and Paper Mario sequence format works in plain text
files. This gets exported in a .txt along with the exported midi.

Master Track Effect is probably not used in SNG games. You can change it if you like but it may not
change the reverb type. I haven't found a game that uses this.

A few points of interest about sequence formats:

You may need to adjust the volume on channels to match in game volume for instruments. Generally,
there is no easy way to do this except to listen to your imported midi in game. RareWare games suffer
from this issue a lot and I have no idea why.

In games that use SNG as their sequences, they only have a max polyphony limit of 1 per channel,
meaning chords get separated to another free channel when importing your midi to game. This can
cause issues if you do not have enough channels made. It's best to always import 16 channels, even
better if you arrange all notes so that there are no chords (no overlapping notes inside each other, or on
top/bottom) into their own channels. In type 1 sequence formats, you do not need to worry about this.
This also applies to Konami games.

In games that use SNG as their sequences, they do not have instrument splits in their games. For
instance in Ogre Battle 64, the string ensemble are patches 78-88. These have all different min/max
ranges these can go. Normally these would be all in one patch on type 1 sequenced games. You will
need to find them by trial and error as there is no easy way to understand this. For instance, patch 78 is
a really low string that can only go around notes F3-F4 (just a guess). Patch 79 may go from F#4 to F#5.
It's a bit tricky to figure out. This is one of the reasons why I said its best to move all notes to their own
channel (assuming no chords/simultaneous notes in one spot are on that channel). This also applies to
Konami games.

Games that use SNG sequences can have more than 16 channels. By doing this you need to create a
second midi with a naming scheme like this:

Only import the first .mid without the _AdditionalPart in the name.

SNG can exceed a max total number of notes held at once (in game engine) of 24. I haven't ruled out
what the total limit is, however. I know its rather high, though. RareWare games have a max polyphony
limit of 8-10 notes in game.

If you get a error saying the game is compressed, it is not supported for import.

If your midi file is too big for the current spot you chose, you will get a error on import. You'll need to
cut down the size of your midi or choose a bigger spot to import in.

Thanks for reading my guide! And thanks to SubDrag for creating such awesome tools! Hopefully this
helps a few people out. You can find my YouTube channel at
https://www.youtube.com/user/ps3punk7890 I upload imported music to games sometimes and my
own music.