FF7 Music (outdated)

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I think the problem of it restarting when you change rooms is caused by having the midi disabled.  But honestly I can't really remember how I fixed that anymore.
Also if you deleted all the files in the midi.lgp or any of the other midi LGP's I think that also causes it because FF7Music isn't a standalone program.  So when you change rooms, the midi needed isn't technically running so the ff7 program searches for it all over again.

Hope this helps or provides some kind of insight
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EDIT: Actually, this did fix the problem! I restored the midifiles in midi.lgp (copied over the ontouched copy from the disk), and now the music no longer restarts upon zoning. Now, however, the sound volume is extremely low - barely audible. I'll keep fiddling.

EDIT 2: My hard-to-hear audio was obviously the result of poor sound set-up on my end. I just had to change some devices around, so now it's all good. The game is running just as perfectly as it did a year ago, with enhanced 3D models, higher resolution, and my own, custom soundtrack playing to my ears' great pleasure! The only problem I see now is that now that I'm on a widescreen monitor, the image doesn't quite cut it for me, but that's a topic for another forum thread. :)
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Well I'm glad that worked for you  :-D
The one problem I found with it though, is in order to hear some SFX the midi volume has to be up.  This means that the nice PSF's or MP3's will be accompanied by the annoying midi music. 

One way to fix this, maybe, is to open each individual midi and change it to a blank noise.  Unfortunately though, I was never able to test this theory
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Okay, I don't know if anyone HAS fixed it or not, but the FF7music/midi/sfx problem is still a problem.  These are the steps I took to try out the midi editing.

1. Extract .mid file (to test, I extracted the audio of the specific area I was in)
2. Edit the midi to delete all tracks
2b. I also tried to just cut the midi file short before any sound actually started playing, resulting in 0.1 seconds of midi.
3. Replaced the file in the mid.lgp
4. Started ff7music and started up the game, but the game crashed as I changed scenes.

My guess is that somewhere there is a time stamp for each midi or something.  Strangely, the mid.lgp fixed the midi file I had replaced by itself after the crash and now I got that stupid midi back in there.  Anyone else want to take a stab at it?

***Okay, never mind I completely didn't read the mid section of this entire post.  Seems to be a problem for everyone haha, Sorry for the stupid post. Time to read some more...*sigh*
 
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It seems that altering the midi.lgp files to all be the same as "heart.mid" gives the same result as deleting them (the mp3's will start over when changing scenes).  I have inserted wind.mid into the original midi.lgp and so far everything seems to be fine.   I don't have a save file capable of putting me in that area to see if it works, so if someone else feels like checking it out, please do.  I did notice in the FF7Music .ini that the "ID's" are listed, my best guess is that by altering ANY file that changes the size of that midi will result in restarting music during scene changes.

I THINK that creating an empty/blank .mid the same size and/or length as the original ones will allow the mp3's to play uninterrupted and will allow the other sfx to be heard.  Either that or changing the .mid ID's?

I also tried the same with xg.lgp, but my computer running Windows 7 7201 refuses to go any further than the first note in the opening fmv, altered or not.

The reason I want to do this is I lose quite a few different sounds and it detracts from the gameplay since I know what I should be hearing.


                                                                                                       
    IMPORTANT​

I have figured this sh*t out finally!!!  So here is a quick step by step guide to kind of get everthing working as it should.

1) Use this midi.lgp made by Nero It mutes the midis internally and keeps the midi sizes the same to prevent the slight delay from scene to scene.  Now download this in_mp3 and copy it over whatever in_mp3.dll you already have
2) Open the FF7Music Config screen
5) Click the Playback Options tab and where it says "resume only after" click the "...". A list of all the midis should appear
6) For now, CHECK ALL OF THEM (there are a handful of files you won't want to resume, like battle music, but I haven't figured out which ones yet)
7) Save and Exit.  In the same folder as FF7Music you will see the .ini file.  Open it with notepad
8 ) Inside you will see a line that says "remember=(random number)".  Where that number is, change it to 94 for now. 
9) Now look for "LoopFudge"=(random number..probably 2000) and change that to 300.  Save and close
10) Start your game through FF7Music and go ahead and turn your midi music back all the way up in game.
11) TADA!!!!
12) Go ahead and explore around and notice everything working AS IT SHOULD!!


Note:  You will need to change the value for LoopFudge to see what number best works with your computer (it will vary).
Note2: Also, loopbe doesn't work for me on Windows 7, so I use the default MS Wavelength or whatever it's called.
Note3: I don't play very often so if someone notices a problem please post it or send me a PM if need be.

---edited to include bigger IMPORTANT and added blank midi.lgp---
 
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The only issue with this is that it doesn't prevent sound effects from being turned off when music is supposed to be muted.
 
The only issue with this is that it doesn't prevent sound effects from being turned off when music is supposed to be muted.
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I don't follow...
Maybe you can give an example?
 
Actually, the midi filename of the final boss music were alot simpler to find than having the original titles.

lb1 and lb2= Last boss 1 and Last boss 2 :P
 
The only issue with this is that it doesn't prevent sound effects from being turned off when music is supposed to be muted.
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I don't follow...
Maybe you can give an example?
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In Vista and later, the MIDI driver doesn't ordinarily get its own volume. However, applications do get their own volume controls. As a result, FF7 attempt to mute the music (EG during the explosion after the reactor at the beginning), and mutes sound throughout the entire game instead. The problem resolves itself when the music is unmuted.
 
In Vista and later, the MIDI driver doesn't ordinarily get its own volume. However, applications do get their own volume controls. As a result, FF7 attempt to mute the music (EG during the explosion after the reactor at the beginning), and mutes sound throughout the entire game instead. The problem resolves itself when the music is unmuted.
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Yeah I noticed this too.  But my "fix" for keeping the music consistent allows the midi volume to be all the way up (unmuted), so why are scenes like that muted?

It seems to me what you're saying is Vista and Windows 7 need a midi volume control integrated into the OS..
 
It's not the song itself that's trying to mute midi, it's the game engine. This is why it only happens when no song is supposed to be playing.

But you're right about Vista and 7 needing to give midi drivers their own volume instead of sharing per-app volumes.
 
The only problem that i have with FF7Music is that I'm in the first mako reactor with the timer counting down, and the music is playing fine, but then right after my first random battle, the music just turns off completely. I still have sound effects though, just no music.
Note this is not the same music turning off problem that some have with the cutscenes.
I'm using Windows 7 64bit,
I have Aali's opengl mod installed, and in the config file, fake_midi = true. Basically the psf files are running fine, just turning off after a battle.
I tried different configurations in ff7music, like turning resuming to none/always/selective, mute midi, emulate ramps, obey stop. None of these options seem to change anything.
 Is there a fix for that?


I'm not sure if this was answered but i looked through the forum and couldn't find a solution, if i am a crappy searcher, i apologize.
 
The only problem that i have with FF7Music is that I'm in the first mako reactor with the timer counting down, and the music is playing fine, but then right after my first random battle, the music just turns off completely. I still have sound effects though, just no music.
Note this is not the same music turning off problem that some have with the cutscenes.
I'm using Windows 7 64bit,
I have Aali's opengl mod installed, and in the config file, fake_midi = true. Basically the psf files are running fine, just turning off after a battle.
I tried different configurations in ff7music, like turning resuming to none/always/selective, mute midi, emulate ramps, obey stop. None of these options seem to change anything.
 Is there a fix for that?


I'm not sure if this was answered but i looked through the forum and couldn't find a solution, if i am a crappy searcher, i apologize.
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No, this is a known problem with FF7Music. Theoretically, unchecking "obey stop" should fix it, but I've noticed that it frequently doesn't. Unfortunately, that's not likely to be fixed. It happens whenever the battles don't have their own music.
 
Ok I figured a way to fix the changing scene music delay. Instead of replacing the midi files with an empty one select each of the original files separately and set their base volume to 0 –I did that using gnmidien but I guess other programs will also do- then repack back to midi.lgp and place it to the midi directory. Now open the Ficedula FF7 Music.EXE go to playback options set “Resuming” back to “selective” and on the resume only after chose only: “aseri2,bat,chu,chu2,fan2”  tab “Save and Exit” and make sure that you have the midi music from the main menu turned on. Now the midis will be running exactly as long as they are supposed to but you won’t actually hear them and the music won’t delay or restart (depends of your ff7music settings) every time you change scene or resume when it should start over again. I hope any of this to help in some way and for those that don’t know how to mute midi files I’m posting a link with the midi.lgp I made myself:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/t4wwy432vnm/midi.lgp just copy it into your game's midi folder
 
Nero, I added your link into my little tutorial ( I credited you of course).  I would like to somehow combine this thread with Covarr's and my tutorial for a fool-proof way to to get FF7Music working perfectly.
 
obesebear, I didn't even realize you had a tutorial. That's what happens when the only one that's stickied is severely out of date, I guess.

But if you turn the volume down on all the midis, I suspect (haven't tested it yet) that you need to disable "obey ramps" or it'll just play the MP3s/PSFs at 0 volume.
 
Well it's not so much a tutorial, as it is getting the game to properly play the mp3's without restarting or stopping completely.
I messed up my FF7 by uninstalling the PC Demo and am too lazy to reinstall just to see if FF7Music works correctly now.

I don't think "obey ramps" will have any effect.  It sounds like Nero went in and one by one lowered each midi's volume to zero, therefore, whenever FF7 plays it at "127 volume" it will be inaudible.  And when it tries to ramp the music, that too will be inaudible.  Either way, these are only temporary fixes.  I'm sure it won't be long until Aali implements a failsafe way to get mp3's playing perfectly
 
man i wanna know how to do this... but idk, this seems like the most complicating thing ever! :(
 
I don't know how nobody's picked up on this yet, so I'm going to go ahead and say it.

Aali, your "fake midi" option needs renovation. It doesn't work, it makes ff7music not start as often as the original midi starts, and stop in places where it shouldn't. (not all battle scenes should stop the music at the end). I tried it out hoping that I could remove the LoopBe installation and configuration from my FF7 Remix patch, but I had to switch back to LoopBe after finding that the game was full of "awkward silences" after using it.

Constructive criticism because I think FF7Music installation would be seamless if you could perfect this feature.
 
That criticism is not as constructive as you might think. :-P

You need to tell me _where_ this is happening exactly so I can play through that area and find out what's going on.
 
As for the awkward silence, he's referring to the areas like the first reactor when trying to escape.  As you already know, the music should play through the entire escape, but if you encounter one battle, at the end of it the music stops and doesn't resume for quite a while.

There's also the problem of no music playing in the fmv and scene after the reactor explodes (though I think this has always been an issue)
 
Well, that was a pretty stupid bug :-P

Trying to play a song that was already playing didn't do anything (as it should) but crossfading to the same song would still stop it. All fixed now.
 
Great  :-)  What about the lack of sound in the fmv and the scenes that follow?  Or did you manage to fix that too?
 
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