YM3/YM5 To MIDI File Convertion Utility - Version 1.3
By Andrew Gower

This program is designed to be used in conjugation with the ST emulator PaCifiST. The
emulator can save ST sound data as ym_???.bin files. You can then use this program to
convert them into PC Midi files!! The converter only works for chip-music 
(not MOD files etc...)

Having used PaCifiST to create the ym files you simply run Makemidi.exe, enter the
name of the .ym file you want to use, and .mid file you want to create.

Then you need enter which instrument you want to use for each of the ST's 3 channels.
This is the difficult bit. It is VITAL that you choose the right instruments for a song,
or it will sound absolutely terrible, there's no easy way of working out in advance what
instruments to use, trial and error is probably the best way. A lot of ST chip-music
created 'special effects' by very rapidly switching notes. For channels which do this you
will need to choose a beepy sounding instrument (such as 85 or 16). For other channels
which play more slowly you can just choose an instrument which goes well with the tune,
good ones to try are 4, 18, or 32. (in my opinion). Although there's loads more you should
try. (Any number from 0 - 127).

Finally select if you want the program to try to convert drums or not, this often doesn't
work very well, but with some tunes sounds quite good, so try it with drums first, and if
you don't like it turn them off.

It might take a lot of experimentation, but for most tunes you should be able to find
a combination that works! I've included some example MIDI files which were created using
this program to show you how its done! MIDI files created with this program tend to
sound better if you haven't got a wavetable sound card, because they then sound beepier
and hence work the way they were designed to. If you have a wavetable sound card you can
try creating a square-wave beep using a program like CoolEdit 96, and uploading this to
your sound card as the sample and it should sound ok.

Andrew Gower
Homepage: http://www.fitz.cam.ac.uk/~acg29
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