With all these rm2k gurus around, one would expect to see a tutorial on how to format midis to loop HOWEVER YOU WANT THEM. That’s right folks, many of you haven’t noticed that songs in rm2k don’t have to loop from beginning to end. You can very easily make your song have a 20 second introduction and make it loop from 20 seconds in once the song reaches its end.

You will need:
- A midi file to process.
- A midi editor (I STRONGLY recommend Cakewalk Pro Audio 8.0 or higher)

1. Load up your file in cakewalk make sure you are in the default view. (The 2 paned view with the track data on the left and the music in the right in sort of a waveform view)

2. Begin by choosing exactly where you want the song to loop. You can only choose where the loop starts. The loop will ALWAYS end at the end of the file.

3. Add a new track to the midi. Make this file the 1st track in the midi. This can be done in Cakewalk by right clicking on the 1st track in the track-data-pane and selecting “Insert Track” from the menu that pops up.

4. Title this track “TEE-D” without the quotes. Set the channel of track at 1. Key, velocity and time should all be 0. Patch, Vol, Bank, and Pan should all have no value. (Values should be set at “-1” if “-None-“ is not an option.) Time should be set for 0. Port should be set for 1.

5. Enter the following data into the new 1st track you’ve just created. This can be done easily in the “Event List” view in cakewalk. Insert an event into Track 1. Set the HMSF to all zeros. MBT to the exact point you want the loop to start. Make the event Channel 1. Make the kind of event “Control”. Make the data of the event “111”. In cakewalk you will see an unmarked field after data, make that field equal zero.

6. This next part is only mildly tricky. Look at what channels all the other tracks use. You need to make an “initialize track” for each channel that gets used. (I’m not sure of the “TEE-D” track counts but I always assume it does to be safe.)

7. Make a new track for each channel used. Call them all “init2” without the quotes. Key, velocity and time should all be 0. Patch, Vol, Bank, and Pan should all have no value. (Values should be set at “-1” if “-None-“ is not an option.) Time should be set for 0. Port should be set for 1.

8. The channel on each should correspond to the channels that get used in the song. For example, if the song uses midi tracks 1, 2, 4, 7, and 8, you would make 5 initialize tracks and set the channels of them to 1, 2, 4, and so on.

9. You DO NOT need to make multiple initialize tracks if a channel is used more then once. If 5 tracks all use channel 3, you only need one initialize track for channel 3.

10. Enter the following data into ALL OF the initialize tracks. This can be done easily in the “Event List” view in cakewalk. Insert an event into each track. Set the HMSF to 00:00:00:06. MBT to 1:01:174. Make the event Channel equal the channel of the initialize track you are currently doing. Make the kind of event “Control”. Make the data of the event “1”. Some midi programs such as cakewalk will say “1-Modulator” when you enter 1; this is fine. In cakewalk you will see an unmarked field after data, make that field equal zero.

11. Next we will add another event into ALL OF the initialize tracks. This can be done easily in the “Event List” view in cakewalk. Insert an event into each track. Set the HMSF to 00:00:00:06. MBT to 1:01:186. Make the event Channel equal the channel of the initialize track you are currently doing. Make the kind of event “Wheel”. Make the data of the event “0”.

12. Once this is done for all the initialize tracks. Save the file. You are done. If I got the message across properly and you entered all the data the way I intended you do. You will now have a looping midi.

General info/tips:

- If you don’t like the position where the loop ends, the only thing you can do is delete the end of the midi so that the file ends where you want the loop end to be. ALL DATA ON EVERY TRACK must end at that point for rm2k to recognize the file (and loop) as having ended.

- When the loop end is reached, the music will instantly pick up at the point where the “TEE-D” ends, so try to make the percussion and instruments line up nicely so the loop cant be so easily noticed.

- Making the MBT of the event in the “TEE-D” track equal a point after the song ends causes the song to not loop at all.

- If you are REALLY, REALLY, REALLY stuck. E-Mail me a midi and I will make it loop so that you can see what it’s supposed to look like.

(You better be dead stuck and I mean it.)

Questions/Comments ? E-Mail me at hexnet@hexnet.com
||bass April 16th / 2001 4:43pm