MIDIs / Mp3's

Theres no program thats going to magically make it sound great.
Lots of programs will render midi to audio but its going to sound exactly the same.
If you want a better more organic sound take youre midi data use it to trigger samplers instead of general midi sounds.
So in stead of a crappy GM midi piano sound use a mulisampled real piano sound.
Any sequencer + a decent sampler should be ok.

Then you have to mix and master it properly. You have to practice and a have a good ear for that no program will just spit out a great sounding mp3 from midi tracks.

Here's a similar thread which even links to another similar thread.

MP3 is not the key to better sounding music.
MP3 is a compressed version of WAV by using codecs.

MIDI is data, and that data needs samples or synths to be triggered.
If you have a soundcard with MIDI sounds on it, it'll have 128 MIDI-instruments, which are small samples/synths that will be triggered by the MIDI data.
SO MIDI IS NOT THE SAME AS SOUND!!! (sound = audio)

If you'll play your MIDI song on a different soundcard or studio, your song will sound totally different.
If you want to make your song sound exact the same at your soundcard as others, you need to record it to Audio, which is either WAV or MP3. (Since MP3 is compressed, it's smaller, so uses less hard disk space)

If you want to have better samples or synths, you'll need to buy sampling software, or sampling hardware. Some Synthesizer workstations and Keyboards have samples/synths in them, others don't...

But since you stated that you didn't want to spend money on it... you might look up if your soundcard is Soundfont compatible. That will allow you to download free SoundFonts that have differrent (mostly not better) samples/synths than your standard soundcard does.

I'm a semi-professional musician and use a studio with some synthesizers, sampling software and sequencing software.

If you'd like to hear an example
http://www.liquidgamestudios.com/music/Imperial%20Guards%20-%20Conquer.mp3

Good luck

[Edited by - NightShader on February 2, 2005 3:59:05 PM]

I was having a similar problem, so I invested the vast sum of £15 buying a Roland SC-7 hardware sound modules from ebay. After plugging this into my line in (I go via a mixer but this is not necessary), I can record high-quality midi triggered sound to my computer. I know you wanted a free option, but this is highly recommended if you are going to be doing it a lot.

Quote:

I'm wondering: is there a totally free (as in, no charges whatsoever, can use for anything without paying anything) program that will convert MIDI's to MP3s and make it sound like it was recorded in a pro studio?

Record it directly from the output just like you've been doing, then add lots of digital reverb.

Adding reverb isn't a magical cure, either. When it all comes down to it, you'll just have soaking-wet GM sound.

Sometimes a half-decent synth module (like the Roland piece mentioned above) can be the answer, but to be honest, you'll probably do better - and have less of a steep learning curve - with a decent software synthesizer. They're midi-triggerable, so you can just drop your existing midi file into them. There are lots of open-source VST software synths that you can download, and some of them are much better than GM; try http://www.kvraudio.com. You can use audacity, which is open source and has a VST enabler that can host VST plug-ins. See if you have any luck with that.

However, I HIGHLY suggest you spend a few bucks and get a decent piece of equipment or a decent software synthesizer. The quality of your audio will be well worth the price; having polished audio can be the thing that sets your game apart from the rest of the herd. There are some examples of really nice softsynth sounds on my website if you're interested. Just my 2¢... Good luck.

The one that I used a bunch was the Timidity where you can load your own sound fonts. There are a few sites out there that have some pretty decent sounding sound fonts...

use ecasound to convert midi's to ogg/wav/mp3's

itunes will convert midi to whatever format is selected in the pref's
(you have to look for the output in the unknown artists folder)

LCL