MidiToAIMS
Overview
MidiToAims turns a MIDI file into an AIMS composition that you paste into a music composition book. It is a workbench for musicians, not a song generator: it does the transcription, and you make the musical decisions. It chooses the melody and accompaniment, fits the music into AIMS's range, and writes every note and pause with exact timing. You decide what to change, then refine the result in the book like any other composition.
The finished book follows the usual path: preview it, transcribe it to Sheet Music, and submit it to the Music Box.
You don't need any UO skills. MidiToAims runs on your own computer, and you choose the MIDI files.
Download
MidiToAims is a single Windows program. Nothing needs to be installed.
- [Download MidiToAims.zip]
Unzip it wherever you like, for example in Documents. The MidiToAims folder contains:
- MidiToAims.exe, the program.
- Minuet in A minor.mid, by J. S. Bach (public domain), to try first.
- README.txt, a quick start.
Put the MIDI files you want to arrange in the same folder.
The first time you run it, Windows may say "Windows protected your PC". Click More info, then Run anyway.
Quick Start
The fastest way: drag a MIDI file onto MidiToAims.exe. Try it with the minuet. Minuet in A minor.rzr appears next to the MIDI. That is your composition.
For more control, use the command line. Open the folder, type cmd in the address bar and press Enter, then:
MidiToAims init "Minuet in A minor.mid" MidiToAims "Minuet in A minor.mid"
The first command writes Minuet in A minor.m2a, the arrangement settings, next to the MIDI. Open it in Notepad, set Arranged by to your character's name, and change anything else you like. The second command converts the MIDI using those settings. Edit the .m2a and convert again as often as you like.
Getting It Into the Game
- Open the .rzr file in Notepad and copy all of the text (Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C).
- In game, open a blank music composition book, click on its first page and paste (Ctrl+V). The whole text goes in at once and flows across the pages. The client wraps long lines for you.
- Preview it with [play preview, or with Start in the book's context menu. Stop ends the preview.
- Edit in the book as you would any composition, and preview again.
- When you're happy with it, use manuscript paper on the book to make sheet music.
The header at the top of the composition (# Song:, # Author:) gives the book its title and author.
Long Songs: Several Pastes
The game client crashes if a single paste is too big (more than about 12 pages). So MidiToAims cuts a long book into pieces, each one safe to paste:
Long Song.paste1.rzr paste 1 of 3 Long Song.paste2.rzr paste 2 of 3 Long Song.paste3.rzr paste 3 of 3
Paste them into the same book, in order. After a paste, the cursor waits at the end of what you pasted, so don't click in the book between pastes. Open the next file, copy all of it, and paste again. Pieces always break between phrases.
If an older conversion left other .rzr files for the song, MidiToAims tells you. Don't paste those.
Songs Longer Than One Book
A book holds 96 pages. MidiToAims fills at most 95 of them, which leaves room for your own lines: lyrics, extra settings, notes to yourself.
When a song needs more than one book, each book gets its own files:
Long Song.book1.paste1.rzr book 1, paste 1 of 2 Long Song.book1.paste2.rzr book 1, paste 2 of 2 Long Song.book2.rzr book 2 (one paste)
Use a new book for each book number. Each book starts with its place in the song, for example # Book: 2/3. Books always break between phrases. Keep all of a song's books together in your backpack or in one bag. Previewing or transcribing any of them uses the whole song. A song can span up to 9 books.
Sharing the Text
To share an arrangement, share the MIDI and your .m2a: anyone with MidiToAims can make the same books from them. If you want a book's text as one file, join its pieces at a command prompt, for example:
copy /b "Long Song.paste1.rzr" + "Long Song.paste2.rzr" + "Long Song.paste3.rzr" "Long Song (whole).rzr"
Don't paste the joined file into the game: it is too big for one paste.
The Arrangement Settings (.m2a)
The .m2a file is plain text, one setting per line. Write your value right after the colon: Arranged by: Mira. A blank value keeps the default.
A # starts a comment when it begins a line, or when it stands on its own with a space on each side (Notes at once: 2 # fewer). A # inside a word is kept, so Song: Prelude in C# minor works.
Each conversion's report lists the settings it used, so you can see at a glance whether a change took effect. The report also warns you if a name has a word that starts with #, or is "say" or "wait", because the book may start a new line there and the shard would cut the name.
| Setting | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Song | the MIDI's file name | The song's title. |
| Composer | (blank) | Who wrote the music. It's recorded in the composition. |
| Arranged by | MidiToAims | You. This becomes the book's author, the name the Music Box shows. Set it to your character's name. |
| Timer | Anchored | The AIMS timer. Anchored keeps every pause exactly on time. |
| Notes at once | 3 | At most 1 to 6 notes together. The melody comes first, then the bass, then inner notes from the top. |
| Bars per block | 2 | How many bars go into each phrase block (1 to 8). Each block ends with a wait of exactly its length. |
| Book pages | 95 | Pages filled per book (1 to 96). The rest is room for your own lines. |
Tracks
The starter .m2a lists every track in the MIDI with its name, note count and range, and shows what MidiToAims chose for it:
Track 2: # Violin; 312 notes, G3 to E6 Role: auto # melody (the highest track) Instrument: auto Octave: auto
| Setting | Choices | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Role | auto, melody, harmony, bass, off | melody is the line that leads. bass is preferred as the low note. off leaves the track out. |
| Instrument | auto, harp, lapharp, lute | By default the melody is on the lap harp and everything else on the harp. |
| Octave | auto, or -4 to +4 | Moves the track by whole octaves. |
By default, the track with the highest notes is the melody. A MIDI with only one track uses the top note at each moment as the melody. Drums are left out.
Command-Line Overrides
These options override the .m2a for one conversion:
MidiToAims "Minuet in A minor.mid" --arranger "Mira" --composer "J. S. Bach" --notes 2
Available options: --song, --composer, --arranger, --notes, --bars, --pages. You can also name the output file: MidiToAims "Minuet in A minor.mid" "My Minuet.rzr".
Reading the Report
Each conversion prints a summary:
Minuet in A minor: 165 notes (165 kept, 0 dropped, 14 folded by octave); melody: track 1; melody octave -1, accompaniment 0; 22 [play lines, 63 s, 1.7 KB; 1 book (11 pages; 1 paste) Song: Minuet in A minor; Composer: J. S. Bach; Arranged by: Mira; Timer: Anchored; Notes at once: 3; Bars per block: 2; Book pages: 95
- Dropped notes didn't fit within Notes at once.
- Pages and pastes are per book: a longer song might say 4 books (30, 29, 30, 4 pages; 3, 3, 3, 1 pastes).
- Folded notes were outside AIMS's two octaves, so MidiToAims moved them by an octave.
- After the summary, the report lists the bars where notes were dropped or folded, so you know where to listen and where to edit.
What AIMS Can Play
- Three instruments: harp, lap harp and lute.
- Two octaves, from low C to high C (25 notes).
- Up to 2,000 lines per song, across up to 9 books.
Music written for a full orchestra will be simplified. Pieces with a clear melody and accompaniment, such as dances, folk tunes and keyboard pieces, often sound good straight away. Try lowering Notes at once, turning off busy tracks, or moving a track an octave.
Credit Where It's Due
Arranging a piece doesn't make you its composer. Put the original composer in Composer and your own name in Arranged by. The arrangement is your work, and the composition is theirs.
Use music you have the right to arrange: your own, or music in the public domain. The Mutopia Project has a large library of free, public-domain MIDI files.