Reverse MIDI Files tool

[Gamemaster1379]

I've searched ALL around the internet and have come up unsuccessful in finding a tool to reverse MIDI files. Why do I have the intent to do this? For boredom's sake, I would like to try a few songs backwards. I've already succeeded in flipping the audio...but now my next step is flipping the MIDI file...So far, I've only found ONE tool that can accomplish what I want, MusicMirror, but it's a shareware tool that demands I pay $40 or I can't save. :( Can somebody give me a hand here?

[italianstal1ion]

What tool did you use to flip the audio files? It should be able to do .mid somehow as well.
Also, if MusicMirror has an export MIDI option, you don't need to save it.

Kind of a cool idea, I'd like to try it out too.

[jstump91]

Reversing a MIDI isn't like reversing an audio file; there are a few extra hurdles to jump. (For example, the raw sequence of musical events stored in a MIDI file won't make sense if directly reversed, as "end" events will come before "start" events [a note is represented as separate "start" and "end" events], but that can be worked around by flipping them.)

The end of a MIDI is not as well-defined as the end of the audio, so a reversed MIDI will more than likely need some resynchronization with the reversed audio.

It probably wouldn't be too difficult for someone on here to write a program to do the reversing.

[Gamemaster1379]

Reversing a MIDI isn't like reversing an audio file; there are a few extra hurdles to jump. (For example, the raw sequence of musical events stored in a MIDI file won't make sense if directly reversed, as "end" events will come before "start" events [a note is represented as separate "start" and "end" events], but that can be worked around by flipping them.)

The end of a MIDI is not as well-defined as the end of the audio, so a reversed MIDI will more than likely need some resynchronization with the reversed audio.

It probably wouldn't be too difficult for someone on here to write a program to do the reversing.

Damn. What a pity. Well, I'd write it myself, but unfortunately, due to the poor area I live in, there's no educational areas that can afford computers past 2001 it seems. So, no good computers, no good tech classes, no programming skills.

[jstump91]

This idea was so intriguing to me that I wrote a reversing tool in Python.
http://svn.jstump.com/r/fof-midi-revers ... rseMidi.py (edit: the URL I originally gave was a 404)
svn checkout: svn://svn.jstump.com/r/fof-midi-reverser/trunk or the same with http://.

(It uses the MXM Python MIDI package, which is also what FoF(iX) uses to manipulate MIDI files. I committed a copy of it along with the script, or you can cut-and-paste the midi folder from the FoF(iX) source code.)

As a demo, I used that tool to reverse the notes-unedited.mid of Chop Suey from MrFaust's RB2 rips. Make a copy of that folder somewhere, add "delay = 2750" to the song.ini (this number will depend on the specific MIDI, since, as I said before, the "end" of a MIDI isn't very well defined), reverse the oggs, and overwrite notes-unedited.mid with:
http://www.mediafire.com/?jtm02tnjeoy

[Gamemaster1379]

Awesome, I'll have to try it out...but pity that it can't be applied to the midi itself without need of the song.ini, I could then use it on RB2's new hack, RawkSD. :P

[raynebc]

but pity that it can't be applied to the midi itself without need of the song.ini

For custom songs, song.ini is the only thing that defines the start of the chart relative to the start of the audio, so it's the only way it's possible without altering the chart to contain the leading silence explicitly.

[jstump91]

The tool only touches the notes.mid file. The song.ini edit is just to resync the notes with the song, since (as I have said many times) the end of a MIDI file is not as well defined as the end of an Ogg Vorbis stream, and so the ends rarely align perfectly with one another.

I may upgrade the tool to properly preserve some details of the MIDI that FoF doesn't use, as during testing I actually used it on some MIDIs that are actually intended to be listened to, with interesting results.

[Tormann71]

This could actually come in handy for me. I'm charting a song right now by a band that has another song based off the song I'm charting, backwards. (that sounds really confusing)
This could possibly make it easier to chart the other song.

[guentermidi]

I've searched ALL around the internet and have come up unsuccessful in finding a tool to reverse MIDI files. Why do I have the intent to do this? For boredom's sake, I would like to try a few songs backwards. I've already succeeded in flipping the audio...but now my next step is flipping the MIDI file...So far, I've only found ONE tool that can accomplish what I want, MusicMirror, but it's a shareware tool that demands I pay $40 or I can't save. :( Can somebody give me a hand here?

A bit late but I know a software that can do this : GNMIDI tools for Windows (http://www.gnmidi.com/handbook/english/reversesong.htm).
To prove that it really reverses your midi song you should try to reverse the result and check if it really plays the song again.

[nobby76]

A bit late but I know a software that can do this : GNMIDI tools for Windows

A bit late.. Dude you woke up a post like 8 years later. and these days there are loads of audio programs that can do this sort of thing.

[wolferacing]

Judging by his username, I actually think he is spamming his own program. But I guess I'll leave the post because it might be helpful to somebody?