Converting MOD/S3M/XM/IT to GM MIDI with Timidity
Timidity is an excellent command-line MIDI player. But it is also an excellent converter. It can convert MOD, XM, S3M and IT files to MIDI, and does so extremely well.
The command is:
timidity -OM
The output is an m2m and a mid file.
You need to edit the m2m file with a text-editor to tell Timidity which MIDI programs (or patches if you will) each sampled instrument in the XM should be mapped to.
If you want a specific sample in the XM to be mapped to a MIDI piano, then you simply input program 1 in that line.
We often use chord samples in MODs and XMs, and Timidity supports that too. If you want the sample to be mapped to a chord, you simply add a letter to the program number: M for a major chord, m for a minor chord, d for a diminished chord and f for a fift chord.
Additionally you can rotate the chord down with a following number. So for example 1M2 is program 1 (piano) major chord rotated 2 down.
GM MIDI always use track 10 for drums. To map an instrument to a drum, the program number should instead be the instrument number for drums, followed by an asterisk. So 35* would be a bassdrum.
More instructions available at Github.
After editing your m2m file, run the conversion command again and listen to the resulting midi file. Keep tweaking the m2m file until you're satisfied with the resulting MIDI version.
And that's all there is to it really.
Here's an example of an m2m file I used for one of my simpler tracks.
# Sample Program Transpose FineTuning %Volume
1 7 24 0.000000 100
2 105 -12 0.000000 100
3 105M 12 0.000000 70
4 105m 12 0.000000 70
5 3 12 0.000000 100
6 3 24 0.000000 100
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