I know some of you are unable to play back MIDI files in Blitz, so I wrote this tutorial on using a nice little program called MID2XM.

What it does - it converts MIDI files into XM format, which, unlike MIDI, sounds exactly the same on every setup.

What you'll need:
MID2XM : http://www.un4seen.com/mid2xm.html (registration key is at the top of the page)
MODPLUG TRACKER : http://www.modplug.com (you need to register on the website.. it's free)

The program you'll be using first is Modplug Tracker, because you need to extract the General MIDI soundbank that comes with it.
Be sure to grab the MODPLUG TRACKER QUICKSTART package.

Here's what you do, step by step:

1. Install Modplug Tracker.
2. Find the installation folder.
3. Don't click MPTRACK.EXE, click 8BITDLS.EXE to extract the soundbank, and extract it to the Instruments folder.
4. Open up Modplug Tracker. Click FILE -> NEW -> XM
5. Select the INSTRUMENTS tab in the newly created project.
6. See the list on the left? Enter GM.DLS -> MELODIC, and a big list of instruments will appear. 128 General MIDI instrument soundalikes.
7. Now, get ready for some tedious work..
Drag the instruments 0-127 to the black area.. you have to do this one by one.
Once you've dropped the instrument into the black area, save as .XI
For ease, name the .XI files 000, 001, 002, 003, 004 etc. to match the instrument numbers.
This will also make it easy to load them into MID2XM.

There, that's done, we don't need Modplug Tracker anymore! (use FT2 ;))

Now you can install MID2XM.
Remember to copy the registration code on the MID2XM website http://www.un4seen.com/mid2xm.html.

Once you've started MID2XM, click PATCHES (top right)



0. Don't mess with the settings, it's not necessary. When loading the instruments, save the patch frequently
1. Create a new patch file.
2. Input all the files you saved using Modplug. This is easy because you saved the .XIs as 000, 001, 002, 003, 004 etc.. For instrument 0, just browse for 000.XI.
3. Gmdrums.xi is located in the MID2XM folder. Load it.
4. Click MIDI FILE (far left) and find a MIDI file you want to convert.
5. Click CONVERT!
Test the XM using winamp, or preferably, Blitz, as its playback is very true to Fasttracker2.