How to play AMB files without opening SMAC?

[Kaboth]

I'd like to listen to the SMAC and SMACX .amb music files while a work sometime. Does anyone know a program that can read them I couldn't find anything in the SMAC folder like the playuv15.exe program that plays the .wve movie files.

[Commy]

Here's the problem. There are no music files in the game. Only sound effects. Located in the sound folder are special files that combine the sound effects to create different "music". Think of it this way. Say that all the sound is created by a piano. Instead of remembering 15 songs, the game remembers the 88 keys on the piano, then has 15 files that combine those keys to make 15 songs. Maybe somebody can explain this better...

You could record the sound effects onto a CD, but as for the music, you need the other programs, so unfortunately, I think it might as well be impossible...

[Kaboth]

Thats a shame the only music file in MP3 is the opening menu track in the fx folder.

[Chaos Theory]

Commy: what you describe is like the MIDI format.

[Commy]

Sorry, Chaos Theory, don't understand what you're saying here...

[Chaos Theory]

Oh man, too young to remember MIDI? Do an internet search for it! It's one of the most efficient ways to store music possible, though it suffers from low fidelity. Another format, MOD, used the same principles as MIDI to achieve higher fidelity, though at increased file size. This was before the days of mp3, incidentally. Mixing mp3 and MIDI might allow a very high compression format, but I don't think anyone has done this.

[Commy]

It's not a music program that combines the sound affects, it's a notepad document that tells when to play certain sound affects. I still don't know what MIDI is, but I think you're talking about something different...

[Chaos Theory]

Like I said, search for it if you don't know what it is! Expand your horizons!

[Qwerty88]

Man, I havn't heared MIDI in a long time.

[Enigma_Nova]

MIDI?

I remember that the MIDI player has a library of instruments and notes, and that a MIDI file is simply a 'music sheet' of when to play certain notes.

I think MP3 does a fourier series decomposition and stores the waves with frequencies in the human audible range.

As for combining MIDI and MP3? Get a MIDI file and winzip it.

[Chaos Theory]

What I mean by combining MIDI and mp3:

Identify repeated sounds, such as notes from musical instruments or syllables. Store them in the mp3 format, as instruments. Convert the original sound into sheet music for all these "instruments". The resulting file should be larger than MIDI and smaller than mp3, but should have a quality much higher than MIDI, and a little lower than mp3.

[Commy]

Okay, maybe it is MIDI format that is used, sounds exactly like the same thing. They literally are music sheets that tell when to play certain sounds.

[Zeiter]

Here are a few examples of midi files. You know a midi file when you hear it because it sounds all sythesizer--ish.

[Commy]

Unfortunately, I can't seem to figure out how to listen to it, sorry...

[Zeiter]

Hmmm, you should just unzip the files and click on the midi files, and they should play like mp3's on winamp. It seems like I've had alot of people say that they couldn't get stuff I've posted to work. Could something be wrong with the winzip program I'm using?