3MLE Information and the In-Game MML Engine

the information on 3MLE at the bottom of the page is incorrect. 3MLE is capable of using external .DLS packs, and by default seeks for the msxspirits.dls pack i think in the directory path C:/nexon/mabinogi/mp3/msxspirits.dls.

if users are installing mabinogi into a different location 3MLE will not find the mabinogi DLS pack.

i dont know if the instrument table is up to date in the 3MLE download provided by aloe to include an entry for the physis tuba (i personally manually added it) but as long as your msxspirits.dls that 3MLE has loaded up is up to date with the latest dls pack provided in mabinogi (and it should be if your 3MLE always looks for it inside the folder you installed mabi) then the physis tuba is in your list even if you dont see an entry called "physis tuba". its DLS instrument number is 19, which in the GM.dls pack is a "Rock Organ".

what can confuse many people is how 3MLE loads up DLS packs. it has a table that lists all the GM instruments, but the names of those instruments are irrelevant because they are just "instrument slots" inside the DLS pack thats currently loaded up. the name thats displayed is for the General Midi pack but the number would correspond to the instrument residing in that slot with the DLS pack currently loaded. further, 3MLE is capable of loading up many DLS packs, including custom made packs. one issue some users may be experiencing is that their settings for 3MLE are incorrect. if you only hear General Midi Instruments please go into your 3MLE Settings > Preferences.. > Midi > and in the field that says "Output device:" select "MicroSoft DirectMusic DLS", then also in Settings > Preferences.. > click the tab titled "DLS Playback" wich is the tab right next to midi and make sure that the path for "DLS file" points to the file "MSXSpirits.DLS" which can be located in .../Mabinogi/MP3.

also, the 3MLE information is a bit sloppy. the section im refering too reads:

"it doesn't perfectly follow Mabinogi rules in a few ways. If it is provided an invalid value that is either too high or low for "T", "L", "O", or "V" it will ignore them rather than setting them to the closest as Mabinogi does"

I'll explain this. It does "ignore" certain values which arent valid for mabinogi, for example if you use a tempo of T31 it will ignore this and play the last valid entry which will be T120(default) if no valid tempo information was provided previous.

it may do this with "L" in some instances too, say for example a user types L322 it wont convert it to "L32" (the nearest valid) and instead it will use the last valid length set (L4 default). further explaining the example with the "L" operator, if your code is L8CCL322CCC it will display and playback in 3MLE as L8CCCCC because the L322 section is invalid thus ignored, however the same bit of code L8CCL322CCC will be read by the in-game engine as 2 8th notes fallowed by 3 1/32s because the in-game engine still accepts the incorrect syntax of L322 as "L32" effectively wasting 1 character (that extra 2 at the end of L32"2") in the score so be careful when every last character of code is important for your songs.

now Im not sure why the "O" operator was included in that explination but lets put it this way, if you use O8 which is outside of every instruments range its still valid weather your using 3MLE or the in-game engine, the effect is that you wont hear the note because its out of range but this doesnt mean that the value given is "invalid". this effect happens if your using a String(lute, mandolin, ukulele), a wind instrument (chalumeau, flute, whistle, roncadora) and hand bells (the human ones). i didnt test it on the giant handbells or the physis tuba because im on my human with a shop up and the above listed instruments demonstrate the point and its unlikely that its different for them considering they fallow the same general rules, but feel free to be thorough and try it on a giant hand bell and the tuba if you'd like.

Now for the "V" operator. if you're code expresses cccV16cccV144ccc the V16 is ignore by both the in-game engine and 3MLE's because its outside the accepted range thus you'll get 6 C notes at V8 or whatever the last volume tag that was expressed and where the code says V144 it will be ignored by 3MLE as invalid but just like in the "L" example the in-game engine will read it as V14 and you'll end up with a wasted character (being the extra 4). also since the subject of volume has now been brought up Id also like to note that the wiki page lists 1 as the quietest and 15 the loudest. where that is technically true it has no mention that V0 is also valid both in-game and in 3MLE. why does this matter? when I have time at a later date Ill give the explanation as to why its important to use V0 in certain sections of Party-Jam Music, but the short explanation is that using a rest can cause your songs ticks to be off sync with the other scores in the song.

There are some more oddity's that 3MLE does that the in-game engine does not and vice versa, at the moment Ive forgotten how to reproduce the one that i have in mind so i wont list it until Ive rediscovered it.

Some other information id like to include regarding 3MLE is that there are two versions of the software floating around on the internet. 3MLE1 has a different interface from 3MLE2 and some users may not like 3MLE2 at first because of some of its new features take a little getting used too, specifically the new track view that's not present in 3MLE1. its the little icon that looks like an "eye" next to a drop down box. Ive chatted with some people who expressed to me that when they first tried 3MLE2 they didn't like how the tracks in the piano roll are dimmed. this is easily fixed by selecting "Global Highlight" in the drop down box next to that eye icon i mentioned. the eye icon is for "custom" and "custom highlight", where "custom" functions in that only the track you have selected will be highlighted and "custom highlight" will highlight all tracks. the eye icon is for selecting which tracks you'd like to view and hides all the ones you don't want to view (which is handy at times).

Aside from 3MLE2 having some features that 3MLE1 doesn't, there are some important reasons why its better to use 3ML2 instead of 3MLE1. In the earlier days mabinogi's music engine used 32Ticks per quarter note (TPQN), and this is reflected in 3MLE1 which also is natively in 32TPQN. around G4 in NA mabinogi i was experiencing problems with songs of mine not playing back differently then they used too in the many months before then. this is because without much advertisement of it nexon changed the MML engine to use 96TPQN instead of 32. i was still learning a great deal about music (still am!) and it took the guidance of a very nice friend to teach me about ticks and their importance with music (Thank you so much Delight!).

the change was a good thing because 32TPQN is a pretty lousy musical resolution, with the change to 96TPQN the game gained better support for triplet notes. 3MLE2 is natively in 96TPQN, and it even has a conversion function to convert songs from 32->96TPQN. its in the File menu, if its grayed out it means your songs code functions under 96TPQN but if its lit up it means your song might not function correctly and you can convert it. don't be alarmed at how large your songs code inflates after you convert it, just simply re-optimize the tracks afterward and they will be shortened back down. sometimes tho they do still inflate slightly from the 32TPQN conversion after the optimization but look at it this way; if it was having some errors and you fixed them its probably worth it. some songs that are in 32TPQN do work regardless of weather 3MLE2 detects the difference so maybe you should save the conversion to a separate MML file in case you suspect this is the case.

so sorry for this having posted twice, not quite sure what happened. firefox decided to crash(i think i had too many applications open) and when i checked back to see if it posted i saw a duplicate. strange but if anyone wants to delete the repeat that would be appreciated since i don't think i can do that sort of thing (if i can i dont know how o.o)