Enhancing libmodplug's playback support for MIDI files and other "instrument-free" music formats

[peteroupc]

The following is an enhancement request for libmodplug's support for playing MIDI files (.mid).

• Support for software synthesis of MIDI files using other instrument source formats besides Timidity's patch format (e.g., downloadable sounds [DLS]; .sbk; SoundFont2 .sf2; OPL2, OPL3, and other FM instrument banks). In this sense, the source code in the projects fluidsynth, libADLMIDI, libOPNMIDI, and OPL3BankEditor may be useful here. Moreover, Timidity's patch format appears to support SoundFont 2 already, but it's cumbersome in libmodplug to specify a directory containing timidity.cfg as opposed to specifying the SoundFont file (.sf2) directly.
• If not already supported, support seeking of MIDI files such that a pause and resume function can be offered by a media player.
• Support for popular looping conventions seen in MIDI files, if not already supported.

This request also applies to .abc and other "instrument-free" music formats as it does to MIDI files.

EDIT (Oct. 9): Just as an aside, a public-domain music synthesis library and instrument banks would greatly help improve MIDI playback support across the open-source ecosystem; however, I don't insist on that for purposes of this issue.