Frequently Asked Questions

About this site, and about Mabinogi MML

Do I need to install anything

No. Open the page and it works — no download, no plugin, no Java or other runtime. All you need is a reasonably recent browser: recent versions of Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari are all fine.

Do I have to sign in

Editing, playback, MIDI import and file export all work without signing in.

Only sharing requires a Google account. The reason is set out in the privacy policy: as a content storage service, once this site receives a copyright infringement notice and removes the content, it is legally required to notify the uploader — and there is no way to fulfil that obligation without a way to contact them.

It sounds different from the game

First check which sound bank the site is using. The settings drawer (Settings in the title bar) shows which one is currently loaded.

What this site loads by default is a player-made imitation sound pack — close to the real thing, but not the game's own files, which is what keeps it clear of copyright problems. It does differ from the game's actual instruments, particularly in the release tails and the volume balance of certain instruments.

Three other common causes:

• Velocity is not set. The volume balance between tracks in the game is not necessarily the same as the defaults here.
• The wrong instrument. The instrument dropdown on the tab decides the sound; the @ command inside the MML does not take effect on this site.
• The tempo was overridden by another track. t is shared by the whole piece — see the MML syntax guide.

Can I use my own sound bank

Yes. The settings drawer can load your own .dls, .sf2 or .sf3 file.

Can I lose my score

By default it is saved automatically: after every edit the score is stored in your browser, so a refresh or a restart picks it up again. Nothing is uploaded to the server — unless you press Share yourself.

Autosave can be turned off in the settings drawer. With it off, a refresh really does lose everything, so export to .mml yourself using File.

Changing the language reloads the page, but the score survives (the undo history is cleared, and there is no way around that).

What if I am over the character limit

The limit is counted per track, separately. The numbers are set by the game and are hard limits. A track over its limit turns red, but the editor never stops you carrying on editing.

Three approaches, from gentlest to harshest:

1. Try Lossless first. It changes only the spelling, never the sound — collapsing repeated length commands into l, turning octave jumps into < and >, and so on. Hand-written scores usually save a fair amount.
2. Use Optimise in the toolbar. This is the only function in the editor that changes the sound, and what it moves is note length — holding a note so it swallows the rest after it (c4r4 → c2), or shortening it so it creates one (c2 → c4r4). No note's start time moves at all, so the rhythm cannot be broken; what changes is how legato or staccato it feels. One of the three rules at a time, and it reports how many characters it saved.
3. Delete things. If neither of the above is enough, the only way left is fewer notes — repeated passages, ornaments that are too dense, inner voices nobody can really hear.

Lossless does nothing to a score that came from a MIDI import, because the last step of the importer's MML generation is the compressor itself. In that case skip straight to step 2.

How many tracks does a score have

The game's Blank Score takes 4 tracks: Melody, Harmony 1, Harmony 2 and Vocal. One tab is one complete score, with the four tracks separated by commas.

A tab's position is its identity, and dragging to reorder moves the content and the instrument along with it.

How do share links work

Sign in, press Share in the title bar, and you get a URL that looks like /mml/xxxxxxxx-…. Give it to a friend and what they open is your score, loaded into the editor, ready to play or carry on editing.

A few things to know:

• A quota of 10 shares a day.
• What is sent is every tab that has content, each track subject to the game's own character limit.
• Shared content is visible only to whoever has the URL, and is not indexed by search engines.
• Sharing identical content again returns the same URL rather than creating a pile of duplicate links.
• The settings drawer lists everything you have shared, and lets you delete any of it.
• A share link carries no language — whoever receives it sees it in their own language, not yours.

How do I write chords

One track can only sound one note at a time, so a chord has to be split across tracks: the melody carries the melody, and Harmony 1 and Harmony 2 take one note each.

This site used to support the [ceg]4 form as a convenient way to try out harmony, and it is now retired. It is not the game's syntax and would not play once pasted back, and the price it demanded was that the whole editor had to make way for it — a track using chords could not be edited in the piano roll, transposition worked only by whole octaves, tempo changes could not be split, and it could not be merged into anything else.

When an old score is pasted in, [ and ] are dropped along with the other unrecognised characters, with a single notice; the note letters inside are read one after another as single notes — so [ceg] becomes "do re mi sounding in sequence" rather than a chord. To restore the harmony, paste those notes into Harmony 1 and Harmony 2 separately.

Does it work on a phone

Playback and viewing are fine, so opening a share link just to hear it works perfectly well. But the editor is a dense interface designed for a mouse and keyboard — the piano roll wants dragging, pulling the right edge to change length, right-clicking to delete — and all of that is hard work on a small screen. For serious writing, use a computer.

Why do my triplets come out crooked

Only on MIDI import. Importing snaps every note to a 1/32-note grid, and an eighth-note triplet does not land on that grid.

It is a deliberate trade: after snapping, a human-played chord (three notes a few ticks apart) is recognised as simultaneous, and every cell of the piano roll lines up. Without snapping you would end up with a note the roll cannot fix, and nothing to do but stare at it.

Hand-written MML has no such restriction — write c12 d12 e12 and you have a triplet that plays perfectly.

Does it cost anything

No. This site is run by one person: non-commercial, no advertising, nothing for sale, and no third-party tracking. For the details see the privacy policy and the terms of service.