I know it’s not the most fun topic of conversation, but it’s gotta be discussed.
First and foremost, you generally cannot make money from your edited video game music. Do not sell it, do not ask for donations, and to be honest, you shouldn’t even run ads against it. This is not a hobby you should come into expecting to profit from. The reason for this is simple: you are not creating original content, but editing something someone else made. If you do an entirely original arrangement of someone else’s song, then you can sell it, but you usually have to pay royalties to the original composer.
Second, many musicians do not like to share project files, and it is rude to ask for them. Musicians will generally not share what soundfonts, synthesizers, samples, and sound libraries they used to make something, nor release MIDIs, sheet music, or stems of their own songs. Some musicians do it, but do not expect it to be the norm. Musicians do not want to make it easy for people to imitate their music.
Third, there are few legitimate ways to use MIDIs transcribed by other people, and it is best to avoid using them as much as possible. Do not take a MIDI transcribed by someone else, put a soundfont on it, and call it an original piece of work. This is called a MIDI slap, and it is frowned upon. Doing it with a MIDI extracted from a video game directly is slightly less sketchy, but will impress no one. If you take this route, make sure to choose good instruments and mix it well. When you are doing an arrangement, it is expected that it will not be note-for-note identical to the original, but changed up significantly. However, it is OK to look at a MIDI as a guide if you’re planning to insert its melody into another song, or to try to figure out what key it’s in.
