We were working on the mobile version of a franchise video game, for a handset that only supported general MIDI. At the very last moment in the production we were finally handled the source material for the title music, which was to be converted to MIDI... Except the piece was without any element remotely portable to GM. Just a bunch of atonal pads with filter effects and the occasional vocal sample.

As the audio director, I explained to the boss that it was near impossible that anyone would recognize this as the franchise's music once "translated" to general MIDI, and we had to derive from it at least a little (not mentionning the fact that I had to remind him all over again every few weeks, for years, why general MIDI didn't allow us to do this or that, which each tim he pretended to understand, but instantly forgot).

So I advised we let the composer create something new for the title, reminiscent of the franchise but that would work in MIDI, just like he had done for the rest of the game. Which was apparently out of the question. "It's imperative that people can recognize the music from [franchise] right away. We already paid for that music, we have to use it". I rested my case that given the technical limitations of the handset and the source material, there was no solution for achieving that. As a reply, I was given the worst of looks, and this: "What don't you understand? You have a team of 20 people! That's more than enough to find a solution!"