Music and Sound-Related Q&A

Discussion in 'Discussion and Q&A Archive' started by beanDude, Aug 3, 2009.

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  1. beanDude

    beanDude Well-Known Member Member

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    **NOTE: This thread's use is not only limited to me. Feel free to ask questions related to music and sound hacking on this aptly-titled thread...


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    ANYWAYS, YAY - Time for the first question!!!


    I'm not completely sure about the Sonic 3 sound driver...


    I would like to include a song from Sonic 3 in my hack of Sonic 1; however, I am not sure if including the Sonic 3 sound driver would wreck havoc on my existing sound (including the edits)...


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    I also have another question:


    Exactly how would I be able to use a song from, say, Gunstar Heroes (another popular Genesis title that uses the numerical sound system) in my disassembly? Is there any easy way to get the raw .bin image of the song (in the same format you'd find a Sonic 1 song in a disassembly) , and swap it out with the one in Sonic 1?


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    ...If this thread proves to do it's job, I'll be asking more questions soon...
     
  2. Selbi

    Selbi The Euphonic Mess Member

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    To 1: Just putting the S3 sound driver will not really help you. Though S3 music becomes easier to port, you will havemore difficulty on porting songs of other games. And if you want to test what is happening, simply copy your whole split and try it. If things got screwed up, don't use it.


    To 2: IIRC every game has another sound driver, so you will always have to do at least a few edits on the song you want to port.
     
  3. Spanner

    Spanner The Tool Member

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    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 3, 2009
  4. beanDude

    beanDude Well-Known Member Member

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    Well, I guess if Sonic 3 music becomes easier to port, then...


    ...I'm not sure if Sonic 3 can be disassembled so easily... I guess I could try starting out with things that use similar sound drivers (such as Sonic 2?)...
     
  5. Sephiroth

    Sephiroth WHY SO CURIOUS?!? Member

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    To be perfectly honest, a) there is a guide somewhere to porting the S3 sound driver, if I recall correctly. B) You don't have to port the driver to port the song. You don't think Megamix had 8 sound drivers, now, do you? =P C)Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 have very different sound drivers, one of which involves compression and the other which does not. And finally D) It is easy as hell to port songs from S3 to S1. So easy that most people do it, and it becomes un-original.
     
  6. Oerg866

    Oerg866 Well-Known Member Member

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    To "To 1": That is wrong. More games use SMPS similarily to S3, than S1. In fact, you can do most operations using Music Pointer Fixer.


    To "To 2": That is completely wrong. For example, Sonic 3(K) and Sonic 3D have the same sound driver. As do many other games.


    However, there are some minor differences that most of the times are either easily fixed or just ignorable.
     
  7. Qjimbo

    Qjimbo Well-Known Member Member

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    On a slightly related note, I've been expanding the selection of music editing tools in our newly revamped utilities archive.
     
  8. Animemaster

    Animemaster Lets get to work! Member

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    Even though I'm not OH MY GOD AWSOME at music porting, I have ported music from sonic 3k and sonic 3D officently to sonic 1.( A bit of knuckles chaotix, But I can't fix the drums) I don't mind teaching people from porting s3k,s3D and maybe Knuckles chaotix. But from where I learned was from tweaker's music guide, even though I'm still unsure on how to convert from other games properly like ristar and moonwalker. But I don't mind sharing my Knowledge. After all I said in my page, that I don't my helping people.


    And I also have a question: Does anyone know how to get sounds from like sonic 3k working in sonic 1? I need the 3 shield sounds, to go with the sonic 3 shields I ported.


    Edit: Just checked the music utilities, and just wanted to say knuckles chaotix is also supported in music pointer fixer, as I have used it to get them in sonic 1 before.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 5, 2009
  9. beanDude

    beanDude Well-Known Member Member

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    So let's say that I wanted the track from Marble Garden Zone, Act 2 (in Sonic 3/Knuckles) to play in my hack's equivalent to Marble Zone, Act 1...


    What specific steps would I have to go through in order to get that working? (I know there's a tutorial on separate songs per act; I still need to check it out...)


    Also, I know that Gunstar Heroes uses a similar format for music storage as Sonic 1... how would I obtain a single file (of the song from Gunstar Heroes) to replace the original track from my disassembly?
     
  10. Oerg866

    Oerg866 Well-Known Member Member

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    Look up the address of the song in http://info.sonicretro.org/SCHG:Music_Hacking - Remember its start address!


    Extract the song into a separate binary. Load it into Music Pointer Fixer.


    [​IMG]


    Click OPEN. Open your bin file. Check "S2B/S3K to S1". Click on SCAN on the left.


    Select S2B/S3K as music format. Then input the original location in HEX. After that click FIX!


    Then select output filename, click OK. Then input the original location again. It asks if the music is from S2B. Click no. When it asks if it should apply S3K flag conversion, click yes.


    Close the program. Open the binary in a hex editor. You need to replace the PSG voices with Sonic 1 equivalent or else they sound like a scrambled mess. Lover the pitch of the PSG channels by one octave. Fix the DAC to resemble equivalent samples in your DAC setup.
     
  11. Selbi

    Selbi The Euphonic Mess Member

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    The chances are great that he doesn't know how to do that, like the most newbies. :p
     
  12. beanDude

    beanDude Well-Known Member Member

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    I know, but the fact that I just received some step-by-step instructions gives me a place to start from...


    ...Being a newbie isn't a problem as long as I learn to do things, whether they be easy or hard in particular...


    If I wasn't willing to screw things up continually while leaning the raw basics of hacking, then I wouldn't still be working on my hack...
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 7, 2009
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