Sonic MS/GG BGM custom MIDI/WAV/XM files for Sonic 1.

Good day, community.

Some time ago I started working as the music sidekick for a Sonic 1 hack.

The main goal was to create a series of custom music from the Sonic 1 Game Gear/Master System version that would be compatible with Sonic 1 (Mega Drive/Genesis)

With that being said, I started working on the MIDI files, and then got all the way up to the XM files conversion.
This means I made MIDI, WAV and XM versions of the songs.

From there, I think the SMTPS conversion is what follows to implement the songs into Sonic 1.

The main reason why I am putting all the files here is because, as a fellow hacker and music enthusiast, I would love to see these songs implemented in a Sonic 1 hack.

Here's the link for the files:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/5lfxxm89ev6sdux/AABtBYKPHI53HHDBz9Lz7FGXa?dl=0

The list of songs are:

• Bonus Stage.(Sonic 1 Master System)
• Bridge Zone
• Jungle Zone
• Labyrinth Zone
• S&K 2P Menu Theme
• S&K Unused track
• Scrap Brain Zone (Sonic 1 Master System)
• Sky Base Zone

Let me know what you guys think of the covers I did.
My main purpose was to keep the main feel of the 8-bit without adding too much stuff into it. Keep it faithful to the original while still being compatible with the 16-bit console.

If someone starts working on a Sonic 1 hack, please let me know!

(Hopefully someone starts working on a Sonic 1 MD hack that implements all of Sonic 1 MS & MD stages, along with all the bug fixes from Ready Sonic, Spin Attack and Super Sonic, that is my perfect Sonic 1. )

Oh and if you do use my files and covers for your hack...

Don't forget to credit me.

Suggestions and comments are welcome!

 

Hi, I am sorry to say this, but most of your XM files suffer from severe tempo problems. I do appreciate the effort, though. More love for the 8-bit games is always welcome in my book.

 

What? Really? :S

I tried making the tempo as close as I could to the original with Mod Plug Tracker, and I open them there I still get the tempo I set.

Although, I am still unfamiliar with how the 255/1, 255/2, 255/3 and 255/4 SMPS tempos work, and I think this is hat you are referring to, right?

Would you mind helping me out taking one of my XM as an example to know whats wrong so I can fix that in all the XM files?

 

It's not a problem of speed, it's a problem of jitter, and it's very well known; basically, Mod Plug Tracker fails most of the times when it imports MIDI files, and it's not something you can easily fix afterwards.


I can explain you what's wrong, but if you can't hear what's wrong then I'm afraid you're trying to catch a train you're not supposed to, as an experienced musician would easily spot those jitters.


For example, take your "Bonus Stage.xm" and look at channel 4. Count the rows between the notes. 3, 3, 3, ... 4? 3, 3, 3, ... 3, 4??? There you go.


In a Nutshell, Mod Plug Tracker is stupid when it comes to calculate tempos. To be honest, the MIDI timing system doesn't help, but that's another topic. Anyway. To ensure a MIDI is properly imported by Mod Plug Tracker, read this guide I wrote. It will also tell you about the 50 rows bug, which is present in your "Bridge Zone.xm" at least once.


Side note to admins: I recommend to pin my guide and unpin this other one, not to be presumptuous, but mine is more complete and detailed. I never did that by myself while I was a moderator because I would have felt bad and arrogant to pin my own guide over someone else's, but now I feel there's the need to advertise it.

 

Oh THAT.

Yeah I can hear the "jumps" and the added beat, quite fast but it is still noticeable.

I am already fixing that, I am going to take all the drum samples as references to work this out.

But out of that tempo thing, is there anything else wrong with the XMs?

I'm mostly worried about the Tempo/Speed comparison. SMPS Tempo software gave me decimal values in tempo but I chose the closest ones to that value, is that ok?

One more thing, is there any way in which I could change the Tempo/Speed for the S&K 2P Menu so that it doesn't sound that fast and can still be converted to SMPS without any major issues? I tried all the suggested thempos by SMPS-T but they sound either too fast or too slow.

Edit: The Jungle Zone XM was seriously screwed up.
It had 8-9-8-8-8-9. It now sounds SO much better.

Turns out only Bonus Stage and Jungle Zone were severly screwed up, the others do follow a good pattern.
Already edited them and updated them in the Dropbox folder

 

If you can't find any suitable tempo, you can use my MIDI editor to rescale the events (e.g. by 1.5×), just make sure to always end up with a MIDI with 480 ticks per beat and 120 beats per minute, so Mod Plug Tracker will import it fine. I should really document this step in my tutorial.

 

It's not that much of a struggle, I only had that issue with the S&K 2P Menu song, which plays quite fast, but that was it. Out of that, all the other tracks had a fairly near tempo to the correct one.

I will try to work on that one to have them all ready for the SMPS conversion with no other major issues.

Can you share a link to your MIDI editor?

 

There's a link to it in the tutorial I linked above, which makes me think you didn't even read it. There's also a topic about it on this forum, which makes me think you don't know how to operate the "search" function (or, even worse, you don't want to). Either way, here. Please note, if you'll post to say that it doesn't work because you're missing msvbvm50.dll I'm not going to reply anymore.

 

I'd love to see them fixed, as I'm looking to add the MS/GG zones and Bonus Stage in my hack.

 

That's pretty much what I've been working on... only add in some S3K+ level optimization, moar characters... other stuff.

 

Oh you are referring to your MIDI event editor, right?

I did read your guide, actually that's what I used to make the XMs.

I thought you were mentioning another software of yours.

Sorry for the misunderstanding, I'll get to fix the S&K 2P Menu XM ASAP


Thanks for your help and feedback.


 


@KingofHarts:

Wow that would be a dream, even better if you add Tails and Knuckles (and/or the Sonic+Tails combo)!

If you do that let me know how it goes, I always wanted to see that!

 

Oh and the MS/GG tracks are all fixed now, only the S&K ones need some more work, but since those do not belong in the original Sonic 1, give it a go with the ones I already have in the folder under "My XM"

 

I've already got Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Mighty AND Metal Sonic in... though they aren't finished....
They were going to originally figure into my old Sonic Trilogy Enhanced project... so I put them into my hack.

 

Quite a good roster you have there!


Sounds really good. Will you be implementing both Sonic 1 MD and Sonic 1 GG bonus stages?


If so, are you going to make them accessible through different meanings? (i.e. Lamp Posts, etc)

I am already editing the only remaining track left to be fixed (and I already uploaded another version of S&K Unused XM track with better drums).

The last XM will be uploaded in a few minutes...

 

The regular special stages are emerald stages... with a 7th emerald.

The bonus stages will use the unused effect and the lamppost.

As far as stage layouts... I won't be using ANY of the original SMS/GG layouts, though the layouts will have some influence from the source. There will be other changes like a change to the LZ boss to fit in the music and SMS/GG boss, and Sky Base... yada yada yada

As far as optimizations, easter eggs. etc. I'm aiming to make it as close to the iOS release as possible, along with a couple additions of my own.

 

The seventh emerald addition is really neat, would be greatly accepted.

I like how you have it thought out, I would really love to see the final result, and if I can help be sure to let me know.

Update:

I already finished editing the S&K 2P Menu (Competition) XM file, they are all now updated and (most likely) fixed.

@nineko:


I read somewhere that the files must have a 9 channels limit, although later down in your tutorial you cut the channels down to 7.


Was that made just for optimization or is it strictly required to be 7 channels for the SMPS conversion?

 

Alright Ill explain this. Ill tell you what channels you can use and what they are, channel 1-5 (there are 6, but it messes with the DAC unless you fix it manually) are FM which would be the instruments, channel 10 is for the DAC/drums, and 11-12 is PSG, and channel 13 is used for the hi hats and what not which is PSG, so if you use PSG 13, you wont be able to have hi hats in the DAC channel, make sense?

 

No, that doesn't make sense since he's using an XM conversion process. Here's an explanation of what the craic actually is.

The Mega Drive has a limit of 10 channels, technically - 6 FM channels, or 5 FM channels and a DAC channel and 4 PSG channels. The first three are tone channels and the fourth is a noise generator.

The variant of SMPS that we commonly use limits us to 9. The reason behind this is the PSG's noise channel has an extra mode that allows an extended pitch range, but this means that we cannot use PSG3 as a tone channel. Basically, all you need to know is that you have a maximum of 9 channels, and you'll either have PSG3, a tone channel, or PSG4, the noise channel. I hope that clears things up.

 

I used only 7 channels in the tutorial because I didn't know what to do with the remaining two. But yes, the actual practical limit with the sound engine we use is 9 channels. Other drivers (e.g. Cube) allow you to use all 10 at the same time, but they're not usable here. Feel free to take inspiration from existing XM files in the repository, there are some good ones, both mine and other people's.

 

Thank you all for your explanations!
I was starting to worry that I had to lower the channel limit to 7, but gladly I did it just right and I stand right in the 9 channel limit for some tracks.

So that makes all the XM files fixed (AFAIK) and ready for the SMPS conversions

Thanks again for the feedback!

 

I feel the same way Nineko I feel like PSG 3 and 4 are worthless and should never be used, why because 3 messes with the DAC, and 4 just uses annoying static noises.

Edit Also glad to help Shadowone, even If I barely did lol

 

Nicely done. This belongs in the SMPS Archive though, so if someone could move it there? :v

It's comforting to see that people are still working on tracks and sharing them with the community