Ported Music in Hacks

I was wondering how people felt about the use of songs ported from other Genesis/Mega Drive games that use the SMPS sound driver in hacks. It's pretty rare to here people talk about it due to how rare it is. Porting songs from MIDI files seems to be more common because of the programs made for it, the almost endless selection of music, and the amount of control that can be had over the song's final result. While it is great to hear a good MIDI port, in my opinion it never lives up to song made specifically to work on the Genesis/Mega Drive, especially stuff by Naofumi Hataya, Hikoshi Hashimoto, and many other awesome composers, and so I'd prefer to hear it in a hack. In fact, some of my favorite hack soundtracks use ported music such as Metal Sonic Hyperdrive and Sonic 1 Megamix.

The reason for this thread to exist is because I'd like to know if I should put the effort into making a guide for music porting.

 

I like the idea of remixed tracks more than straight-up porting. I can only handle the same tunes so many times before I go insane.

 

The only thing I don't like about Mega Drive music being ported from other games is that it's common to hear the same songs throughout multiple hacks and that gets stale fast. I'd much prefer people porting their own remixes or original scores into their works, though I would like to see people being more daring and risky with that. There exists a small number of people who understand how to best utilize the Mega Drive's sound capabilities and would like to see that number go up.

 

Also just because they are not professionals doesn't mean it can't be good. Just listen to DalakSam, Joenick, and Bakayote's music.

Three vastly different styles but they sound really good.

 

Things are getting a little contradictory, here: ProjectFM says he thinks SMPS ports are rare, and others are saying they're already sick of them(?). There are a lot of SMPS games out there; you can't possibly have gotten sick of all of them. Not to mention, having been a judge this year, I am sick of half-hearted MIDI-conversions.

 

No one has claimed to have heard all music from SMPS games, but I'd bet that I'm not the only one who has heard the same group of songs being used in multiple hacks. I don't doubt that there still exist a fair number of songs that have yet to be ported over to hacks, but being around as long as I have, I can't help but recognize when a music track has been used before in another work on many occasions. I agree with half-hearted MIDI conversions plaguing projects, which is why I've stated that I'd like to see people being more daring and risky with their songs in my previous post. It's a double-edged sword for sure but of the two options available, I know which I'd prefer seeing as porting is quite limiting and runs a greater of risk of repeats.

 

I brought up a similar topic yesterday on Twitter, regarding my compositions that utilize sounds that only the YM2151 (OPM) or YM21280 (OPS) could produce, the trouble that I would have is that there are specific sounds that you could only get in OPM and OPS that do not emulate perfectly in the form of YM2612 (OPN2) or YM3438 (OPN2C) audio, some tracks won't translate well at all, especially if the original track is using Dual YM2151, which gives you at least eight FM channels to work with.
In my case, if I were to ever have my YM2151 or YM21280 tracks used in a ROM hack or Homebrew work for the Genesis/Megadrive, Sega CD, Super 032X, or a combination of two or all three of them, I would have to keep each track as either a PCM sample through the DAC, a properly looped PCM sample through the Sega CD, or a PWM sample through the Super 032X, it would be the easiest way for me to keep my tracks fully intact without losing virtually any notes or sounds, it would all come down to how good the playback quality would be in the long run.

As for the topic at hand though, I am all for seeing YM2612/YM3438 tracks become easier to learn how to port and create new and/or original compositions, but I hope that this will not only be limited to users of SMPS, it would be nice to view music porting and composing become easier for users of GEMS, the Echo driver, and plentiful other custom drivers alike; SMPS can only do so much that the other drivers will need some good attention sooner or later, especially when it comes to getting a sound that we have never heard before in the instruments delivered for working with.
No matter how it comes to be, I truly do hope that what comes of any and all newer guides and tutorials will allow for composers and porters alike to get some extra tips and tricks that weren't available to them before, OPN audio definitely can sound very beautiful when done right and I am sure that any new methods and practices will help in making that possible, I hope that your guides will help greatly in doing so, alongside anybody else's as well.

 

> Says porting SMPS from other games is rare

Excuse myself while I change my pants from laughing too hard...

Seriously, though, have you paid *any* attention to the last, oh, 13 years of the community or so? SMPS song transplants have been done to death. Most of the people in this community wouldn't know creativity and diversity if they were voraciously beat on the forehead with it. Originality and creativity is the spice of life, people. Try it.

 

Just to clarify, I mean songs from games other than Sonic 1-3K, Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic Crackers, Knuckles Chaotix, and Ristar.

 

And the game it comes from matters why now? SMPS ports are SMPS ports, no matter where they come from. And the fact of the matter is the scene is flooded with 'em.

 

The reason it matters is because the songs from the games I listed can be easily converted using either SMPSConv or MusicPointerFixer. Because of this, ports from these games are really easy to make and so they are very common in hacks. What I'm specifically talking about in this thread are ports of songs from games that either take a bit more work in order to make them sound right or aren't usually converted (Many Fatal Fury 2 songs, for example). It's obvious that everyone's tired of hearing stuff like Azure Lake Zone in Green Hill Zone and so it's not important to this thread.

Sorry for not getting this point across before. I seem to have a knack for messing up discussions like this.

 

Is it bad that even though I heard S1-S3D music in a shit ton of stuff and I still enjoy it whenever I hear it? Green Grove is still one of my favorite songs, and I heard it everywhere.

 

I'm sorry for barging in this thread but something has to be said about this.

Okay, fucking STOP already. Stop adding stupid zeroes to your posts that don't make any fucking sense whatsoever. Stop with your stupid naming conventions that you apply to literally everything too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32X

Take a look at that and tell me where it says 032X, unless you have some absolutely retarded browser extension that applies your delusion across every single fucking page you visit.

Stop your fucking stupid shit already before we start applying text filters to get rid of your stupid naming...or else we'll just get rid of you, and you'll be left to cry on YouTube because a lot of fucking people cannot stand you whatsoever...aside from your "friends" who probably only associate with you because they feel so sorry for you.

If you think that the way you post is something that is genuinely normal, please get off the internet right now and seek some mental help.

 

I literally couldn't care less if the music is taken from another game or not provided it works in context.

Megamix and Advanced Edit were full of ports from other games. They worked extremely well, and most of Metal Sonic Hyperdrive's music is literally taken from a YuYu Hakasho game. I don't give a toss where it's from or whether it's custom made as long as it fits the context.

If you want overused? See the garbage Mega Man ports that I've had to endure in my time in the scene. At least Hybrid Front, Ristar, Virtua Racing, Dangerous Seed, etc sounded good.

 

I agree absolutely with this. But this is what I usually do. I'm even doing this to my hack. But I do a variation between arrangements with little changes and others that have their arrangements heavily changed. Take there some examples.
A little arrangement of Lava Reef Act 1 from Sonic & Knuckles

A very different arrangement of the same song

To be frank, I don't have too much against the use of music imports. I even did lots of it in the past! I think the biggest problem on using music imports from ROMs are how they are used. The Hacking Contest of this year per example shown lots of different hacks with the same two songs ported from the Ristar Planet Undertow stage. Seriously... I saw a huge countless quantity of different hacks, on different kinds of levels (Ice levels, water levels, and etc...) all of them using these same songs. This is what makes the thing boring and overused. I don't see too much of a problem if the people import music from other ROMs, but this thing starts to be a problem when various projects from various different people starts to uses them all over the same purpose: Levels.

Variation is needed. Creativity also needs to be applied to the music, with no doubt. But most of the times I saw people taking music from other games and porting them to their hacks just because they likes the song. They even don't care if the song fit to the event/stage/menu/etc! This is the boring part of the situation. Taking these details in account, I really don't see problem on using music ports. I could even use my own hack as a example of it. I used the known racing game song to the title screen of my hack but I never seen other people trying it because it really sounded as a exclusive track of my hack, just because it's a unique and very different track which I didn't see others using before. And it stayed as the theme of my hack because no one tried this song since then. And this was completely unintentional because I choose a song I knew that no one would try so early. And... tadaa! It happened.

 

I don't think it's completely right to link learning to port with all of those overdone songs. If anything, those select few songs are probably available as part of some public SMPS pack, which, to people who don't know how to port music or make their own, will be their only option for adding 'new' music. Teaching people to port should reduce the repeated songs. Yes, by a smaller margin than learning to convert your own, but as ProjectFM said, there's the benefit of higher-quality music in the beginning than total beginner stuff, and you wouldn't need a good ear for music to be able to pull it off, either.

I think it does become 'short-term goal vs long-term goal' beyond a certain point, but MIDI conversions aren't always unique, either: I'm already sick of Undertale conversions, no matter how good they are. In that case, you're arguing for an unoriginal song that took a long time to learn to convert well, or another unoriginal song that took less time to learn to port well. Resolving that issue of originality would require we learn to compose our own music, so where do we draw the line; when does it become acceptable to be unoriginal?

 

I do personally like hearing songs that I like from other platforms in SMPS provided the porting is of a decent quality and not just say using some of the more "ugly" kind of instrument sounds from the YM2612 in combination. (I mean like a lot of distortion guitars, though they're not always bad, depending on the game/genre/etc). The thing I've noticed with the 2612 more than other chips is that you really have to know it to make it work at its best, using it in combination with the PSG to achieve certain effects. That said, I think the practice of porting songs to SMPS for hacks is relatively harmless, so long as the credit is given for original MIDIs (If used of course) where necessary.

 

I wanna hear some new stuff, even if it's obscure music I've never heard being remade on the Mega Drive.

Ports just don't do anything for me, you hear a tune from another game, you already have a mental impression of the theme it's meant to convey, trying to remould that impression just doesn't fill me with that kind of excitement.

 

Quite frankly, I think SMPS ports are fine as long as there are few of them. I do definitely prefer custom ports instead.

And quite frankly, the same also applies to your hack Sonic Next Genesis, ProjectFM. If I wanted to listen to Golden Axe 2 music, then I would just, you know, play Golden Axe 2.
I actually liked it more when your hack had custom MIDI ports, it showed very well how much effort you were willing to put in, and once again, I'm sad to see that you seem to throw all the effort out of the window...

 

This is a really bad excuse for not liking ported music:

• By that logic, custom ports shouldn't be used in hacks either because you can play the game the original song came from and the version you'll listen to will be of better quality because it will lack the Genesis/Mega Drive's limits.
• What if I don't want to play Golden Axe 2 and would rather play a Sonic game? Sure, I could play Golden Axe music from Youtube and turn the sound of the Sonic game off but then the music won't really be part of the game.
• What's wrong with having one game that shares a song with another? As long as it fits the level, it still adds to the experience.
• What about untranslated games or terrible games which make playing them a bad experience. Wouldn't you rather have the music used in them added to something more fun to play?

Believe it or not, adding these songs to the game took a lot of effort and replacing the soundtrack would waste that effort. I had to listen to hundreds of Genesis songs to find songs that sounded good, fit the levels I wanted to use them, and weren't used in any hacks that I knew of (though some songs I found out later that they were used). Also, I did the soundtrack three times, with the lengths ranging from 25 to 40 songs, and that's no including the soundtrack I did for the Telephone Hack 2. Converting the songs took a lot of effort, also. Songs from Mega Man: The Wily Wars had to have their pointers changed by looking through the song file, a few songs from The Hybrid Front had the SetVol pointer that had to have each value that used it to be changed to work with Sonic 3K's version of the SetVol pointer, each song had to have the DAC and PSG adjusted to fit Sonic 3K's driver, I had to extract all the songs from a build of Sonic 2 that included Flamewing's Sonic 3K driver and make them into files to use for my hack, and I had to, you know, not only figure out the best method for converting songs, but also figure out all the tricks for doing certain things in order to get the best sounding result possible. Really, an unbelievable amount of effort went into making my hack's soundtrack possible. And there's also the 25 minutes of effort that went into this post..

Edit: I'm all for making remixes of songs and if I ever start making pretty good ones, I'll replace all the songs in my hack with remixed versions..