SNES Music in general

2009-02-15 10:44:12 am

I dont know if its the right place to ask, but I just give it a try.

Does any of you know a good way to create music for the SNES soundchip? The only things I found so far were a tool to convert mod files into spc, but thats not really what I want, I'd rather have a native SPC tracker or something. I also found this work-in-progress tracker (http://twilightro.kafuka.org/~blackhole89/sst.php), but I'm not quite sure when this will finish.

Thread title:

TAxxOUTBR3AKxx

2009-02-15 11:07:32 am

No, this actually probably belongs in the Social Forum of the site. This is for Hacks and Fan games to be released/already released for games of the Metroid series. I'm sure Acheron or another mod will point you in the right direction though! grin new

Oh, and good luck finding an answer to your question!

P.JMan

2009-02-15 02:14:30 pm

I like Big Butts and I can not lie

No it doesn't. Currently people are just making music in pure hex code using Kej's docs as a reference AFAIK

Kejardon

2009-02-15 02:56:43 pm

Embarrasing Fact: Power suit made by lowest bidder

Quote from nael:

Does any of you know a good way to create music for the SNES soundchip? The only things I found so far were a tool to convert mod files into spc, but thats not really what I want, I'd rather have a native SPC tracker or something. I also found this work-in-progress tracker (http://twilightro.kafuka.org/~blackhole89/sst.php), but I'm not quite sure when this will finish.

It... depends.
The main problem is that the SNES soundchip is a whole processor in and of itself. You don't give it music, you give it code. And different games have different code to play their music. It's very rare for music from one game to be compatible with music from another game.
So, if you're looking for a way to make music for a specific game.... it'll have to be a game that already has a good tool for making music for it.
I believe there's such tools for Super Mario World (or at the very least, a mod->N-SPC converter) with how prevalent music hacks are for it. In addition, Super Mario World uses an N-SPC engine for its music which will be mostly compatible with a number of other Nintendo-made games (such as Super Metroid and Link to the Past), so with some know-how and tweaking you could probably use the same tools to work for other games.
If you're looking to make spcs of music for fun... well. The SPC is pretty comparable to a tracker, the only significant differences are that the SPC has to be programmed to use a format before it makes any sound to begin with, and the SPC is limited to 8kbps samples IIRC, and 64 kb total size. Really, the SPC is too versatile for music on it to be recognizable as SPC music, plus it requires a lot more work to get it to work from scratch (though with the benefit that you can program your own filters and effects into it). Unless you're doing it for a game, I think you might as well use a mod tracker or something to begin with.

As for a good way to directly work with SNES music? Something like blackhole89's program would be good, if it were finished. I'm pretty sure there isn't one done though. MathOnNapkins might be working on one for Link to the Past, I'm not sure if he's going to or not, but I'm pretty sure blackhole89's is farther along. Although blackhole89 hasn't shown much progress lately AFAIK.

[quote="nael"]
Does any of you know a [b]good[/b] way to create music for the SNES soundchip? The only things I found so far were a tool to convert mod files into spc, but thats not really what I want, I'd rather have a native SPC tracker or something. I also found this work-in-progress tracker ([url=http://twilightro.kafuka.org/~blackhole89/sst.php]http://twilightro.kafuka.org/~blackhole89/sst.php[/url]), but I'm not quite sure when this will finish.
[/quote]
It... depends.
The main problem is that the SNES soundchip is a whole processor in and of itself. You don't give it music, you give it [i]code[/i]. And different games have different code to play their music. It's very rare for music from one game to be compatible with music from another game.
So, if you're looking for a way to make music for a specific game.... it'll have to be a game that already has a good tool for making music for it.
I believe there's such tools for Super Mario World (or at the very least, a mod->N-SPC converter) with how prevalent music hacks are for it. In addition, Super Mario World uses an N-SPC engine for its music which will be mostly compatible with a number of other Nintendo-made games (such as Super Metroid and Link to the Past), so with some know-how and tweaking you could probably use the same tools to work for other games.
If you're looking to make spcs of music for fun... well. The SPC is pretty comparable to a tracker, the only significant differences are that the SPC has to be programmed to use a format before it makes any sound to begin with, and the SPC is limited to 8kbps samples IIRC, and 64 kb total size. Really, the SPC is too versatile for music on it to be recognizable as SPC music, plus it requires a lot more work to get it to work from scratch (though with the benefit that you can program your own filters and effects into it). Unless you're doing it for a game, I think you might as well use a mod tracker or something to begin with.

As for a [b]good[/b] way to directly work with SNES music? Something like blackhole89's program would be good, if it were finished. I'm pretty sure there isn't one done though. MathOnNapkins [i]might[/i] be working on one for Link to the Past, I'm not sure if he's going to or not, but I'm pretty sure blackhole89's is farther along. Although blackhole89 hasn't shown much progress lately AFAIK.

nael

2009-02-15 04:55:57 pm

Thanks a lot Kejardon.

I guess I really could use any tracker with the right samples, but it doesn't feel right somehow. I will try out pure hexing or just wait for Solar Soundtrack then...

FirePhoenix

2009-02-15 05:36:21 pm

With Super Mario World we have a program called Addmusic and it can insert music via text files into the SMW rom. It doesn't replace the original music; instead it adds the music to the free space in the rom. As for the specifics of how it works, I'm not entirely sure. I just know the basics.

Jathys

2009-03-01 07:04:36 pm

Quote from FirePhoenix0:

With Super Mario World we have a program called Addmusic and it can insert music via text files into the SMW rom. It doesn't replace the original music; instead it adds the music to the free space in the rom. As for the specifics of how it works, I'm not entirely sure. I just know the basics.

If you happen to know who would know the specifics (or better yet who coded it), please send me a PM (which will save me the trouble of scouring through dozens of SMW threads).