SNES game instruments...

Kinoko · Wed 14/07/2004 08:40:44

Rather than use plain old hum-drum MIDI, I wanted to create the music for my SNES-style RPG with the original SNES sounds. I was wondering if it would be possible to get some program that simulates the same "instruments" game makers back in the day (specifically, the SNES day o_o) had to work with. This is a little out of my league, all this music bahjumboozle... so if I'm way off on the way it works, don't hurt me! Playing SNES games for so long, you get to know all the individual sounds that crop up over and over rather well, and I'd really like to be able to use them to create my own game music.

Gilbert · Wed 14/07/2004 08:56:38

Well actually the SFC used recorded instruments just like the m0d musics and soundfonts for MIDI cards. There used to be some samples directly ripped from ROMs floating around.

You may also rip the samples out yourself from SPC files using tools like this (I think, it's been long time, I couldn't remember). You can find tons of SPC files from emulation sites like this.

Kinoko · Wed 14/07/2004 09:08:08

I have plenty of samples of game music I'm after, but how can I use that to make my own?

Gilbert · Wed 14/07/2004 09:22:19

Go for making mods (IT, STM, etc. are of the same family, they use samples, and AGS supports at least some of them natively) or if your sound driver supports soundfonts, make MIDI with the samples, and record them as OGGs if you want to use them in AGS games and make them sound right with others' computers.

I've no knowledge in the music field, probbaly some other people can answer the question better.

PaulSC · Wed 14/07/2004 15:31:59

I found a link on this board for a music program called 'Sound Club' - you can get it here:

http://www.bluemoon.ee/history/scwin/

I haven't really used it much yet, but it's free and seems to be a good way of making music out of samples. You just go to "Add Voice" and click "Import", and select whichever sample you want.

I personally tend to use a nice and easy to use (but limited) commercial program called Making Waves, which makes it very easy indeed to make fairly decent sounding and complex stuff out of samples and programmed loops. I also use a great program called Cool Edit a lot, which lets me mess around with individual samples and other parts more precisely.

But you're probably best off just tracking down as many free music programs as you can, and seeing which ones seem to best suit the kind of things you're trying to do. Good luck!

Kinoko · Thu 15/07/2004 03:14:02

Hmm, this is a little over my head, but let me see if I've at least got this straight in my head.

Basically, I'd need to get a whole bunch of SNES music, and use a program like Sound Club to extract individual "sounds" from the music files, and then use them to put together my own music? Sorry if that's totally off, this isn't really my area of expertise.

LGM · Thu 15/07/2004 04:23:34

What's music?

PaulSC · Thu 15/07/2004 16:23:03

Quote from: Kinoko on Thu 15/07/2004 03:14:02
Hmm, this is a little over my head, but let me see if I've at least got this straight in my head.

Basically, I'd need to get a whole bunch of SNES music, and use a program like Sound Club to extract individual "sounds" from the music files, and then use them to put together my own music? Sorry if that's totally off, this isn't really my area of expertise.

Sorry, I think I was being a thicko and misinterpreted what you meant when you said you had lots of 'samples'.

But yeah, if you had a sound editing program (Cool Edit is a very good one, but you have to pay for it - unless, like me, you find one that 'fell off the back of a truck'), you could take isolated sounds you like (like a specific drum or synth tone), cut them out and use them as midi-style instuments in a program like Sound Club. They'd have to be completely isolated sounds though - I don't think there's any easy way of extracting specific sounds and instruments from a backing track - and it's quite a fiddly, awkward way of doing things in any case.

In summary, then: I'm not very helpful at all.

LGM · Thu 15/07/2004 16:26:16

I think Sound Club is almost exactly what you want, Kinoko. It already has 500 instruments that sound very SNESish

Kinoko · Thu 15/07/2004 17:19:01

Fantastic, thanks heaps, guys ^_^ I'll take a look at it tomorrow.

PaulSC · Thu 15/07/2004 17:34:08

I took a look at the links Gilbot posted - it looks like it *might* be possible to extract the sounds and instruments direct from SNES games to use yourself. I can't figure out exactly how, though - I'd be quite interested in grabbing a few myself.

And just a little question for anyone here who's used Sound Club - is there any way to stop that damn clicking noise that seems to appear every time I change notes when using many of the built in instruments? I like the program a lot, but that little clicking sound is doing my head in!

Ben · Thu 15/07/2004 17:39:03

For SNES-style music, you might want to use a tracker like Gil said. I wouldn't reccoment using OGG or MP3 music unless you're using really high-quality samples. Otherwise, you're really just wasting a huge file size.. If this Sound Club thing can save as S3m or XM, you might want to try that.

Kinoko · Wed 21/07/2004 04:24:42

Just had to say thanks, guys! I've had a play around with Sound Club now and it's absolutely perfect.

Bernie · Thu 22/07/2004 00:01:46

It's possible to rip samples out of snes roms using Snessor. You can get it from http://www.zophar.net/utilities/rippers.html
You can extract samples from snes roms with this - not only music samples, but also other sound effects, which then can be used in mod editors or in games. Not sure if this is legal, though.

Some other useful links:

http://www.zophar.net/utilities/soundfont.html
(snes soundfonts, can be used in some mod editors, for example modplug.)

http://www.zophar.net/music.html
(snes game music collections and more in their native formats, you'll need plugins for winamp to play them, or a seperate player, they can be found at http://www.zophar.net)