So I got bored a few weekends ago and started remaking some Mega Man 9 music in IT (Impulse Tracker). I was then made aware of an S3M to NSF converter, so I decided to adapt them to the format to make it work. And, for the most part they do, aside from some S3M2NSF bugs.
Here they are if interested:
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/Remakes/GIBStu ... _oct19.zip
I also included the S3Ms just in case anyone is interested in my tracking style, or wish to see how I achieved some of the effects I did.
The Endless Attack remake was probably one of the most pain in the ass songs to do..but still fun!
As far as I know, I'm the only one to have done this remake so far.
I still haven't decided if I was going to remake the entire MM9 soundtrack.
UPDATE:
I have completed the entire soundtrack in NSF format. Should you be interested in obtaining it, it can be downloaded
here.
Enjoy
Mathew Valente [TSSF]
Actually, at least 2 other people had also remade part of the MM9 soundtrack into NSFs. In this forum, Sivak made a
thread about his own MM9-to-NES remixes. He posted a bunch of Youtube videos of his remixes; you can see them
here. A guy named Acmlm also made an NES homebrew demo of his remix of 4 songs from the game; the
Youtube video of it has the download links for the NES file and the NSF.
As for my opinion on your remixes, I think they sound pretty cool. But assuming you want to be as accurate as possible, I think your remixes are in general more accurate than Sivak's, but not as accurate as Acmlm's. But as of now Sivak's has the most songs remixed and Acmlm's has the least.
Hey! Pretty cool stuff. It's sound quite near the original, excellent work dude! I really loved some "retouches", specially the MM2 password theme, great!
strangenesfreak: Thanks for your comments. Actually, I'm aware of the other people who've done MM9 remakes..I was actually claiming that I was the only one who's attempted a remake of "Endless Attack". Sivak's remakes are good, so are Acmlm's (aside from some vibrato bug that causes the square wave to distort when it modulates). All that being said, my NSF's can only be as accurate as S3M2NSF's sound system will allow unfortunately. In terms of S3M accuracy, they're pretty as close as I could ever make them.
Should there ever be an S3M2NSF released that fixes the timing bugs, I think it would be pretty accurate.
Fx3: Thank you! I've been trying my darndest to make these as accurate possible.
I was thinking of doing the Wily fight.. it's majorly effect-heavy, though. Could be a pain in the butt. I'm up for the challenge. Heheh.
Since last I've posted, I've made 2 more remakes. Title theme and the Stage Select. Again these two songs suffer from S3M2NSF bugs. I wish these were fixed. I'll try to contact the original author.
UPDATE:
I finished Wily Machine:
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/Remakes/GIBStuff/wilyboss.nsf
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/Remakes/GIBStuff/wilyboss.s3m
Go try Splash Woman's theme. ^_^;; Or better, Wily's stage 2 is awesome.
Heh
Eventually I'll do both. I'm going to try the task of remaking the entire soundtrack via NSF. Or at least do as much as I can. I've already got at least half of it done.
I'm waiting for more tracks, man. ^_^;;
Galaxy man, so far:
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/temp/galaxy.nsf
I'm taking a break for now though.
taking a break? aww, these are really good
This track is missing the noise channel... and looks incomplete.
Fx3 wrote:
This track is missing the noise channel... and looks incomplete.
Hence the "so far." He's not done yet.
Alright, it's completed..though I think I messed up the noise channel a bit. Once again, this song suffers from S3M2NSF timing bugs :/ It also suffered from S3M note limitations (the high notes in the end for instance) but I worked around it.
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/Remakes/GIBStuff/galaxy.nsf
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/Remakes/GIBStuff/galaxy.s3m
Thanks for your effort. The song looks fine.
Sneak peak of Concrete Man:
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/temp/concrete.nsf
Unfortunately this song is one of the only songs that actually surpass the NES capabilities by using notes far below the NES oscillator threshold. What that means is that the notes went too low..so I compensated by throwing the really REALLY low notes into an octave higher.. not very noticeable, which is good.
I just have to finish up a few noise patterns then this is done. Was thinking of tackling Plug Man next.
Then maybe Tornado Man's theme. After I'm done those two, I'll take another few days break and see if I can finish up the last few songs I haven't remade yet. I'm more than half-way done the entire sound track that's for sure.
Great. You should try Wily's Castle stage 2 song.
tssf wrote:
Unfortunately this song is one of the only songs that actually surpass the NES capabilities by using notes far below the NES oscillator threshold. What that means is that the notes went too low..so I compensated by throwing the really REALLY low notes into an octave higher.. not very noticeable, which is good.
PROTIP: You can make shifts up an octave even less noticeable by opening the duty cycle (from 1/8 to 1/4, or from 1/4 to 1/2) at the same time.
Tepples: Yea, I know, I figured that out and used that trick in Endless Attack (for the squares to get passed an Impulse Tracker limitation. I'll try some tricks for the low octaves on that 15% duty'd Square, see if it makes any musical difference. Thanks for the suggestion.
Fx2: Wily Castle 2 will have to wait after I'm done Plug Man.
I already started the first few patterns.
To hear what I'm talking about, play around with
addams_low.s3m.
Yep I knew what you meant. Although I'm not exactly pleased with the way it sounds (you can still tell..at least, I can. Heh) it's still a nice get-around, and I did use it to play some 9th octave notes in Endless Attack (special2.s3m/nsf, you'll hear it on the scaling pure square wave going upward with a higher octave'd echo..you can see it too if you look at the S3M)
Unfortunately it doesn't sound as convincing in Concrete Man's song (I just tried it). It's all good though, the modification I made doesn't really have that much of an impact on the song, it still sounds / feels like Concrete Man.
Oh well, I'm still working on Plug Man. That buzzing noise isn't sounding so hot because whenever it's retriggered, it seems to initiate a different instance of the same sound every time (kind of why Quick Man in Mega Man 2's buzzing noise sounded different all the time throughout the song). But hey it could add character!
I'll probably be finished this song in a couple hours. I'm gonna take a quick break.
EDIT: Plug Man so far:
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/temp/plug.nsf
When I'm done this song, I'll post up the dated archive for all to hear (I made some improvements to some old songs, too)
I already got the latest pack, but you must fix the Rush Jet / Get Weapon tunes on 0:04: the triangle pitch is changed (down), which must remain the same AFAIK.
Nah there's no problems with the song itself, it's S3M2NSF..it's cutting off the beginning of the triangle, unfortunately. If you also notice, that's when the song begins "glitching" out. I think it has something to do with S3M2NSF skipping frames to keep on time or something. I dunno.
If you listen to the S3M (using winamp of course), you'll notice it's the same throughout.
Oh, and a sneak peak at what I'm working on now:
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/temp/wilystg2.nsf
Obviously unfinished, but it's getting there.
Sounds really nice so far, as expected.
But for those S3M2NSF bugs, do you know how to edit your NSFs to fix them? You mention them a lot, but have you been able to directly fix any in the NSFs themselves?
Nah, I don't fix the NSFs, I simply convert them from S3M to NSF using the S3M2NSF tool. Any problems I hear in the songs are usually fixed within the S3M.
Any song that's naturally 150bpm will convert proper. Unfortunately, Mega Man 9 uses other tempos, which causes some major problems with S3M2NSF because it doesn't like that.
btw, finished Wily Stage 2:
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/Remakes/wilystg2.nsf
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/Remakes/wilystg2.s3m
Still kinda working on the noise on the triplets, will probably be fixed the next time I do an archive.
Yeah, that's it.
It's been a long day. Heh. You should be happy that I finished the song now, tho right?
That song was a pain to do for some reason..it was longer and more repetitive, but more maintenance because I had to throw in the "echos"
Ugh I'm oo tired to do anything right now, though.
I read that the MM9 music was written in MML, and an engine to render it written for the wii/ps3/xb360/etc. shouldn't that make it fairly easy to get a 100% perfect rip of the game music by extracting the MML data from the game data?
P.S. I'm wholly convinced with a bunch of really good coders and possible reuse of parts of older megaman games, mm9 could be done on the nes. tornado man is gonna flicker like HELL though, as are several of the minibosses, and a lot of effects will probably require some really SICK mmc3 irq and other tricks to pull off. A few effects on lava man's stage will either have to have some colors removed (because they violated the number of allowed colors on a bg tile there) or be done with sprites, adding even MORE flicker. But I'm still convinced it can be done.
LN
Lord Nightmare wrote:
I read that the MM9 music was written in MML, and an engine to render it written for the wii/ps3/xb360/etc. shouldn't that make it fairly easy to get a 100% perfect rip of the game music by extracting the MML data from the game data?
The new sound effects were made with MML, but the music was sequenced. It does a few things that the NES is not capable of, like going outside the note range, having perfect pitch at extremely high pitches, triangle lacks aliasing (could be "rendering error thing" but it isn't). They said in an interview that they used some VSTs to do it.
Lord Nightmare wrote:
P.S. I'm wholly convinced with a bunch of really good coders and possible reuse of parts of older megaman games, mm9 could be done on the nes. tornado man is gonna flicker like HELL though, as are several of the minibosses, and a lot of effects will probably require some really SICK mmc3 irq and other tricks to pull off. A few effects on lava man's stage will either have to have some colors removed (because they violated the number of allowed colors on a bg tile there) or be done with sprites, adding even MORE flicker. But I'm still convinced it can be done.
LN
Not only would it have a lot of flicker, it would be really slow. Even the old Mega Man games had tons of slowdown-- it's really obvious after playing a lot of Mega Man 9, then switching to another MM game. Some minibosses, like the dragons, would make the NES slow to a crawl since
every flame on the dragon is an individual sprite, which can be seen if you use Black Hole Bomb on it.
Oh and as to the colors in a BG tile being violated...where is this? As far as I can remember, MM9 has really really simplistic/repetitive backgrounds.
There was one song I remade from Mega Man 9, which I can't remember which one..but I could tell that there were two instances of the Triangle wave that were playing at once..like a long bass note that didn't quite cut off before another bass note played after it. I think it was the shop music, I can't be sure though. EDIT: It was actually at 7 seconds into the song, where the bass note was still playing while the triangle tom played overtop of the other note..something the original NES obviously couldn't do.
That's when I knew that they weren't using an engine that was limited to 4 channels. When I did the "NES Version" of the song I obviously stuck to NES limitations.
It became pretty apparent that some points in the game just couldn't be done well on the actual NES. I don't want to mention any spoilers, but there's a certain point where the older games were "referenced" where I'm actually fairly certain that the NES could not handle all those sprites on screen.
tssf wrote:
It became pretty apparent that some points in the game just couldn't be done well on the actual NES. I don't want to mention any spoilers, but there's a certain point where the older games were "referenced" where I'm actually fairly certain that the NES could not handle all those sprites on screen.
Could that not have been done as an animated background? Only two frames of animation there, after all...
Yep, it could have been, I suppose. But Galaxy Man's stage would slow the game down to a crawl, wouldn't it?
Anyway I've been starting work on Splash Woman's theme..however, the lead Square pulse wave after the intro is echoing as well as the bass line..At first I thought they cheated and are using 3 separate square wave channels, but then I noticed that the bass line only echos sometimes, as well as the lead only echoes the other time. This is going to be really tricky.
Splash Woman's theme also seems to follow the same formula that Bubble Man's theme follows..only Bubble Man's theme is much more catchy.
- Splash Woman has a nice background music. There are so many MegaMan2 music elements/effects... making the things great.
I made Wily Stage 4 and also Jewel Man yesterday/today.
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/temp/jewel.nsf (This one suffers slightly, you'll hear it in the effect near the end of the song)
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/temp/jewel.s3m
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/temp/wilystg4.nsf (This one is bad in NSF)
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/temp/wilystg4.s3m
These unfortunately have such non-standard tempos that S3M2NSF pretty much butchers them. If you want to hear how they're intentionally supposed to sound, listen to the S3Ms
I hope S3M2NSF fixes these kinds of bugs..maybe perhaps reformat the songs to be more NES standard. I tried playing around with tempos and and pattern speeds such..doesn't seem to help much. I dunno.
I'm currently working on Wily Stage 3.
These are the only songs I have left to complete on this entire soundtrack:
hornet, magma, splash, tornado (I'm gonna redo this one), ending, staff roll.
I'm almost done the whole thing. Holy crap.
P.s. Sneak peak of Wily Stage 3:
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/temp/wilystg3.nsf
1. Which program do you use to compose S3M?
2. Could you fix the stage select tune, since Wily4 intro seems identical?
Wily Stage 4 and Stage Select vary slightly. I've been working on attempting to get it right since I started working on it, but it seems impossible without sacrificing the resolution of the pitch bends (this is an S3M format limitation).
The two songs sound very similar, I agree. However my version of Stage Select is using a pattern tempo that's different from Wily Stage 4, so it would require a rewrite. I'll attempt a fix at it, though. Of course, it won't sound identical to the original song, again because of S3M pitch bend limitations.
Do I want the bends to sound right? Or do I want them to cut at the right point in time?
If S3M could play back patterns at 300bpm, a lot of my problems would be solved..but alas, 255 is the top-out maximum..at least, for Impulse Tracker.
I'm using Schism Tracker to create these songs, however you could use ModPlug Tracker as well.
EDIT: The re-write of stage select is done. I'll include it in the next archive I post.
EDIT 2: Wily Stage 3 is done.
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/temp/wilystg3.nsf
I know I'm double posting but I'm having a problem with this sound system.
I'm remaking Tornado man's theme, and the same problem that was in Acmlm's version is in mine. Apparently at the note A-5 (which also seems to be the universal tuning frequency 440, right?) when a vibrato or fine pitch bend is used during this frequency range, the note actually "distorts".
here are a couple examples:
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/temp/tornado.nsf
If you need the S3M as original reference, here it is:
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/temp/tornado.s3m
Forgive my ignorance but is this a limitation of the NES sound chip, as it doesn't seem to be limited to one single sound system?
tssf wrote:
These unfortunately have such non-standard tempos that S3M2NSF pretty much butchers them. If you want to hear how they're intentionally supposed to sound, listen to the S3Ms
I hope S3M2NSF fixes these kinds of bugs..maybe perhaps reformat the songs to be more NES standard. I tried playing around with tempos and and pattern speeds such..doesn't seem to help much. I dunno.
What tempos are these? Since the NSF format is 60hz or 50hz (pal), there are specific tempos that will work better than others.
112.5,120,150,180,225,300 all sound "right" to a certain point.
Blargg posted some tempo info at 2a03 awhile ago that covers this pretty nicely. S3M2NSF may not handle these well, but they will always sound off to a certain degree.
Your note on tornado man has bugged me too- in MCK, every A note pops when it is pitchbent over-- maybe this has something to do with how it address the notes or something.
The biggest problem with Mega Man 9 music is a lot of the music is using non-standard NES tempos like the ones you mentioned.
The Boss theme is 170bpm
Concrete man is 168bpm
Galaxy man is 165
get Rush Jet/Weapon is 180bpm
Second Intro is 195
Third one is 145
Stage Select and Wily Stage 4 is 143
Suspense is 196
Title theme is 185
Tornado Man is 160
Jewel Man is 180bpm, however it still messes up near the second part of the song with that high square wave'd effect going on. Hm.
These tempos are rounded up/down from the tempos I was able to determain by putting the MP3's into Pro Tools and using its tempo tools to figure out the actual values and such.
Ah well. Anyway, I figured out a work-around for Tornado man's A note problem..I use a vibrato, just not as deep as one.
tssf wrote:
The biggest problem with Mega Man 9 music is a lot of the music is using non-standard NES tempos like the ones you mentioned.
Yes, as the developers said that wouldn't be on old hardware limitations, but still on 4 channels.
The developers also said Maze of Death couldn't be done on NES hardware, though.
I still managed to pull it off, even if I had to pull a few tricks to make it work.
tssf wrote:
Forgive my ignorance but is this a limitation of the NES sound chip, as it doesn't seem to be limited to one single sound system?
Yes, here's what I wrote this about it in NT2's docs:
Code:
The NES's hardware has a bug, or a design feature, or whatever you
would call it involving writing the high-byte of the frequency. What
happens, is that if a vibrato or a portamento affects the highest 3
bits of the frequency, the sound will snap, crackle, and pop. So
basically what you do to work around this is not use vibratos on some
notes, and remember that it will kinda pop if you do portamentos on
some notes. One game where this is noticable is Crash 'n the Boys by
Technos. If you have the cartridge, listen to the .NSF first, then
play the game on NES and hear the difference. Also, the title screen
music of Demon Sword uses this feature to a rather nice effect!
Damian Yerrick looked into the matter, and sent me this:
A-3 A-2 A-1 F-1 D-1 B-0 <-- Those are approximately the
notes where the NES switches the high byte.
What it's effectively doing is resetting the pulse-wave (imagine a one-off retrigger effect).
That's crazy. I have a slight work around, though. I mean, I'm using a vibrato but it's a fine vibrato instead of a deeper one like the game's using. It's not as accurate, but it also avoids the crackle/pop that's associated with it.
Here's how it's sounding (I'm currently working on it):
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/temp/tornado_fixed.nsf
I'm almost done the song as you can tell.
EDIT: Finished versions of Tornado, Magma, and Hornet:
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/Remakes/GIBStuff/tornado.nsf (160bpm)
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/Remakes/GIBStuff/magma.nsf (150bpm)
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/Remakes/GIBStuff/hornet.nsf (150bpm)
Latest archive:
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/Remakes/GIBStu ... _nov18.zip
Enjoy.
Okay. Last double-post.
The soundtrack is COMPLETE.
Here it is for download:
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/Remakes/GIBStu ... 9_nsfs.zip
Enjoy, everyone.
I really enjoyed making it all, ..and cried during some of the songs..but hey, it was all fun!
Feel free to spread this around the interweb as well! I already submitted it to Zophar, however not sure if their submission rules exclude anything made from scratch.
Let me say a big THANK YOU for this superb work!
Hehe thanks for your nice comments.
I actually fixed a lot of bugs in the soundtrack..it's stuff I noticed but other people probably wouldn't have unless they were being anal and attempting to FIND the problems. But I'm a perfectionist like that.
Regardless, the archive was updated.. It's not an essential download unless you want the absolute latest versions of the song.
Are you sure about the famitracker? Can't you write music using it?
Hmm I'm not sure what yo mean about this..Of course Famitracker's used to write music...can you let me know what you mean?
I mean... can you write music using the Famitracker?
Famitracker can be used to write music yes. It's how SivakD created his own soundtracks. It's for the slightly advanced user though, as figuring out how to create instruments can be tricky. Also you should know how to "track" (the process of creating tracked module files like S3M, IT, XM, etc)
EDIT: Hmm Well it seems I figured out how to make a multiple NSF with all the S3M's into one big NSF.. think I should do one last release?
heh
Okay, just tried this pack. Most of the songs are more or less correct, with issues mostly involving volume/enveloping of notes
But of the ones I've scrutinized particularly is wily stage 2, which has some relatively major issues:
(when i say patterns i'm talking about the source s3m in the zip file)
for patterns 0 thru 8 and 17 thru 22, channel 1 should be using sample 01 not 02 (12.5% duty cycle, not 25%)
for patterns 23 thry 25, channel 2 should be using 12.5% duty cycle BUT the notes currently in channels 1 and 2 are at least partly wrong. I'm not well versed in music theory but I believe there's supposed to be a harmonic relationship between those two channels different from the one thats there now. Also the volume of channel 2 is too high for that section.
There may also be some missing 12.5% issues on patterns 9 thru 16 as well but I can't clearly hear it in the source/original video.
I'm using the video at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH0lpUNWGEY&fmt=18 as a 'source'.
Note that its possible capcom or someone else screwed up the duty cycle on the OST cd. I personally do not trust the ost cd due to added postprocessing such as echo and reverb on some songs.
The most authentic source would be for someone to disassemble the actual tracker/player used on the wii/xbox/ps3 to play the music direct from data files.
OR much easier: someone could just hack the wii/etc version to only play one channel of each song at once by hacking the code from the sound engine which tells the music engine when to mask one channel when a sound effect happens. Then record each of the 4 channels separately at high quality, and figure out the exact parameters and stuff from the recording. (I know capcom/ict when to a lot of trouble to implement that masking feature, so its only fitting we abuse the hell out of it in a way it wasn't meant to be used) Someone really needs to do that.
LN
Actually that's what happened, the duty cycle in the game is different than the one in the soundtrack.. that's why the latest NSF file actually has "two" versions of that song. As for the wrong notes, I dunno.. I listened to it very carefully, especially at 1/4th speed, 1/2th speed, and even sometimes at 2x speed just to make sure I had some of the tom slides starting/ending at the right frequency.
As for the actual volume, you can't really judge with the MP3's or the YouTube video because the dynamic range in Capcom's sound system compared to the dynamic range of the NES is so different. (and I'm not just talking about the fact that it's got 16 volume instances, I mean actual dynamic range) ...The NES has barely any dynamic range where Capcom's system .. well let's face it, it sounds fantastic compared to Capcoms. Plus, I'm also only Human..it's sad to think, yes, I know.
Yeah I just checked the notes. They're all right. I think it's because of the 12.5% duty being used instead of the 25% duty which changes the harmonic relationship between the notes.
Check wilystg2_st.s3m to see if there's much difference.. I'm assuming you're looking at the latest S3Ms?
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/Remakes/GIBStu ... 9_nsfs.zip <- this is the latest one (I've updated the archive a few times, the latest one doesn't have the NSF/NSFE directories since I've since compiled multi-nsfs)
Thanks for your analysis!
You're probably right about the "wrong notes" not being wrong at all.
Latest nsf version it sounds fine.
Other minor quips: the original and ost has a less severe volume envelope on the super-short notes on the boss battle theme (and in a few other places I can't think of atm), but it may be impossible to replicate that on the nes. as you said.
Btw if there's one song you should redo as mml in famitracker, it should be that completely insane 'maze of death' one, just to prove that it can be done in MML.
LN
Oh it should be able to be done. :] I mean the original soundtrack was written in MML, right? I refuse to believe Maze of Death though wasn't at least designed in a sequencer before re-written in MML though. The song is way too complex to be completely written in only MML, and ...yeah. I just refuse to believe it's possible for someone to do that song in pure scripting language without working from a reference.
Thanks for your comments, it's nice to see someone actually going to great lengths to analyze it.
Lord Nightmare wrote:
Btw if there's one song you should redo as mml in famitracker, it should be that completely insane 'maze of death' one, just to prove that it can be done in MML.
That's what I meant - to redo the songs as mml in famitracker. ^_^
EDIT: My my... that file
test.nsf is the Rush Jet theme. It's
thousand times better and flawless, unlike the version in the nsf package.
Heh thanks.
I also did a bunch of other MM9 examples in FamiTracker if you're interested.. it's in my Mega Man instrument pack for FamiTracker that I was working on:
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/Remakes/GIBStu ... s_jan6.rar
tssf wrote:
Heh thanks.
I also did a bunch of other MM9 examples in FamiTracker if you're interested.. it's in my Mega Man instrument pack for FamiTracker that I was working on:
http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/Remakes/GIBStu ... s_jan6.rarThanks for this release. I will be studying the instruments since I always want to know how to make the same sound as well known songs.
Isn't time for more MM9 music/stuff? I'd like some updates/fixes... famitracker?
Nah, I don't think so. I'm on to bigger and better things.
If someone can make a music system that can create music for existing megaman games and swap out the music for custom music, then I may consider remaking actual MM9 songs with macro instrumentation..but at the moment, the S3M's are the best way to hear them.
It'd be nice if those guys who are doing the NES version of Rockman 8 would use my S3M files for a Rockman 9 PC remake, too. Probably won't happen, though.
Contact them! You never know ; )
- Actually, they use a semi-obscure program to compose music.
They're part of 4ch, and post the games anonymously and have absolutely no contact information. So, contacting is nearly impossible. Doesn't matter though. The guy who's made the music for the MM7 and MM8 8-bit remakes also remade some MM9 music using that same music software. The results are on YouTube, however, they're not entirely accurate and they don't sound very NES-like. They sound like they're intending to sound like the 2A03, however at least the S3M's when no interpolation is on, actually sounds LIKE the 2A03.
Mega Man 9's music, despite using higher quality samples, are still using the logarithmic frequency tables that the NES used with pitch bends and everything. The result of which has higher quality tone samples, while still keeping the same frequency sweeps that you'd hear on the NES. The frequency sweeps that are simulated with that obscure music system that the MM7 8-bit guys are using all sound linear, which takes the "Megaman character" out of the triangle toms.
The program is called 'pxtone' and its by the same author who wrote cave story, Daisuke 'Pixel' Amaya.
The songs in mm7 remake and mm8 remake are in the 'protected, uneditable' .pttune format
Unfortunately, the fact that these files are uneditable because they're compiled is a myth; they are uneditable because they have a 'don't allow edit' checksum and string set in their headers. Very annoying, and probably easy to hack around.
on protected files, the 'magic header checksum' (which is set correctly on 'editable' .ptcop files) is cleared, and the id string is changed to something different.
Hacking pxtone.exe to allow edits regardless of the header would be a trivial (and much appreciated) hack.
Crudely bolted on 'security' like this irks me a lot. If you want the file to be uneditable, either encrypt it, or actually compile it in a way where it cannot be restored to its original state.
In short: other than the header changes, .pttune and .ptcop files are 100% identical.
You cannot edit the former. You can edit the latter.
I'm hoping someone comes up with a hack to allow edits with both, or a program to 'deprotect' .pttune files back into .ptcop files by fixing the header and checksum.
As proof of concept, I managed to deprotect one by hand using a header transplant, but the new header has the tempo set all wrong and cannot be fixed from in the program itself.
LN
Version 0.9.0.3, Patch offset 0x28842 to 0xEB to disable the edit prohibit. (Not compatible with older format files though, but still, the protection is completely stupid, if it only checks one thing.)
Version 0.8.8.8, patch offset 0x29182 to 0xEB
Version 0.9.1.4, patch offset 0x293D2 to 0xEB.
Any other version, search for 0x3E E0 01 00 00 74. There should only be one instance, if so, replace the with 0x3E E0 01 00 00 EB.
(This took me less than 5 minutes to crack.)
So I recently downloaded an 8-bit version of Megaman 7 that I've been hacking/editing by making new .wav files and editing the .bmp files. I was interested in trying to replace the music, which is all .pttune files, and I've had trouble figuring out how to edit these files.
Reading this forum, I understand that by doing a Patch offset one will be able to edit .pttune files using pxtone, but how exactly is this done? Is it as simple as opening a file in notepad and changing some text in the programming, or is it more complicated?
Any help for a n00b trying to make a friendly edit to a Megaman Game is greatly appreciated!
-Mikeforte
mikeforte: I wrote up a quick search and replace patcher for pxtone. (Make a backup first.)
http://caitsith2.com/music/pxtonepatcher.zip (source code included)
Just drag the pxtone executable on top of the patcher. If successful, it will let you know. From this point on, you should be able to edit everything at will.
Hey there, sorry to dredge this thing up, but I just realized I made a pretty disastrous mistake in saving my PXtone files last night--I saved a relatively long and complex (but only partway finished) song as a .pttune and I need it to be a .ptcop or change my PXtone to allow .pttunes to be editable. I tried the above link to a crack for it, but the link isn't active anymore. Can anyone help me with this?