ROM Hack DS sound files reverse engineered

[Darkforce]

Link works fine for me in firefox...

Maybe this'll work:
http://www.speedyshare.com/981520411.html

 

[Triforce]

Thankies

 

[Killermech]

I have no idea what could be causing the error. One thing i've experienced though is that if you drag over too many files (over 30 something) then it will give an error. So try dragging like 20 at the time, if that doesn't work then I don't know what could be causing it.

 

[FAST6191]

The only thing I can think of for all those with errors is that one of the files that is required is not present.

Phoenix Wrights sounds convert perfectly by the way.

 

[Triforce]

Thanks guys i just ripped Densetsu no Starfi 4 and it came out perfect. 67 .mid files

Densetsu no Starfi 4

 

[blindr]

is there any way to repack the files after extracting? i wanna try ripping some songs. and repacking the rom.

 

[Dirtie]

This is excellent. Now we just have to get the instruments in those midis sounding right, because they sound pretty horrible as they are

 

[Triforce]

Yeah i know exactly what you mean Dirtie. I ripped the sound files out of Cooking Mama and you should have heard how badly out of tune some of those tracks sounded. like half the songs were playing notes that shouldn't have even been there. Toataly out of key. I guess the midi conversion only works well for certain games.

 

[Dirtie]

Hmm, I'm not sure it's as much the key as the intruments themselves - like stuff that should be relatively quiet and almost unnoticed is given a major part. They'll never sound great in MIDI anyway because of the limited number of instruments, but if it was possible in some way to convert them to XM or MOD format and use the actual original samples I bet you could get them sounding nice.

Edit: The samples are in the WaveArc folder (for tetris anyway) with a bunch of sound effects lumped into each file - they're actually quite easy to hear. I wish we knew more about the format so we could extract individual ones though, but I guess that involves figuring out the format of the files in the "BANK" folder. Maybe the NDS music format can be a sub-format of the PSF format: http://www.neillcorlett.com/psf/

 

[FAST6191]

If you midi sounds bad/not how it should check you are not using an unusual MIDI playback "device" that come with some more upmarket sound cards.
(Right click volume control select Adjust audio properties, audio and chose a different option in MIDI music playback). It might just be the game you converted though.

In a similar development I spliced in a different track into Tony Hawks and it played back, albeit in a sound more harsh than I care to think a suitable analogy for right now. Failing that I just created a sound to surpass any Death/Black metal the world has ever seen.
I suppose the good thing is it did not crash and we merely have to find a compatible codec and options for it, rebuilding the sound file should not that difficult as all the options/numbers are given whe you take the original sound file apart.

 

[blindr]

so any way to recompile the sdat files as of now?

 

[FAST6191]

As far as I am aware there is no easy method: I used a hex editor and the copy /b command to do mine.

However there is the .smap file that is generated by the sdattool program (the .smap file is contained in the directory created when the sound file is extracted) which can be viewed in notepad that can be used to aid in this process.

 

[blindr]

alright thanks, ill try it.

 

[dudereno]

I've been using these tools over the last couple of days and managed to extract midi data from Metroid Prime Hunters.
It's a bit trial and error as the midi files contains a lot of control data which must be DS specific. Once you strip this out, it’s just a question of finding the relevant drum/bass/pad/top line parts.

Anyhow here is a soundtrack suite consisting of 5 metroid songs/parts mixed into one mp3.

Mytempdir link
Metriod Prime Hunters [soundtrack].mp3 12.8 meg
Mods: Feel free to remove the link if this mp3 file is in any way violating the board rules.

I'm a bit of idm nut so these tunes use manly analogue synth sounds with crunchy drum samples.
You have been warned.

 

[Triforce]

Dude, thats friggin awesome

thanks man

 

[bryehn]

I'd love to see a way to recompile SDAT files.

i haven't been able to do it with any success.

 

[FAST6191]

I have been playing around with the Tony Hawks files some more and have sort of got somewhere.
Reading http://neimod.com/dstek/ I saw that the DS can use IMA-ADPCM so I spliced a header from a standard wave file encoded using the IMA - PCM IMA ADPCM 22050Hz mono options (after going through a whole bunch more, the fact I had a song from the soundtrack on my computer helped).
The sound is recognisable (sections play perfectly between distortions), I am going to learn some more about the format and do try some brute force tactics with my hex editor.
I tried a couple of files using this method and they are all the same.

Other good news is that much of the header section appears to carry over from the .BMG files (used in a few games like NSMB and Animal Crossing and which I have been pulling apart of late) so it may well be possible to make some truly custom soundtracks at some point in the near future.

Hopefully someone with some audio experience can point one of us in the right direction, my intial research suggests MS pulled their usual stunt and screwed with a standard which could well cause what I am hearing.

 

[da_rula]

This sounds very promising:

http://www.vgmtrans.com/

 

[the_miker]

This sounds very promising:

http://www.vgmtrans.com/

That's great!! I wish there was more info on how to create files like that though, I'd definitely do some nice rips of games that didn't get actual soundtrack releases. I know how to get the MIDI files from the sseq2mid tool, but they end up sounding like wimpy old MIDIs. Does anybody know how loveemu got these to sound so perfect like they were recorded from the game?

-Mike

 

[Dirtie]

Awesome - someone figuring out the instrument format is exactly what we need.