Hacking Looping Sound for Banners [Tutorial]

[0RANGECHiCKEN]

ATTENTION!

This guide requires basic knowledge in making a working sound.bin
If you don't know how to, read this tutorial by gundalf (member of 0RANGECHiCKEN):

Spoiler

How to make sound.bin

What you need:

-audacity (download)
-IMD5 Signer (download)

1. Setup audacity

Go to the Preferences(ctrl+p) and check if WAV 16bit PCM is set.

2. Speaking about the Sound and problems

Remember that the Wii Banner can use only uncompressed wave sound.
This is verry limiting, so think what kind of music you want to use and keep it as short as possible.
What we can do to keep file size short? Well thats simple, just use Mono, insteed of Stereo.
Your Sound.bin should'nt be bigger then 2MB. Try to keep it allways under 1MB or the Channel take longer to load.

3. Make it Mono!

Just drag and drop your file to the Windows.
Select on the Track Split Stereo Track.

Now your track will split in two seperated parts, but that doesnt mean they are now in Mono, you have to set that by hand.
Click on the name of each(left and right) Track and select Mono:

After that you select "Export As Wav", you will get an warning that your exported file will saved as mono(thats what we want), klick OK.
As Name make Sound.bin.

4. Sign the Sound.bin

Start md5sig.exe, select the sound.bin and klick on "Firmar".
After that you can repack the Sound.bin with the 00.app.

I hope my Tutorial could help you.

Tools you will need (as it relates solely to looping sound.bin files]:
- WAVosaur [Freeware]

1. Getting Started

Using Audacity, open an audio file and convert it to a WAV with 16bit PCM mono
Trim it to the length audio sample you want, but don't forget that a sound.bin is really just a short tune, and should be kept under about 15 seconds [Not a hard and fast rule though]

2. WAVosour is here!

Open the audio file you just made in WAVosaur
Activate the loop mode

3. Editing

With loop mode activated, WAVosour will loop the part of the audio you have selected with the cursor
This is helpful to founding a correct looping point in your sound file.

4. Setting the Loop Point

If you have found an perfect point, then just go to TOOLS > LOOP > CREATE LOOP POINTS

5. Finish

Now save it, rename it to sound.bin and sign it with the IMD5 Signer.

 

[Mrkinator]

Nice! Will Try soon!

 

[computerboy]

Thanks 0RANGECHiCKEN. I've been waiting a long time for this

 

[djdynamite123]

cool shit, ice actually begun to think that i don't even want loops, 30 seconds if that max,
info on animation following soon?

 

[gundalf]

Be warned, if it is too long. You can get "Corrupted Systemfiles" Errors!

 

[Mrkinator]

Be warned, if it is too long. You can get "Corrupted Systemfiles" Errors!

How long is too long?

 

[djdynamite123]

Be warned, if it is too long. You can get "Corrupted Systemfiles" Errors!

Yeah soon as you hit the channel, ive tested the sound files, i think NON Loop, its over 1 minute just over..

 

[icefireicefire]

You can NOT use this with WADder

. And there probably will never be

.

 

[0RANGECHiCKEN]

Keep in mind though, that "corrupted system files" as it relates to the sound.bin is NOT a system brick. The Wii may crash if you cycle between channels too quickly that have large a large sound.bin. All you have to do is restart the Wii and you're good to go again. But still, the shorter, the better, really.

 

[Mrkinator]

You can NOT use this with WADder

. And there probably will never be

.

I understand that, in case you were referring to me

 

[WiiCrazy]

Well no word of bns format and lz compression.. guess this is a different way of looping sounds unlike the sound.bin used in the homebrew channel...

Or did I miss a certain part?

 

[djdynamite123]

Keep in mind though, that "corrupted system files" as it relates to the sound.bin is NOT a system brick. The Wii may crash if you cycle between channels too quickly that have large a large sound.bin. All you have to do is restart the Wii and you're good to go again. But still, the shorter, the better, really.

yeah ive been testing sound.bin

as i understand it, the wii can handle upto 45seconds i believe.....
BUT if you CYCLE THROUGH PAGES, and it has over 30 seconds, SYSTEM FILES ARE CORRUPT will occur,

Answer? KEEP UNDER 30 SECONDS!

If you cycle through pages really fast, stay under 20 seconds!

 

[deba94]

Well no word of bns format and lz compression.. guess this is a different way of looping sounds unlike the sound.bin used in the homebrew channel...

Or did I miss a certain part?

Nah. It's just wav, looped.

 

[lolsjoel]

We'll be posting plenty more tutorials of similar nature in the future. So be sure to keep an eye out.

 

[Deleted User]

Keep the looping sound under 30 seconds or the sound completely under 30 seconds?

Nice tut by the way

 

[lolsjoel]

Keep the looping sound under 30 seconds or the sound completely under 30 seconds?

Nice tut by the way

A looping sound will loop forever! So keep the loop under 30 seconds, or in my opinion, keep it under 15 seconds as more than that is just unnecessary. It's not the length of the sound.bin that causes problems, it's the size of the file that causes the Wii to crash if it's forced to load/unload/reload too quickly.

 

[Supercool330]

Lol I totally figured this out early yesterday morning and didn't get around to posting it until now. I am currently working on getting bns files to work. The only real advantage of bns over wav is that bns use adpcm instead of pcm (i'm fairly sure from comparing several bns files) so they should have better compression. The bns header also appears to be smaller, but I haven't quite figured it out yet (will get back to you when I have the structure figured out). Anyway, thanks for posting this (approximatly 2 hours after I asked on the irc channel and 30 minutes after I figured it out XD).

 

[nicksasa]

i found out how to do it in wadder replace the sound commands and put this in place

DEL C:\wadder0010001414247470000000_app_out\sound.bin
COPY c:\sound.bin C:\wadder0010001414247470000000_app_out\sound.bin
signmd5 C:\wadder0010001414247470000000_app_out\sound.bin

then rename your looping wave file to sound.bin and put it in c:\ and there you have it an looping sound channel made with wadder

BUT because it doesnt convert the sound file make sure its the right format !!

 

[Wiisel]

Thanks 0RANGECHiCKEN team all worked perfect for me just one question how do i listen to the sound with the loop on PC i had to make several wads as i could not figure how to test in the app how to play the full track the loop like it plays on the Wii.

Keep up the good work guys

 

[RadioShadow]

Cool guide.

Is there a way to make WAVosaur play the part loops? Everytime I press the play button, it starts playing the file from the beginning of music file.

EDIT: Well it plays the part you highlighted. Is it suppose to only play the non-looped when you first click the channel? It plays the looped part fine after it is viewed a second time.

Oh, and the music stops if the Home button on the Wii is pressed (but that could be due to not using .bns format).