Hacking Program to Extract MIDIs

[Blazer]

I've heard of some random names of programs able to extract MIDIs from songs. In fact, I've heard of several music editing programs but I can't find any of them or get a good explanation on how they work. I looked for some stickied topics and did a search but to no avail.

That being said, could someone help me out here? I'm trying to extract MIDIs from NDS games so I can insert them into a GBA game, actually, but the latter part is irrelevant as it's the extracting part that I need help with.

I doubt it matters, but the games I'm looking to extract from are:

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon
Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume
Suikoden Tierkries

I'd appreciate any help, especially if it ends up pointing me in the right direction!

 

[FAST6191]

This is probably better served in the DS rom hacking section but OK. Similarly there are several threads on sound hacking in the section.

There are a couple of DS sound formats but most of the time (it is still rare to encounter a game that does not and of the nearly 5000 releases so far including dupes this number probably still sits below 50) games use the so called SDAT format. Inside this format are the SSEQ which are the DS equivalent of midi
Of this there are three main programs people use, neither have a site or are listed on the site of their authors these days but I do have mirrors up:
NDSSNDEXT
http://www.4shared.com/file/Ut_RM4Pi/ndssndext_v04.html
VGMtrans:
http://www.4shared.com/file/tatbAANL/VGMTrans.html
SSEQ2midi:
http://sites.google.com/site/kiwids/


Crystaltile2 (one of the choice hacking programs) does have sound support but it is somewhat broken.

Note however these all tend to sound a bit "off" so it might also be worthwhile looking either at an emulator and sound loopback or as the DS and GBA share sound hardware you might be able to do some form of conversion, while it is probably not that difficult nobody to my knowledge (and I follow sound hacking quite closely) has ever tried this and there is certainly no program for it.
You are going to want the SDAT spec for this one:
http://sites.google.com/site/kiwids/


Lastly while I said most use SDAT the few that do not tend to opt for more of a "wave" style format (indeed electroplankton used windows compatible wave files) or something like ADX/AHX (common in consoles with several ways to play/convert them).

 

[Blazer]

I was thinking of putting it in the ROM Hacking forum but the description said that forum was for ROM Hacks and patches and this doesn't have to do much with either of them (while it does have to do with programs/utilities).

I tried the first one and the sequence and samples work, while the stream (what's this?) doesn't. More annoyinglyimportantly I can hardly tell which song is which in the sequence probably because the MIDIs are meant to use custom instruments, not the computer's standard instruments, and without knowing what track plays what part of the song it's hard to use Anvil Studio and fix the instruments... but I think no matter what program I use, this part won't change, which is why I haven't bothered to try and extract the SSEQs from the SDAT file and then convert those to MIDI... I'll try out VGMTrans later though.

I really appreciate the help. It was both quick and elaborate. I obviously didn't look hard enough since I didn't find a good thread to get this sound hacking info, but I have it now, so thanks.

 

[FAST6191]

By all means take time to choose a good section heading for your topic but in general if it involves manipulation of a DS rom image then the hacking section is where it is at.

To answer the first question streams are just that- long wave like tracks usually in (ima-)ADPCM of some form in the order of 10 seconds (less and it will usually be stuck in as a sample) to several minutes (the size of average Tony Hawk game that features several full tracks largely being sound file related). Otherwise I see you already met the samples (SWAR) and module format (SSEQ- midi is perhaps not the best concept to relate the format to, sbnk is the bank of sounds (usually built from SWAR) that powers it)

That change of instrument thing is the main problem facing the would be sound hacker and you seem to have into it in a bad way (most of the time it is pretty good cover version grade), try VGMtrans as sometimes it does work better than ndssndext (and vice versa on other occasions).
It is a bit of a roundabout method but http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=122534 could be useful to try and isolate a given track/narrow down the choices.

 

[Blazer]

Thoughts: depending on the game the SDAT file has some "text labels" that give clues as to which song is which, and certain games work better with the programs than others (Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume extractions are absolutely beautiful while the other 2 games listed in the first post are not). I have some MIDI experience (in terms of manipulating instruments to make it sound good) so I think I'll get by just fine. I'm just happy that there are already programs to help me with my work. I got kinda lucky. XD

Well anyway I pretty much got all the help I need, so thanks, and next time I'll be sure to post it in the right section.

 

[InfinityAlex]

Sorry to bump an old topic, but does anyone know where I can get ndstext, because the 4Shared link doesn't work and I REALLY need this thing for...things...Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[FAST6191]

ndstext or ndssndext? The former was a name used by a bunch of programs, in hacking I believe it was a pokemon editing tool but do not quote me on that.

If you mean the sound one then the program is a bit outdated at this point (vgmtoolbox ( http://www.hcs64.com/mboard/forum.php?showthread=22580 ) and the now continuing to be developed vgmtrans ( https://gbatemp.net/threads/new-vgmtrans-github-and-loveemu.354869/ ) being two of the main alternatives). Still you can get it http://filetrip.net/nds-downloads/utilities/download-nds-sound-extractor-0-4-f28818.html if you want it.

 

[InfinityAlex]

Oh, sorry, I mean ndssndtext. It might be outdated, but I really like it for it's ease of use. Thanks for the link reposts!