CT SPC stuff

[tushantin]

I'm curious to know.

I tried googling about but in vain. I need to know bits about SPC. (Note, I'm a n00b and not so high-tech intellectual xD) What kind of sound format is it? How does it play? Similar to WAV? Or rather it plays as instruments like MIDI? Is there a way to edit it?

Well, that's the stuff I'm after. Editing it.

[FaustWolf]

I'm also interested in SPC research (and possibly for the same reason you are  ), but I have little to offer personally on the subject. From what I understand, SNES music is split up into its constituent instrument samples and a "sequence" file strings all the instruments together, gives them tempo, etc. An SPC file is the sequencing data and instruments spliced together, so these don't actually exist in the game in they way you'd think of an .MP3 file. The SPC is made just for portability's sake.

JCE3000GT is one of the great SPC researchers -- he had a site called Blitzkrieg Productions, but it's gone offline without a trace, which is a shame. We may have to summon him at some point, but Vehek is also an SNES music hacking veteran and could probably answer any question we'd come up with. This would be a good place to post any SPC or SNES game music documentation we happen to come across, and get the details of SNES music hacking out in the open.

First thing to do, tushantin, is scour the Compendium for previous conversations regarding SPC and SNES sound formats and notes left from previous sound hacking endeavors.

[Vehek]

Do you want to edit CT's SPCs?

http://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/SPC_Commands.html

[FaustWolf]

Holy snark, that looks like Assembly Language. Gulp.

[Vehek]

The only thing you really need from there is the list of commands.

You could also try playing with RS3ExTool2.

[FaustWolf]

Is RS3ExTool2 what you used to import the Leonid's Castle theme from Romancing SaGa 3 into Prophet's Guile? That was an utterly brilliant piece of music, and sounded even better in the Chrono Trigger ROM than in RS3.

However, I think all music importation into Chrono Trigger to date has made use of CT's native instruments. Has anyone been able to pull off instrument alteration?

[Vehek]

JCE did that song. That was done the usual way of copying and pasting the hex code of the song from RS3 into CT.

I mentioned RS3ExTool2 in the SPC hacking thread, and I tried to write a tutorial over here

I've altered the instrument samples, but I didn't change the other data related to it.

Song Notes (Hex code):
00 - C
0E - C#
1C - D
2A - D#
38 - E
46 - F
54 - F#
62 - G
70 - G#
7E - A
8C - A#
9A - B
A8 - Tie
B6 - Rest
Values between determine how long the note lasts.

[Ramsus]

SPC music is assembly. Everything is broken down into sound samples and then strung together with assembly code for the sound processor, so each song is literally a program.

Of course, the original development tools probably provided a nicer, higher level abstraction and interface to work with everything in, but it all ends up the same.

[tushantin]

  *gulp* Oh, man! D= I knew it'd have even more complex thingies! But I'm sure gonna give it a shot. But how do I run the commands again?

SPC music is assembly. Everything is broken down into sound samples and then strung together with assembly code for the sound processor, so each song is literally a program.

Of course, the original development tools probably provided a nicer, higher level abstraction and interface to work with everything in, but it all ends up the same.

You bet! Obviously they developed a tool (similar to some virtual/keyboard composer tools, something like fruity loops or sort) and composed it like a MIDI or something, and as they hit a key a command was sent for recording that instrument at that specific time. It's kinda funny a tool hasn't been developed anywhere outside the company. Though I believe we might get to it. I'm not dexterous enough to compose something like the professionals, but a simple mouse click record tool might prove to be useful for several rom hacks we make. Though that's pretty far stretched.

Isn't there a way to assemble all the commands in a program and place them at certain keys? And with a timer included, then... aw man, then there's a problem for exporting to SPC. Also, it'd be much easier if one was able to view instruments and certain musical points in the SPC itself.