Chrono Trigger Soundtrack Expansion

[PowerPanda]

Chrono Trigger's soundtrack is widely acclaimed as one of the best of all time. However, the songs you hear in the game are not the complete soundtrack. There are actually 12 more songs that are part of Chrono Trigger's larger identity.

Songs from the OST
  * Frog's Theme (With Intro)
  * Singing Mountain
  * Battle 2
Songs from the PSX and DS re-releases
  * A Meeting with Destiny
  * One Sunny Day When We Met
  * Scattering Blossoms
  * A Time to Rest -After the Battle-
Songs from the Pre-Release cartridge
  * Keeper's Dome
  * Ascend to the Light
  * Boss Battle 3
  * Battle 1 Rough
And finally, songs that exist only as data chunks in the rom
  * Alarming Crisis
  * Rat-A-Tat-Tat It's... Mitsuda

This patch expands the soundtrack of the SNES game to include all 12 songs. For the 5 songs that were never on a Super Nintendo cartridge, small re-arrangements have been made to recreate the music on the SNES sound chip. There are no tricks going on here; all music that you hear is actually playing through the SNES sound engine, with no MSU-1 audio required.

While all emulators should be able to play this hack, it should be noted that not all flashcarts will be able to support it. Inclusion of so much new music required expanding the rom to the SNES's largest available cartridge size, 48 Mbits. This cartridge size was only ever used by 2 Tri-Ace games--Star Ocean and  Tales of Phantasia--so some flashcarts, in order to save money, do not support it. That being said, if you have a flashcart that supports it, you will be able to play this on original hardware.

6 Versions of this patch are included. The main patch, a patch that only adds the new song data to an already-expanded rom, and 4 addendum patches that add CTSE to famous romhacks, including the Bugfix and Uncensoring Patch, Enhansa Edition, Schala Edition, and Chrono Trigger+. 2 optional patches are included as well.

[Reld]

That's not my version of Frog's Theme, which is fine if you decided not to use mine for whatever reason. I just figured I should mention it since you talked about using mine in CT+ and crediting me. I wouldn't want to accidentally take credit for something I didn't do.

[PowerPanda]

That's not my version of Frog's Theme, which is fine if you decided not to use mine for whatever reason. I just figured I should mention it since you talked about using mine in CT+ and crediting me. I wouldn't want to accidentally take credit for something I didn't do.

It is an edit of your version. We took the intro that you had written, but moved the loop point to a few measures later. Ben wanted the intro to only play once. So yes, you should definitely be credited on that one!

[Zakyrus]

F****** cool.

I'm going to utilize this in my mod "Chrono trigger+ Eternal End" (I had to add a prefix title because there's a lot of CT plus mods out there... And as a programmer I do recognize all of them as absolutely badass.)

I will reference this in the CT temporal flux tutorial videos that are going to be released soon!! (If that is okay...)

I have video one out on Vimeo so take a look for that:
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/686164261

(YouTube hates me so I don't know why I can't upload those to them) some days I hate mainstream internet...(Google search is not what it used to be) lol

Nonetheless, this is freaking awesome!

By the way there is one more soundtrack called Rat-tat-tata...(or something like that)...would this be possible to have that as well? I hate rats on all levels (other than Master Splinter from Ninja turtles)...but I see the necessity for it LOL

Anyway cool work PowerPanda!

I'm glad to see the modding community is flourishing after the lift of the Cease and desist orders that most mod makers got from Squeenix(square enix)... However, for some weird reason I don't understand they never targeted my project. 🤨

~Z

[PowerPanda]

That song's already in the game. It's track 4F, labeled in Temporal Flux as "Fanfare 4".

Do you know who made Temporal Flux? With the music expansion, the one thing that seems tough is that TF doesn't allow you to enter a value above $52. If you enter one by hand, Temporal Flux converts it to a number it recognizes. Would be great if that limitation were removed, and Temporal Flux let you just go up to FE if you wanted to.

[Zakyrus]

That song's already in the game. It's track 4F, labeled in Temporal Flux as "Fanfare 4".

Do you know who made Temporal Flux? With the music expansion, the one thing that seems tough is that TF doesn't allow you to enter a value above $52. If you enter one by hand, Temporal Flux converts it to a number it recognizes. Would be great if that limitation were removed, and Temporal Flux let you just go up to FE if you wanted to.

I totally forgot that that was actually in the game. Thanks.

Here is the link for the temporal flux perpetual bug list is at the top of the Chrono trigger editing page (this forum/board):

https://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php?topic=3837.0

You want to get a hold of t.Geiger he is very hard to get a hold of...

If we can I would hope that he would release the SDK for temporal flux so that we can actually make our own editors not just plugins!

Yeah I have a couple ideas about that one I was hoping that my friend Mauron, would make me a simple text hex editor where I could just simply edit an address and then commit changes and actually have a list of just 10 addresses with the change and make that exportable this would save me so much " by hand" work.

Fortunately I'm getting back into programming so at some point I will try to write this stuff myself if it doesn't exist what we really need is what I just mentioned and a tile set graphical editor with exports instead of having to use YY-CHR(that best)

It would also be great for temporal flux to have the limitation for the total amount of shops removed...

Another note is someday I would like to make a synthshop(combining two or more items and a gil/G cost with the output of an item it would be great to have these as a shop window interface)...
And even more importantly have window size for text go up to eight lines decisions already accept a higher number for some reason but we can only do four lines text boxes it would be great to be able to do one line to four location names also...
~Z

[Reld]

It is an edit of your version. We took the intro that you had written, but moved the loop point to a few measures later. Ben wanted the intro to only play once. So yes, you should definitely be credited on that one!

It's not. Mine already only played the intro once, so you wouldn't have needed to make that modification. The note durations and stuff like that are a little different too. There was another guy who did it after me on RHDN, so you may have snagged that one instead.

[Zakyrus]

If I remember correctly each of the SPC is for Chrono trigger has a unique index for note arrays hence OneNote could be slightly different than another version...

The floating continent seem in final fantasy 6/3us... Which is shared with the same theme at the opening of the game but with different instruments is an example of this...

It's not just different instruments it's different note data too if that helps.

~Z

[PowerPanda]

A major update has been added, and v.2.0 is now available.

Version 2.0 changes this from a "hacker's hack" to one that can be used by anyone. In addition to having the data added to your rom, the patch now adds musical cues in the game so that the songs will play. A version compatible with Enhansa Edition is also included.

Version 2.0 also includes a new song. Several years ago, Zeality discovered Unknown Fanfare as leftover junk data in the Japanese rom, and arranged it with instruments. Gi Nattak and I have added a basic loop point to this song, and inserted it as the 91st music track. I have named it "Alarming Crisis".

Finally, the arrangements for "A Meeting With Destiny" and "Scattering Blossoms" exceeded the available RAM of the SNES. In ZSNES, this was no problem, but in BSNES or SNES9X, or on original hardware, the RAM overflow would cause popping and glitching in these 2 songs. Gi Nattak and I have done a slight re-arrangement of the songs so that they require 1 less instrument each, and fit in the SNES's available RAM.

The patch is available for download in the original post. Here is a list of where you will be able to hear the new music.

===Song 80: Rat-A-Tat-Tat It's... Mitsuda!
Truce Inn 1000 AD - Piano Player (1 of 5 songs)

===Song 81: Battle 2
This becomes the main battle theme after Crono confronts Lavos for the first time in the Ocean Palace, and replaces all instances of Battle 1 from there on out.

===Song 82: Singing Mountain
Death Peak - field music

===Song 83: A Meeting With Destiny
End of Time - Add Marle to your party
Note: Crono and Marle share a theme song, but it does not play when Crono is selected. It seemed like Marle could use a more upbeat song in the End of Time to match all of the other characters. Their song, Far Off Promise, plays in its usual event locations, and has also been added to the Truce Inn Piano Player as 1 of her 5 songs.

===Song 84: One Sunny Day When We Met
Millenial Fair: Dancing Exhibit - field music

===Song 85: Scattering Blossoms
Truce Inn 1000 AD - Piano Player (1 of 5 songs)
Mt. Woe - field music

===Song 86: A Time To Rest -After the Battle-
Death Peak - Cutscene where you use the Chrono Trigger

===Song 87: Frog's Theme (With Intro)
Magic Cave - Cutscene where Frog gains the Masamune
Northern Ruins - Cutscene where the Masamune is powered up
End of Time - Add Frog to your party

===Song 88: Keeper's Dome
Keeper's Dome - field music

===Song 89: Ascend to the Light
Sun Keep, all time periods - field music
Sun Palace - field music

===Song 90: Boss Battle 3
Denadoro Mountains - Masamume 2nd Form*
Death Peak - Lavos Spawn battles
Black Omen - Elder Lavos Spawn battle
*Note: Boss Battle 2, which previously played during Masamune's 2nd Form, now additionally plays during the Giga Gaia and Mother Brain battles

===Song 91: Alarming Crisis
Abandoned Factory - Cutscene where the power is turned on

[inuksuk]

Cool stuff! Thanks for doing the work to make it play nice with Enhansa Edition, too.

[PowerPanda]

Cool stuff! Thanks for doing the work to make it play nice with Enhansa Edition, too.

Of course. I feel like the 2 projects have a lot of synergy for people who want to go back and do a replay. You have an unread message on RHDN where I asked permission. 

[Reld]

Finally, the arrangements for "A Meeting With Destiny" and "Scattering Blossoms" exceeded the available RAM of the SNES. In ZSNES, this was no problem, but in BSNES or SNES9X, or on original hardware, the RAM overflow would cause popping and glitching in these 2 songs. Gi Nattak and I have done a slight re-arrangement of the songs so that they require 1 less instrument each, and fit in the SNES's available RAM.

If the problem with those two tracks is what I think it is, it can be fixed without dropping instruments. The tail end of the sample data is probably overflowing into the echo buffer and being constantly overwritten. You have to move the start of the echo buffer, which can be accomplished by changing the first byte in the list of two-byte entries at 07241D/C7241D in the original ROM (haven't checked where you moved it to in this hack). The second byte appears to be a master volume for each song, but I haven't really investigated it much. Could be useful if some of the new songs seem too quiet compared to others.

For the first byte, these are the valid values, and where they put the start of the echo buffer in ARAM:

Code: [Select]

$00 = $f100
$01 = $e900
$02 = $e100
$03 = $d900
$04 = $d100
$05 = $c900
$06 = $c100
$07 = $b900
$08 = $b100
$09 = $a900
$0a = $a100
$0b = $9900
$0c = $9100
$0d = $8900
$0e = $8100
$0f = $7900

So basically you have to add up the total size of the instrument samples used, add $4700 (which is the starting address for the samples in ARAM), and then round up to the closest value in the above list so that the echo buffer will be sure to start after the end of the samples. I just discovered all of this fairly recently when somebody asked me to fix some things in Prophet's Guile and Flames of Eternity for them so they could play on a flash cart (off topic, but maybe I should post patches for those in another thread?) For Prophet's Guile and Flames of Eternity I slapped together a quick and dirty command line tool to calculate it automatically. I can probably modify it to work for this hack. Should just be a matter of changing the start addresses for the pointer tables and the number of songs. I'll give it a look later if you want.

[PowerPanda]

That's really useful information. I was wondering what all of the pairs of "05 FF" were about. I think I can use that to smooth out "Ascend to the Light" a little bit. In this instance though, that wasn't the case. The tracks "Scattering Blossoms" and "A Meeting With Destiny" were written with the Chrono Trigger soundfont, but they were not written to be playable on SNES. (Example: there is one point in the original "A Meeting With Destiny" where there are 12 individual notes playing at the same time, far exceeding the SNES's maximum of 8.)

The actual problem was that CT uses remarkably high-quality BRR instrument samples for its time, and they were surpassing the SNES's maximum RAM. Both Gi and I still use ZSNES as our main emulator, and that does not cap the RAM, so we didn't notice until I started recording videos on SNES9X.

We don't know why we didn't catch this during the arrangement phase, but if I had to venture an educated guess, it's that Gi probably arranged these using the lower-quality FF6 instrument BRRs, since he is more familiar with them, and then once he had everything right, found the equivalent instruments in Chrono Trigger.

[Reld]

That's really useful information. I was wondering what all of the pairs of "05 FF" were about. I think I can use that to smooth out "Ascend to the Light" a little bit. In this instance though, that wasn't the case. The tracks "Scattering Blossoms" and "A Meeting With Destiny" were written with the Chrono Trigger soundfont, but they were not written to be playable on SNES. (Example: there is one point in the original "A Meeting With Destiny" where there are 12 individual notes playing at the same time, far exceeding the SNES's maximum of 8.)

The actual problem was that CT uses remarkably high-quality BRR instrument samples for its time, and they were surpassing the SNES's maximum RAM. Both Gi and I still use ZSNES as our main emulator, and that does not cap the RAM, so we didn't notice until I started recording videos on SNES9X.

We don't know why we didn't catch this during the arrangement phase, but if I had to venture an educated guess, it's that Gi probably arranged these using the lower-quality FF6 instrument BRRs, since he is more familiar with them, and then once he had everything right, found the equivalent instruments in Chrono Trigger.

I'm sorry if this comes across as rude, but this doesn't appear to be accurate. I had downloaded the old version a while ago and just done nothing with it. I just patched a ROM and investigated Scattering Blossoms. The total size of the instruments is $8bd1 bytes, which would put the start of the echo buffer at $d900 (so a value of $03 in that table instead of $05). I tried that and the glitchy sounds went away. For that song at least it doesn't exceed the total size of ARAM. It just overflows into the echo buffer like I suspected. I'm gonna check A Meeting With Destiny now, but I'd bet it's the same deal.

EDIT: Yeah, same deal. Instruments cross into the echo buffer, but don't exceed the available space in ARAM. For A Meeting With Destiny the echo buffer needs to start at $e100, so a value of $02 instead of $05.

[PowerPanda]

I'm sorry if this comes across as rude, but this doesn't appear to be accurate. I had downloaded the old version a while ago and just done nothing with it.

Not rude at all. Thank you for your help with this. Looks like I'll be releasing a 2.1 version after all!

Speaking of, there was a problem with the 2.0 version. The "CTSE Standard" IPS file was built off of an already-expanded 6MB rom, instead of the original 4MB rom. I've corrected it, and reuploaded.