• VGMTool 2

Load the VGM in VGMTool by dragging and dropping the file onto it. Any existing GD3 tag will be read and displayed in the GD3 tag section; if the file does not have one, any entries in this section will remain.

Enter the relevant text in the fields shown. Then click on Update GD3 to write it to the file. If all the fields are blank, a blank tag will be written, which is obviously not very useful.

Click on Clear to clear all the GD3 fields; you might want to do this when tagging two unrelated files as when you load the second, the first's tag remains.

Here are some guidelines on what to enter:

• Track
  • Title
    The track title. You might find this from:
    • the game credits (eg. Wonder Boy III)
    • the sound test (eg. Out Run 3D)
    • the manual
    • different versions of the same game on other systems
    • the internet (try looking for different versions of the same game again)
    If there is no official track title, try naming after:
    • the level name (check the manual - some games, eg. Psycho Fox, have stuff named in the manual but not in-game.)
    • the game character to which it refers (check the manual again)
    • the event which prompts it (eg. "Game Over")
    Look at existing VGM packs (from SMS Power, other sites have lower standards for inclusion) to see what sort of thing is wanted.
  • Author
    The name of the person who composed the track, or at least who is credited with "sound". Check:
    • the game credits (eg. Sonic the Hedgehog)
    • the manual (eg. Cosmic Spacehead)
    • other people's brains - some people know stuff that isn't easy to find. For example, Shinichi Sakamoto wrote the music for all of West One's games, but I only know that because he personally told that to Bock.
    • the internet
• Game
  
  • Name
    Try to use what is written on the box (see http://www.smspower.org/scans/), or what Meka calls it. If the game has a sub-title, consider whether it is necessary or not, eg. "Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse" is a bit too much but "Y's: The Vanished Omens" is good.
  • System
    These are the recommended system names. Please copy and paste to be sure you get them right. Note that some of these systems don't have emulators which produce VGMs yet, or VGM players supporting their chips.
    • Sega SG-1000
    • Sega SC-3000
    • Sega Master System
    • Sega Game Gear
    • Sega Mega Drive
    • Sega 32X
    • Sega System 16
    • Capcom Play System 1
    • Colecovision
    • BBC Micro
    You can choose these from the dropdown list; if possible, the Japanese equivalent will also be filled in. If it isn't, and you know what it should be, please tell me :)
  • Release date
    Put this as accurately as you can... the format is yyyy/mm/dd, or just yyyy/mm or yyyy if month and day is not known. If you don't even know the year, look at the game's title screen.
• Japanese
  
  • Don't put ANYTHING in the Japanese column unless you are writing in Japanese characters, or you can prove that what you're writing in Roman characters is how that item was known in Japan.
  • To enter text directly in a MBCS format such as Shift-JIS, you need to use Windows 2000 or later because Windows 95/98/Me have non-working Unicode translation functions. Even then, you might have problems, so it is recommended to use the below method to be sure.
  • How to enter non-ASCII text
    If your version of WIndows doesn't properly support Unicode, you need to use another program to do the conversion (it is beyond the scope of this program to do it). HEre's what you have to do:
    1. Open a web page or text file containing the non-ASCII text in your web browser
    2. Select the text you want and copy it to the clipboard
    3. Press the Paste Unicode button in VGMTool
    4. The box below the button will be filled with the text, with all non-ASCII characters converted to NCRs (Numerical Character References)
    5. Select that text, and copy it to the clipboard again
    6. Paste it into whichever field you want
    If you want to enter NCRs manually, note that them must be in the format &#xnnnn; where nnnn is a 16-bit hexadecimal number, and the x must be lowercase.
  • When the file is saved
    When the file is saved, NCRs will automatically be converted to regular Unicode text.
  • When re-loading the file
    VGMTool reloads the file as soon as it is tagged anyway. When it does, it attempts to convert the text to MBCS; if this fails, it will convert the non-ASCII characters to NCRs again. So you can work on a VGM on a system not supporting the required conversion and the GD3 tag will not be damaged.
• VGM file
  • Creator
    Put your name here.
  • Notes
    Put anything you like here. However, don't put anything unnecessary, like your website, favourite colour, or whatever. Only put what's really relevant - eg. if the game has both PSG and FM music, mention which one this file is.

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