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After hearing the Winamp .VGM plugin in action I was wondering if it isn't very easy to make a VST/DXi softsynthesizer (maybe based on the code in the winamp plugin) of the soundchip in the Sega Mastersystem? It would be really cool to be able to use these kind of old-school sounds in programs like Cakewalk and Sonar.

Quote

> After hearing the Winamp .VGM plugin in action I was wondering if it isn't very easy to make a VST/DXi softsynthesizer (maybe based on the code in the winamp plugin) of the soundchip in the Sega Mastersystem? It would be really cool to be able to use these kind of old-school sounds in programs like Cakewalk and Sonar.

It depends on the API of that system. But... can't you make a 1-cycle square wave in a wave editor and use that as a sample, allowing you to produce any frequency square wave you like? That'd be much easier :)

Maxim

A little Googling finds this which should do what you want - set it to square waves, turn everything else off.

Maxim

The YM2151 should be able to sound like the soundchip in SMS.
http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Sunnyvale/3601/VOPM/index.html

YM2151 VST

Yes, I think my thoughts have been to simple. I was thinking more in terms of instruments (e.g.: Instrument #1 is a square wave with certain values for attack, decay, sustain and release) than just modulating square waves which are sent to the chip.
What did the composers for the SMS use back then? Were they more programmers or did they have preprogrammed tools to make the music for the games?

Quote

> Yes, I think my thoughts have been to simple. I was thinking more in terms of instruments (e.g.: Instrument #1 is a square wave with certain values for attack, decay, sustain and release) than just modulating square waves which are sent to the chip.

Ah, I see. That's actually a lot more complex than the VGM plugin, which doesn't do anything apart from square wave generation - all the envelope control is done by the game and stored in the VGM file.

Quote

> What did the composers for the SMS use back then? Were they more programmers or did they have preprogrammed tools to make the music for the games?

Generally, there was a programmer who wrote a music engine supporting certain features, and a musician would compose a tune within the limitations of the engine and cartridge space. Sometimes the programmer and musician were the same person (eg. Shinichi Sakamoto of West One who did all the Wonder Boy music). Sometimes the same music engine was used for several games.

I expect there was some kind of sequencing software involved, either that or the transcribing of music to the engine data format was highly tedious. Well... probably the latter.

Maxim

Quote

> > What did the composers for the SMS use back then? Were they more programmers or did they have preprogrammed tools to make the music for the games?

> Generally, there was a programmer who wrote a music engine supporting certain features, and a musician would compose a tune within the limitations of the engine and cartridge space. Sometimes the programmer and musician were the same person (eg. Shinichi Sakamoto of West One who did all the Wonder Boy music). Sometimes the same music engine was used for several games.

> I expect there was some kind of sequencing software involved, either that or the transcribing of music to the engine data format was highly tedious. Well... probably the latter.

> Maxim

I just remember that I am writing a VGM tracker. But I have a question for Maxim: when you have a VGM file, made with logging in Dega/Meka or made (*...someday*) with my program, can you reconvert it in something playable by a GG or SMS? Is it possible to transfer a VGM file to a "physical" cartridge? I am pretty new of SMSpower... I don't know yet very well the S-8 team capabilities... maybe I am also in the wrong forum. Am I?

Bye.

Quote

> I just remember that I am writing a VGM tracker. But I have a question for Maxim: when you have a VGM file, made with logging in Dega/Meka or made (*...someday*) with my program, can you reconvert it in something playable by a GG or SMS? Is it possible to transfer a VGM file to a "physical" cartridge? I am pretty new of SMSpower... I don't know yet very well the S-8 team capabilities... maybe I am also in the wrong forum. Am I?

Well... guess what I've been working on for some time?

Most recent

Quite similar

Older version

Maxim

Quote

> > I just remember that I am writing a VGM tracker. But I have a question for Maxim: when you have a VGM file, made with logging in Dega/Meka or made (*...someday*) with my program, can you reconvert it in something playable by a GG or SMS? Is it possible to transfer a VGM file to a "physical" cartridge? I am pretty new of SMSpower... I don't know yet very well the S-8 team capabilities... maybe I am also in the wrong forum. Am I?

> Well... guess what I've been working on for some time?

Yes, I know that Maxim is writing that player, and it's surely a great thing. But I wanted to ask if is it possible to use "new" vgms as soundtrack in games... maybe to replace existing tracks in existing games (wonder sonic with alex kidd's music, for example) or to write new games' musics...

And about my program... now it can handle and recognize correctly VGM files, but it doesn't display events like a tracker for now (it's a sort of VGMtool's "dump to text") and it can play one channel via pc-speaker. If anybody want the source code just tell me. It's not finished yet but maybe someone can give me hints. (Maaaaaaaaaaaaxim... where are you????)

Bye.

Quote

> Yes, I know that Maxim is writing that player, and it's surely a great thing. But I wanted to ask if is it possible to use "new" vgms as soundtrack in games... maybe to replace existing tracks in existing games (wonder sonic with alex kidd's music, for example) or to write new games' musics...

No. You could spend a *long* time figuring out a game's music format and then try to write something in that format. You could try to hack one game's engine into another, but I strongly doubt it would work. There are some games which seem to share the same music engine (games made by the same company at around the same time) and they may have compatible music data, but it's non-trivial to actually find it and move it around.

Quote

> And about my program... now it can handle and recognize correctly VGM files, but it doesn't display events like a tracker for now (it's a sort of VGMtool's "dump to text") and it can play one channel via pc-speaker. If anybody want the source code just tell me. It's not finished yet but maybe someone can give me hints. (Maaaaaaaaaaaaxim... where are you????)

I'm here :P Loading VGM files isn't the way to go. First make a very simple tracker (like, one track, one event) and get it to generate a VGM file* at whichever frequency/volume is entered. Then try adding more "events" (I don't know the correct terminology), then more channels, then work on applying volume envelopes. You don't need to produce optimised data (ie. you can write a full state every frame, except for the noise byte) because VGMTool can optimise it.

One thing I find useful is to put invalid data in the VGM file, like zero bytes. The format specifies that they must be skipped, and it makes navigating the file in a hex editor much easier.

(* Better make it a valid one. in_vgm is quite fault-tolerant but other software isn't guaranteed to be.)

Maxim

Author	Message
Joost Guest	SMS VST/DXi softsynth? Posted: Tue May 21, 2002 11:47 am
Joost Guest	After hearing the Winamp .VGM plugin in action I was wondering if it isn't very easy to make a VST/DXi softsynthesizer (maybe based on the code in the winamp plugin) of the soundchip in the Sega Mastersystem? It would be really cool to be able to use these kind of old-school sounds in programs like Cakewalk and Sonar.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14745 Location: London	Probably quite easy Posted: Tue May 21, 2002 12:43 pm
	Quote > After hearing the Winamp .VGM plugin in action I was wondering if it isn't very easy to make a VST/DXi softsynthesizer (maybe based on the code in the winamp plugin) of the soundchip in the Sega Mastersystem? It would be really cool to be able to use these kind of old-school sounds in programs like Cakewalk and Sonar. It depends on the API of that system. But... can't you make a 1-cycle square wave in a wave editor and use that as a sample, allowing you to produce any frequency square wave you like? That'd be much easier :) Maxim

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14745 Location: London	Or... Posted: Tue May 21, 2002 1:20 pm
	A little Googling finds this which should do what you want - set it to square waves, turn everything else off. Maxim

Stefan Lindberg Guest	Posted: Tue May 21, 2002 2:42 pm
Stefan Lindberg Guest	The YM2151 should be able to sound like the soundchip in SMS. http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Sunnyvale/3601/VOPM/index.html YM2151 VST

Joost Guest	Re: Or... Posted: Wed May 22, 2002 11:57 am
Joost Guest	Yes, I think my thoughts have been to simple. I was thinking more in terms of instruments (e.g.: Instrument #1 is a square wave with certain values for attack, decay, sustain and release) than just modulating square waves which are sent to the chip. What did the composers for the SMS use back then? Were they more programmers or did they have preprogrammed tools to make the music for the games?

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14745 Location: London	Re: Or... Posted: Wed May 22, 2002 2:58 pm
	Quote > Yes, I think my thoughts have been to simple. I was thinking more in terms of instruments (e.g.: Instrument #1 is a square wave with certain values for attack, decay, sustain and release) than just modulating square waves which are sent to the chip. Ah, I see. That's actually a lot more complex than the VGM plugin, which doesn't do anything apart from square wave generation - all the envelope control is done by the game and stored in the VGM file. Quote > What did the composers for the SMS use back then? Were they more programmers or did they have preprogrammed tools to make the music for the games? Generally, there was a programmer who wrote a music engine supporting certain features, and a musician would compose a tune within the limitations of the engine and cartridge space. Sometimes the programmer and musician were the same person (eg. Shinichi Sakamoto of West One who did all the Wonder Boy music). Sometimes the same music engine was used for several games. I expect there was some kind of sequencing software involved, either that or the transcribing of music to the engine data format was highly tedious. Well... probably the latter. Maxim

Tom Joined: 16 May 2002 Posts: 1356 Location: italy	Re: Or... Posted: Wed May 22, 2002 3:56 pm
Tom Joined: 16 May 2002 Posts: 1356 Location: italy	Quote > > What did the composers for the SMS use back then? Were they more programmers or did they have preprogrammed tools to make the music for the games? > Generally, there was a programmer who wrote a music engine supporting certain features, and a musician would compose a tune within the limitations of the engine and cartridge space. Sometimes the programmer and musician were the same person (eg. Shinichi Sakamoto of West One who did all the Wonder Boy music). Sometimes the same music engine was used for several games. > I expect there was some kind of sequencing software involved, either that or the transcribing of music to the engine data format was highly tedious. Well... probably the latter. > Maxim I just remember that I am writing a VGM tracker. But I have a question for Maxim: when you have a VGM file, made with logging in Dega/Meka or made (...someday) with my program, can you reconvert it in something playable by a GG or SMS? Is it possible to transfer a VGM file to a "physical" cartridge? I am pretty new of SMSpower... I don't know yet very well the S-8 team capabilities... maybe I am also in the wrong forum. Am I? Bye.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14745 Location: London	SMS VGM player Posted: Wed May 22, 2002 4:41 pm
	Quote > I just remember that I am writing a VGM tracker. But I have a question for Maxim: when you have a VGM file, made with logging in Dega/Meka or made (...someday) with my program, can you reconvert it in something playable by a GG or SMS? Is it possible to transfer a VGM file to a "physical" cartridge? I am pretty new of SMSpower... I don't know yet very well the S-8 team capabilities... maybe I am also in the wrong forum. Am I? Well... guess what I've been working on for some time? Most recent Quite similar Older version Maxim

Tom Joined: 16 May 2002 Posts: 1356 Location: italy	Re: SMS VGM player Posted: Thu May 23, 2002 8:30 am
Tom Joined: 16 May 2002 Posts: 1356 Location: italy	Quote > > I just remember that I am writing a VGM tracker. But I have a question for Maxim: when you have a VGM file, made with logging in Dega/Meka or made (...someday) with my program, can you reconvert it in something playable by a GG or SMS? Is it possible to transfer a VGM file to a "physical" cartridge? I am pretty new of SMSpower... I don't know yet very well the S-8 team capabilities... maybe I am also in the wrong forum. Am I? > Well... guess what I've been working on for some time? Yes, I know that Maxim is writing that player, and it's surely a great thing. But I wanted to ask if is it possible to use "new" vgms as soundtrack in games... maybe to replace existing tracks in existing games (wonder sonic with alex kidd's music, for example) or to write new games' musics... And about my program... now it can handle and recognize correctly VGM files, but it doesn't display events like a tracker for now (it's a sort of VGMtool's "dump to text") and it can play one channel via pc-speaker. If anybody want the source code just tell me. It's not finished yet but maybe someone can give me hints. (Maaaaaaaaaaaaxim... where are you????) Bye.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14745 Location: London	Re: SMS VGM player Posted: Thu May 23, 2002 3:42 pm
	Quote > Yes, I know that Maxim is writing that player, and it's surely a great thing. But I wanted to ask if is it possible to use "new" vgms as soundtrack in games... maybe to replace existing tracks in existing games (wonder sonic with alex kidd's music, for example) or to write new games' musics... No. You could spend a long time figuring out a game's music format and then try to write something in that format. You could try to hack one game's engine into another, but I strongly doubt it would work. There are some games which seem to share the same music engine (games made by the same company at around the same time) and they may have compatible music data, but it's non-trivial to actually find it and move it around. Quote > And about my program... now it can handle and recognize correctly VGM files, but it doesn't display events like a tracker for now (it's a sort of VGMtool's "dump to text") and it can play one channel via pc-speaker. If anybody want the source code just tell me. It's not finished yet but maybe someone can give me hints. (Maaaaaaaaaaaaxim... where are you????) I'm here :P Loading VGM files isn't the way to go. First make a very simple tracker (like, one track, one event) and get it to generate a VGM file* at whichever frequency/volume is entered. Then try adding more "events" (I don't know the correct terminology), then more channels, then work on applying volume envelopes. You don't need to produce optimised data (ie. you can write a full state every frame, except for the noise byte) because VGMTool can optimise it. One thing I find useful is to put invalid data in the VGM file, like zero bytes. The format specifies that they must be skipped, and it makes navigating the file in a hex editor much easier. (* Better make it a valid one. in_vgm is quite fault-tolerant but other software isn't guaranteed to be.) Maxim

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