Can someone with chip/midi knowknowledge answer this

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Siamey
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Can someone with chip/midi knowknowledge answer this

Post by Siamey »

i had a question at the end of
http://forums.project2612.org/showthread.php?p=1366#post1366

well.. a couple questions really
can anyone give me some info?
thanks! :)
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neologix
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Post by neologix »

Siamey wrote:...

also im thinkin... isnt there any tools for writing gym songs like this dude was asking about? is my understanding correct that gyms are just notes and stuff and the winamp plugin (that i use for example) is the chip emulator? also, sorry if i use gym and vgm interchangably, ive only used gyms and dont really know the difference.

by the way (sorry for all these questions at once) when im listening to like "hydro city zone act 1" the drums and instruments will randomly switch from regular to shuffled (like swing) is that supposed to be like that? i cant see them writing the song like that...
maybe this is a problem with the ym chip or my plugin? or maybe the gym format not being stable or precise? augh so many questions!

anyways, im glad ive found this place, im a huge fan of genesis soundtracks.
YAY!


1. writing gym songs: if you know what the ym2612 registers do and you're a competent hex editor, you can make gyms from scratch. i used hex edit gyms for personal testing all the time, mainly to trim silence from the beginning and end and to change instrument presets to hear what they sound like. it's rather difficult to do something like a .MID to .GYM/.VGM conversion for two reasons: one, drums won't be converted (either would have to DAC them from some predetermined wave file set or do some really creative channel 3/psg noise channel notating); two, not all events would be interchangeable. luckily, there's TFMMaker somewhere (do a search for tfmmaker on spritesmind.net).

2. i disassembled both hydro city zone gyms once upon a time and one of the things i noticed is a very creative use of the DAC, channel 3, and psg noise channels. the timing is just simply one of those afterthoughts. i'm quite sure official sega game developers (1st, 2nd, or 3rd party) had some kind of in-game drivers setup where they could write the music as "standard notation" and the game would convert it to correct 68k/z80 code.

3. as for .gym vs .vgm, .gym is "frame-accurate," therefore limited to the 60hz rate that the format originally intended .vgm is "sample-accurate," therefore can potentially be "higher quality." .gym also only handles genesis ym logs, while .vgm has been modified to handle many sound chips.
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Siamey
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Post by Siamey »

thanks dude!
that answers alot of questions!
umm i have 2 more though, sorry!
if i wanted to get samples out of a gym file, what would be the best way (other than muting channels, writing to wav and chopping in recycle)

and also, do you know why certain songs like hydro city will randomly change from shuffle to non shuffle?

thanks!
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neologix
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Post by neologix »

it seems like it's the song's style. that's the way i guess they wanted to write it. it's got a unique beat that still keeps the general sonic 3 motif going. i've always hated marble gardens, tho, the way i used to hate marble zone from sonic 1.
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