vgmtool midi conversion suggestions?

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neologix
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vgmtool midi conversion suggestions?

Post by neologix »

k, so y'all may or may not know maxim has allowed me to be the one to update vgmtool to the next version and port said update to mac. i have promised vgm to midi sequence conversion as good as or better than that offered by the existing gym2mid and vgm2mid apps by paul jensen (i used to be in contact w/him abt this, then he vanished, presumably busy w/schoolwork). i still intend to follow thru w/this, but i need some help.

so, it's a relatively safe assumption that vgms of a particular game's set share instrument presets (the internals of the actual game sound drivers are irrelevant, but suffice it to say it results in a shared instrument bank from which to reference instrument assignments in game). as such, i'd like to store instrument presets somehow. my question is as follows:

how should i store ym2612 instrument preset to gm patch data for conversion?

the options are as follows:
* one huge file normally distributed w/vgmtool and independently updateable
* one file per set, distributed w/a game's complete set here, that contains ALL the ym2612 preset -> gm patch assignments for that game's set
* one file per song, distributed w/a game's set here, where the file contains the ym2612 preset -> gm patch assignments for that song
* something database related similar to the first option; would require sqlite built into vgmtool similar to how it was built into in_vgm pre-v2 for replay gain purposes

the format would likely be plain text - have the english name of the game at the top, the english name of the track (if it's one file per track), and (one on each line) the preset's register data (it's like 56 or so registers per preset; i forget the count offhand) followed by a space and a gm patch value. i haven't figured out drums assignment or dac yet, but i gather the psg would end up square lead (gm patch 0x80) on all three tone channels, w/psg noise becoming hihat (closed for short, open for long).

any suggestions and/or recommendations would be welcome. once vgmtool 3 is done and released i'll be taking suggestions for conversion the other way around.
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