Best vgm to wav conversion method ?

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technosux
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Best vgm to wav conversion method ?

Post by technosux »

Hi , it seems there's alot of praise for Kega fusion sound emulation,
but unfortunately, no way to get same good emulation with a foobar or winamp
plugin. So, that's how I convert a vgm ost, into wav files.
A bit fastidious !

First I create a rom from all vgm files, with the help of
"VGM Play".
http://www.mjsstuf.x10hosting.com/SEGA%20DEV/SEGA%20GENESIS%20DEV.htm
The built in "ROM Builder" allow to set a silent pause , between
each track. I set it to 8 second, or anything enough big.

Then I open Kega fusion, and try to select the "weakest" options,
for the rendering of images. In the video menu, I set window size to 320x240,
scanlines to 0%, and uncheck "filtered" option.
Ideally I would disable the image, but kega fusion doesn't offer the option.
For the menu sound, I ensure to have the best options: 44100 Hz, SuperHQ.
However I do not enable overdrive, as it seems to just multiply volume
by two, with the risk of clipping. I assume there's no aditional precision
from using overdrive (in the case there's no clipping), but can't verify.
The Filter option of video menu , is unchecked too.

Then I begin to record the sound from kega fusion , with the "log wav file"
option.

Then I load the rom I've previously created.

Then I press the backspace key, to enable "fast forward" emulation.
On my laptop, that's still too slow.

Unfortunately , the playlist from the rom is looping.
So I must check when all tracks were played.
Then I close emulator.

Finally , I use the software WaveKnife, to automatically split the wav,
into tracks
http://www.spacetaxi.de/sf/waveknife.html
I set Wavekniffer to detect silence of 7 second, and with -90db
for noise level.

As you see , that's a lot of fastidious steps, with the hope of getting the best results.
Let me know, if you have comments/ suggestions.

Thanks
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DeepChild
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Location: Atlanta, GA

Post by DeepChild »

EDIT: Meh, I was explaining how to do it with winamp, but you specified you don't care for the emulation.
technosux
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Post by technosux »

you specified you don't care for the emulation.

Well, I'm looking for the best results, and unfortunately I must use Kega Fusion for this.
This is thread is also a pretext to show that I must jump through hoops with Kega Fusion.
Why the author of Kega Fusion doesn't offer a plugin for people only interested by sound emulation , that's a bit disappointing ?

Also I'm wondering if a lot of people are going thru the hassle of using Kega Fusion, or are just enough satisfied with foo_gep (with foobar) or in_vgm (with winamp).
How to explain for instance the difference between for instance foo_gep, and kega fusion ?
I'm wondering if the author of kega fusion , doesn't just apply some effects to make it "sound nicer". So maybe Kega Fusion is not just about "accuracy" , but has a built in DSP, that people like.
SmartOne
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Location: Your mom. HA!

Post by SmartOne »

Fusion has always been about accuracy. I've asked Steve Snake for a VGM plugin or a playback feature within the emulator.

Game Emu Player uses Genesis Plus GX's core. It is quite close to Fusion. Some incorrect initialization values in the plugin implementation cause channels of certain songs to play incorrectly. I'm sure that if kode54 knew what to change, he'd fix it.
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bucky
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Post by bucky »

technosux wrote:Well, I'm looking for the best results, and unfortunately I must use
Also I'm wondering if a lot of people are going thru the hassle of using Kega Fusion, or are just enough satisfied with foo_gep (with foobar) or in_vgm (with winamp).

I have an ongoing project where I sample complete game soundtracks-
http://www.youtube.com/user/explod2A03

I've always tried to sample from the best emulation sources I can, but have recently moved on to using hardware as much as possible. Unfortunately, I didn't realize the inaccuracies of in_vgm, and that's what all of my Genesis stuff has been sampled from so far, so I'm sort of in the same boat. Consider me another person unhappy with the quality of vgm emulation. :) I've also been told that Kega Fusion is a better place to look, but since a friend has picked up one of those Genesis flash carts, we're able to play vgm --> rom conversions off the actual console. I'll be playing around with that soon (he did an album of original music like this). That'll of course yield the best quality sound, but unfortunately, not everyone has that option. I wish there were better quality and more convenient .vgm players out there.

I don't have any experience sampling from Kega Fusion, so let me know if for some odd reason this won't work, but have you tried 'sampling' the music instead of 'exporting' / 'converting' it? I'd recommend giving audacity a shot.

Since you'll be recording the music into an audio editor, you don't have to worry about automating any of the processes (like silence detection). Just hit the stop button when you're done. You can easily trim or add more silence to the end of a track from there. Then you can export it as a wav / flac / mp3 / ogg, etc. Of course you'll have to do things track by track, which sounds a bit tedious, but probably simpler and more straight forward than the process you presented. Listen with fusion, record with audacity. :)
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