Ragster2448's Useless Knowledge/Tutorials

[Ragster2448]

Yeah, I thought I might share some of the things that I've been learning myself. I'll post some stuff that you guys might not know (and probably don't care about) and some tutorials on how to do some kind of things.

1. HOW NINTENDO 64 MUSIC WORKS (PART 1)

      Ok, so I've been researching on how Nintendo 64 music is compiled in the game and how it's played. I've learned some quite interesting stuff. As you guys know, Nintendo 64 music is NOT a simple recording of an orchestrated performance. That would take up WAY too much room on the cartridge.

      Of the facts I am currently aware of, each instrument is taken ONE sample of. That is, it's just a small 4 or 5 KB sized file that has the instrument playing a C note. They then take that sample and change the pitch of it to make the note they need for that part. How these notes know when to play, is a little bit more confusing.

      In the basic Nintendo 64 cartridge, there are two types of audio files, one is a .MINIUSF file and another is a .USFLIB file. The MINIUSF file is the actual song. It's pretty much like our standard MIDI file only changed to a different file so that Nintendo can do a little bit more modifications on them, modifications that we are limited to, such as changing the sound the instrument makes. This file contains the notation of the song, such as what pitch it plays or what drum it plays, for say. The USFLIB file contains all of the data the MINIUSF file needs to play the music, such as the list of instruments and the sounds they make, and keeps all of the music files organized. These files MUST be in the same directory of the cartridge or else they will not work.

     I know what you guys are thinking, "I want me some Super Mario 64 instruments!"! Well, it's not impossible. In fact, I have tried and succeeded in ripping the instruments from Super Mario 64. The only problem is that I have a C note for every instrument, and I don't know how to change the pitch of the sound. I'm guessing Audacity could do this, but you'd have to tune the sounds properly. I'm still working on this, and perhaps I could have an entire instrument from the game! I have no idea what I'd do with them though, I do have a software that supports the adding of instruments onto it. I could do that, then have an entire VST file of an instrument from Super Mario 64.


     MUCH more research is required before I fully understand all of this. I'm not even 100% sure that any of this is correct. I'll have some more information once I figured out more about it.

[spitllama]

*posts nothing to follow this topic*

:O

[GoronsOrchestrated]

so thats why they aren't using orchestrated music until now!

[SlowPokemon]

Yep! A disc can hold way more data than a cartridge of course

Just posting to follow this topic because I love orchestrated music.

[GoronsOrchestrated]

How do you know how to make the notes play long or short?

[SlowPokemon]

?

[Ragster2448]

I believe they make the sample as long as the longest sustained note in the song, then they cut it short for shorter notes.

[spitllama]

Sounds like a lot of effort to make some of these tunes..

[Ragster2448]

It is, but it saves room on the cartridge for other things. I'll have a tutorial up for those who want to get some video game instruments.

[Ragster2448]

1. HOW NINTENDO 64 MUSIC WORKS (PART 2)

     So, it appears that not all instruments play C notes in their samples. There also appears to be more than one sample of an instrument. Strange indeed, but I have discovered the reason for this. When you change a really low note to a really high note, it sounds like a dying pig. Creating higher notes and lower notes will keep this from happening. So, some instruments will have one sample, others will have four samples. The reason for this is that some instruments play a wider range of pitches than others. Sorry if you wanted to rip an instrument that only played 2 notes in the game, because you won't get very high without it screwing up unless you have some kind of high-quality sound editing program.

     I have also learned that Audacity can change the pitches of sounds, and they made it to where you can change the sound's pitch musically (integers of half-steps). This may take a while to do, and some people may be impatient and not want to do it. I have currently succeeded in making two instruments (a Orchestra Hit and a Sitar), which come from the game Rayman 2. I have also extracted instrument samples from Super Mario 64, I'll probably start making instruments from it as well.


     More research must be done! I'll have some more information once I figure more out about it.

TUTORIAL: So you want some Nintendo 64 Instrument Samples, eh?

     VERY simple process. I'll explain how you can get your hands on Instrument samples and Sound Effects from Nintendo 64 video games.

     1. Your going to need the extractor. I have uploaded the extractor to my Mediafire (N64 Sound List). Once you get it, open the file. Go into the folder "Release". You should see an application named "N64SoundListTool". Open that up.

     2. I can't help you out much here. Find a N64 ROM (preferably one that you own as a cartridge, so that it can't be considered illegal) that you want to take the instruments from and download it.

     3. Go back to the application. Click on "File" in the top left corner of the application window. Then hover over "Known Game" and select your game that you downloaded.



     4. Once you selected that game, you need to locate the ROM that you downloaded of the game. Select it, and it will open up the Soundbank(s). Here's some stuff you can do in this application:

          - View the different Soundbanks of the game by clicking on the drop-down arrow under "Soundbank". Some games may only have one Soundbank.
          - Extract Soundbanks. If you want to extract all of the Soundbanks, click "Rip All Sound Banks". If you want to rip the current Soundbank selected, click "Rip Sound Bank".
          - Listen to the samples. The instrument samples should be located in the middle section. The Sound Effects are located in the bottom section.

      Once you start extracting the Soundbank(s), you'll be prompted to select a folder to extract them to. DON'T select a folder that you have other files in. It'd be smarter to make a empty folder and extract the sounds to there.

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      Welp, there you go! The sounds are not named, so you'll have to do some searching. If the game you want to extract is not under the "Known Games" sub-menu, then most likely the instrument samples cannot be extracted. If this is the case, tell me and I will try to extract them the harder way.

[Ragster2448]

2. SOME HISTORY OF ROCK N ROLL

    D'you know that Jimi Hendrix is left handed? Yep, but he played a right handed guitar UPSIDE DOWN. The reason he did that is because his dad was superstitious, and thought that playing a left hand guitar was a sign of the Devil. So, his dad forced him to play a right handed guitar.


    The band AC/DC was named after a sewing machine. Angus and Malcolm saw it on the back of their sister's sewing machine, so they decided to name the band after it.

[Ragster2448]

1. HOW NINTENDO 64 MUSIC WORKS (PART 3)

     It's been a while! But, I've made a tremendous discovery. I found this site while searching on the web, and let me say that this is the most interesting discovery I've ever made! Apparently, the Nintendo 64 runs off of code-based commands like in XML formats. After looking through all of these commands, I could see why Nintendo 64 music is so complex. I'm going to spend some time on this site and try to figure out more about N64 music, so I'll have an update here soon if I run across something ground-breaking. There's also things on this site about 3D modeling and all that other stuff for the Nintendo 64, so you might want to check that out too!

[Winter]

Yep! A disc can hold way more data than a cartridge of course

That's why my 32 gb sd card is bigger than my 4.7 gb DVD+R

Oh wait.

[fabbemannen]

Complicated enough for me, but interesting.
In your search for knowledge you might actually bump into some nice N64-vst's, if you do, tell me :]

[Ragster2448]

Ha, if you know how to make vst's easily and for free, please tell me. I got the instrument sounds, I just need to put them into a vst creator.