Fixing all of the too-loud audio packs for good

TheShadowRunner wrote:seam, I tested MMX3 yesterday, volume isn't low by any means.
Are you using the correct patch, the "ff" volume one; ie sd2snes16 patch, that's the one you should be using with the new normalized packs.

Its entirely possible that i am not using the correct one. Do you have a link to the patch? I wasnt aware that there was more than one patch for mmx3 floating around.

Sure, you can grab it here:
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/2342/
Then use the patch "mmx3_msu1.ips" on your ROM and you should be good to go.

TheShadowRunner wrote:Sure, you can grab it here:
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/2342/
Then use the patch "mmx3_msu1.ips" on your ROM and you should be good to go.

man, i am almost certain that is the one i am using... but i suppose ill try it again

There you gou:
https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtMUCmAL6x14hQ27EbkbRa8bkN45

Now volume should be in the same regards as SFX, hope the songs haven't ended up being too loud now

Luckily I didn't update yet. I downloaded the new peewee files and hope I find the time to test&update my patch and cloud today... and hope no further changes are done.

Alright, I updated my cloud mirrors with the new music packs and also the patch
http://bszelda.zeldalegends.net/stuff/Con/f-zero_msu.zip
is set to FF standard (also submitted to romhacking).
I also used the term depracated for Korruno instead of deleting it.

Further, I added the optional extended music from the original F-Zero package also to PeeWee so people using this package also have the option for extended music. If PeeWee composes an own extented music pack I will update this.

Thanks a bunch for the updated normalized pack Colines, it now feels pretty damn spot-on to me ;D

Just finished converting Dracula9AntiChapel's aLttP pack.

Since a third music pack is now missing, here it's a replacement:
https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtMUCmAL6x14hQ27EbkbRa8bkN45

Another music pack but now using songs from F-Zero GX, hope volume and loop points are all ok. ;D

The tecno-rock addition fits pretty well in the game, and to anyone who liked the deprecated music pack, this one makes up for it

Awesome

I updated my clouds with the new GX pack.

If you ever come along fixing

smwplus
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B68bmgtrAXQAYzVXZktKRmItajg

smw native
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B68bmgtrAXQAT1VOZUI4M0V4OUE

and the patch:
http://bszelda.zeldalegends.net/stuff/Con/smw_msu1+.zip

let me know, then I also will set my native patch to FF standard.
That's the last of my host files which isn't at this standard yet (bszelda, f-zero, dkc are already).

Hey everyone.

This is a great idea, qwerty. I will definitely be using these eventually when I upgrade my SD2SNES to REV H and when you're finished updating everything and adding all the new packs from Colines and Conn to the list in your first post. Oh and that's awesome that you got those FLAC files from Dracula9AntiChapel.

I've been out of the loop for a while and I have a couple questions for you all.

This is for everything to work properly with SD2SNES REV H, right? qwerty, maybe you should specify that in your opening post so noobs (me) don't have to ask, haha.

Dumb question: You're not taking the audio files that are boosted into clipping and just lowering them back down to -18db? You're lowering new untouched audio files and setting them at -18db right? The ones that have been boosted into clipping are permanently damaged, but I'm sure you already know that.

Are the Mega Man X2 and X3 packs in the first post the metal/guitar versions by Krzysztof Slowikowski? If not, I have WAV versions of them on my PC if they're not available for free anymore on his Bandcamp.

If anyone's interested in these projects, I put together some packs, and no they're not "fixed", they're for SD2SNES REV F and older: https://www.epforums.org/showthread.php?79836-Miscellaneous-Links-Master-List

scroll down to
"[Nintendo SNES][Mod] Mega Man X2 MSU-1 - Mega Drive/Genesis Custom Soundtrack,
[Nintendo SNES][Mod] Mega Man X2 MSU-1 - Rock Version (Krzysztof Slowikowski),
[Nintendo SNES][Mod] Mega Man X3 MSU-1 - Mega Drive/Genesis Custom Soundtrack,
[Nintendo SNES][Mod] Mega Man X3 MSU-1 - Rock Version (Krzysztof Slowikowski),
[Nintendo SNES][Mod] Mega Man X3 Zero Project MSU-1 Rock Version (Krzysztof Slowikowski)"
I included emulator versions too.

Also there's "[Nintendo SNES][Mod] TMNT IV: Turtles In Time MSU1 - Hyperstone Heist OST"

For the most part I'm just reducing the existing pcm files. Thankfully, most of them were just lazily normalized to 0dB peak which means the files themselves aren't actually damaged, they just caused clipping in emulators due to the mixing. Starting from source files means get looping them myself, which takes about 1-1.5 hours for every 10 songs, which is a ton of work, especially compared to 90 seconds to feed an existing pack through my script. The reason I've stalled lately is that I started classes again after taking a year and a half off from school, and it's just hard to find time. This project isn't dead any more than ZPW 1.3 or Chrono Trigger, I just haven't touchedany of it much since the start of the year.

And...
..........................................

Super Mario World!
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B-G62GDNCoK0NlVsOVBRTFh0dWc?usp=sharing

I'm switching download servers, gonna use Google Drive from now on.

Finally fixed volume levels for SMW, please, do remember this one is for the native patch, since I'm still on the way to build up a new pack for SMW-plus.

Conn, you may already set the volume as $FF only for your patch.

As for mine, it will be fixed for the next release. ;D

I just discovered that Blake Robinson's entire Super Metroid Symphonic album is available for free download on his SoundCloud, and it doesn't seem to be available for purchase, so I'm going to go ahead and upload the pack (his Chrono Trigger album is still available for purchase, so that one will remain script-only). Unfortunately, all I can get my hands on is the 320kbps MP3's, but they still sound great. I just need to do a quick playthrough to be sure I got all of the tracks right, as well as some A-B level testing since this will be my first SM pack, and the last time I tried SM, I seem to recall the music was really loud compared to a lot of other games (like -12dB RMS). Expect it in the next day or two, then I'll dig into Dracula9AntiChapel's tracks next.

Great, however, 2 files are missing in your link:
smw_msu1-4.pcm
smw_msu1-15.pcm
Even if not used (I think 15 is the same as 16?) please provide them for the sake of completeness and we can exclude that we missed something).

As soon I know about their fate I will update my patch and that is it then - all my patches and files are then at FF

Regarding your plus patch I will only backup it then once you are done.

Conn wrote:2 files are missing in your link

Both are unused in the original game, their values are not referenced even once in the rom, it just happens they point to song data at the SPC music table.

Also, I took those 2 slots for hacking purposes, they now play different songs, as soon as SMW-plus is ok for a new release, the music index will be fulfilled

Oh my, that's gonna be 74 pcm files!

Edit: Please, redownload smw_msu1-5.pcm file, fixed a little thing left over it.

So, turns out, Super Metroid actually makes heavy use of dynamics, which really shouldn't have surprised me, but it means that the OST isn't even remotely normalized.  I have tracks as loud as -9dB RMS, and others as quiet as -21dB RMS.  I'm going to have to A/B every single track in the game if I want it to come out right >_<

Also, higan is clipping some of the tracks for some strange reason. It's not happening in bsnes-plus, Snes9x, or in hardware. I'll have to do some more testing and probably report it to byuu. I'll have to test against the old mixer (<~v100) and see if that makes any difference.

Alright, I replaced track 5 and will update my native patch asap

btw: are there any news about snes9x 1.55 release already?

Still waiting on LuigiBlood to finish up his BS-X stuff. At least that was the last I heard from BearOso.

Can't wait to have this emulator happening The user-friendlyness is bsnes standard and the technical features (like spc fallback) on higan standard. This will rock the community.

Okay, I have now renewed my native patch on the bszelda server (romhacking removed my patch due to smw+ and I accepted since I didn't like to quarrel and the + is more advanced). And of course I updated my clouds backups with your new files Colines.
So everything left to do is replacing my host mirror files for smw+ as soon Collines has it done. And then I hopefully will never have to touch my files again

Well, despite how much extra work it was, I really have to say that getting all of the track volumes correct on Super Metroid really made a HUGE difference in the atmospheric quality of the soundtrack.  It just sounded really... "off" when I tried normalizing the whole thing to a single level.  I'm really glad that I did.  After running through the whole game to test the OST levels, I started over with the full thing and just did a straight through, single-segment 100% run, and I beat my old PB by almost 15 minutes!

I'm no Zoast, but I'm pretty happy with it nonetheless.



Now I just need to redo my Any% that I lost when my cart battery died, then flash the save file to my cart now that I've replaced the battery.

Also, the Super Metroid Symphonic pack just finished uploading, updated the OP.

Great

If you have some time, could you look into each of the files at
https://www.zeldix.net/f46-msu-1-hacks-database

and tell me whether something needs to be updated (links, files)? E.g., in metroid, I only have the link to romhacking, and there is a readme file in the zip leading to
http://www.mediafire.com/download/euj8ewjv59d2022/SuperMetroidMSU1_Music.7z

I hope DS will update his files, but in case I link to outdated sources, please tell me.

Thanks qwerty, it's a real pleasure to use your new Super Metroid pack. The one i had was atrociously saturated (clipping) which made it almost unusable.

I just uploaded Covarr's Balance and Ruin pack for FF3(6).  I'm not a fan of the loops he chose, as he opted to try and include as much of each song as possible, which in many cases doesn't fit the proper feel of the game, such as the battle theme having a really long intro instead of just jumping directly into the main theme like the original SPC... kinda kills the dramatic mood IMO.  So, I'm redoing the entire pack myself with different loops.  This should also dramatically decrease the download size.  I may also look into the other track packs available for FF3 once I finish with B&R, but we'll see how much motivation I have at that point, it's a really large pack...