MSU-1 Secret of Mana

Secret of Mana has one of my favorite scores of all time - it's ethereal, wispy, mysterious, and has a distinctly unearthly feel to it.  As I finish up the last bits of the MMX MSU-1 audio work, I want to get a jump on my (hopefully) next project.  Just spent some time at my audiodesk and came up with this, courtesy of EastWest/Quantum Leap:



I really like the Eastern feel I get from this version, thanks to the Er Hu and the Dizi.  Comments from students of music and coders alike are welcome. Hopefully, this will spur some of you technical types to get a move on...

Awesome! This is one of my favorite games ever!

I'm not sure how technical you can get with the programming on these or not, but if you have a pitch wheel, you can maybe make that erhu sound more authentic.

The notes should have more attack and be less swelly, if that makes sense. Each note should be even in volume for the whole duration, except the longer ones can trail off slightly. Also, it could use a little more slubtle sliding around (pitch wheel?). Since we don't have an E string like violin, we have to shift around a lot more. For example, the melody here goes E A G for the first three notes. On a real erhu I would play E ,quick Slide down at the end of the note to open A, slide up to G and give it a nice emotional vibrato since it's a long higher note. The slides aren't long, like a theramin, but usually a half or whole step. I would listen to some erhu music on YouTube to get a better idea of what I'm trying to say here. Also, the grace notes and litls you're using on the dizi would also work on the erhu.

Good luck!

Most of the grace notes I used were created with the pitch bend of my favourite keyboard.

I actually wasn't expecting such technical commentary, but I confess to being both pleasantly surprised and rather interested by it.  Sounds like you actually play the Er Hu, which will help greatly.

I had actually created the Keyswitching for the Er Hu parts when I was rendering them out as a Violin track, and it seemed pretty decent.  I'll give your idea a bit of a try, though.

Seriously - SUPER helpful info.

Just noticed I also need to add some pauses for air on the Dizi.

Here's some nice erhu with the same basic concept of Angel's Fear.

Perhaps when I get home in a few days I can record the erhu part for you to hear.

Oh, that would be BRILLIANT. Would you just?

I'll see what I can do!

the opening theme sounds like a nice reorchestration, but personally I prefer a remastered version of the same instruments with any tune.

I don't know if this is what you guys want or if its ok but I spent all night looking for if any the best versions, remixes, arrangements, you name it of all the songs in the game that I felt fit the feel of it. I hope you guys like what I found. It was very hard to find some of those songs. Here is the link to the upload. Each song is in WAV format just waiting to be converted to MSU1.

I'll just leave this here, WIP with no fade support and basic bugs. Help for the audio editing of GinBunBun music pack would be greatly appreciated

the sound effects I presume are ripped from other games such as super Mario rpg and final fantasy 6?

wizrobemaster wrote:the sound effects I presume are ripped from other games such as super Mario rpg and final fantasy 6?

Well they all are Squaresoft's games, they certainly reused some SFX.

that is true. chrono trigger used sound effects from final fantasy 6.

I'm releasing a beta version of the hack, please report any bugs you found to my github

https://github.com/mlarouche/SecretOfMana-MSU1

The patch works with US, Japanese and French release. For French release, if you play on emulators you'll need to edit the xml or bml file and replace NTSC with PAL. Also, only the US version will have a correct checksum.

EDIT: Dunno why this got removed...

IPS patch: http://www.mediafire.com/download/e3hjdu19sclir4v/SecretOfMana_MSU1.zip

Music pack:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/gn56zfs9r2bcxx9/SecretOfMana_MSU1_Music.7z

You're just awesome!

Conn wrote:You're just awesome!

Yeah he is. I provided the music pack. I spent a lot of time putting it together.

*lol, you're just awesome, too

before I download this file, I just want to know how reliable this website is and that I am not going to pick up any malware.

wizrobemaster wrote:before I download this file, I just want to know how reliable this website is and that I am not going to pick up any malware.  

Reliable? Of course it is its github. Its a giant site of projects people code and create. There is absolutely no malware or viruses of any kind.

unfortunately I don't know how the msu system works.

Thank you for this DarkShock!! Are you able to include an IPS for emulators to lower the volume as well?

Hi All I'll download and take some time to test this thank you DarkShock.

Now I begin to be contaminated by the MSU-1 projects and a lot of games or RPG title starts to invade my head , hahahah is what it is complicated to do is kind of project?

Not sure if anyone already did that, but the music pack I downloaded had no loop at all built in the tracks, and when DarkShock requested a soul willing to do the task, I accepted the challenge.

Well, I hope the loop points be good enough, feel free to report any errors or even suggest better loop points ;D

http://1drv.ms/1Enkcfv

Speaking of which, I still Need a complete pcm set for the SMW hack...
Kiddo started, but I do not know whether he stopped, or simply cannot find good music for the remaining 4 themes...

http://kiddocabbusses.tryhappy.net/MarioMSU1/smw_msu1%20NEW%20SET.zip

but it is not completed... I Need a pcm track for ~every~  theme, also the sfx like themes when leaving a Castle since bsnes 70 has no spc fallback; if you cannot find an appropriate pcm you could also just rip the native spc, convert it to pcm as intermediate solution.... though fully orchestrated cd-quality would be of course the better choice

Anybody here who can finish Kiddo's work? and make the remaining 4 pcm:s?

Here's the theme list, the green are done and can be taken from Kiddo's zip file, the reds are needed:
If you do not know which is the correct theme, start Mario in zsnes, walk into a level and cheat with

Code:

7e1DFB-04 (you hear fight bowser 1)
7e1DFB-0f (into keyhole)
7e1DFB-10 (into keyhole 2)
7e1DFB-11 (zoom in)

LEVEL:
smw_msu1-1.pcm 01 - Piano
 smw_msu1-2.pcm 02 - Here we go!
 smw_msu1-3.pcm 03 - Water Level
 smw_msu1-4.pcm 04 - Fight Bowser 1
smw_msu1-5.pcm 05 - Boss Battle
 smw_msu1-6.pcm 06 - Cave Drums
 smw_msu1-7.pcm 07 - Ghost House
 smw_msu1-8.pcm 08 - Castle
 smw_msu1-9.pcm 09 - Mario Died (SFX)
 smw_msu1-10.pcm 0A - Game Over (SFX)
 smw_msu1-11.pcm 0B - Passed Boss (SFX)
 smw_msu1-12.pcm 0C - Passed Level (SFX)
 smw_msu1-13.pcm 0D - Have Star
 smw_msu1-14.pcm 0E - Direct Coins
 smw_msu1-15.pcm 0F - Into Keyhole (SFX)
 smw_msu1-16.pcm 10 - Into Keyhole (SFX)
 smw_msu1-17.pcm 11 - Zoom In (SFX)
smw_msu1-18.pcm 12 - Switch Palace
 smw_msu1-19.pcm 13 - Welcome! (SFX)
 smw_msu1-20.pcm 14 - Done Bonus Game (SFX)
 smw_msu1-21.pcm 15 - Rescue Egg (SFX)
 smw_msu1-22.pcm 16 - Fight Bowser 2
 smw_msu1-23.pcm 17 - Bowser Zoom Out (SFX)
 smw_msu1-24.pcm 18 - Bowser Zoom In (SFX)
 smw_msu1-25.pcm 19 - Fight Bowser 3
 smw_msu1-26.pcm 1A - Fight Bowser 4
 smw_msu1-27.pcm 1B - Bowser Died (SFX)
 smw_msu1-28.pcm 1C - Princess Kiss ^^ (SFX)
 smw_msu1-29.pcm 1D - Bowser Interlude (SFX)

OVERWORLD:
 smw_msu1-30.pcm 1e - ow1 Title Screen
 smw_msu1-31.pcm 1F - ow2 Donut plains
 smw_msu1-32.pcm 20 - ow3 Yoshi's Island
 smw_msu1-33.pcm 21 - ow4 Vanilla dome
 smw_msu1-34.pcm 22 - ow5 Star Road
 smw_msu1-35.pcm 23 - ow6 Forest of Illusion
 smw_msu1-36.pcm 24 - ow7 Valley of Bowser
 smw_msu1-37.pcm 25 - ow8 opening to bowser valley emerges
 smw_msu1-38.pcm 26 - ow9 Special

ENDING:
 smw_msu1-39.pcm 27 - ending1 credits
 smw_msu1-40.pcm 28 - ending2 Yoshi's house
 smw_msu1-41.pcm 29 - ending3 monster names

Hey Conn..it's me the one who bothered u about f-zero..my apologies to you, i got..pcm 04,15 and 16 the only missing one i got is 17...im not asking for f-zero..i want to learn asm..but i guess from scratch goin to be difficult..so no matter about that..but for smw.. i got those 3 pcms....