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by CapComMDb at 7:38 AM EDT on July 3, 2012
Cool! I really like how this is set up as a timeline. The information here is really great, too!

Had a question for Knurek though regarding the timing on Metroid II. I chose the lengths below for the rip on my site. Not saying they're wrong, just curious why you'd chosen that particular timing, as I've never seen the actual data files. All I know is half the tracks never looped cleanly, so it was a real pain to decide on these :)

http://www.metroid-database.com/m2/music.php
by Knurek at 12:23 PM EDT on July 3, 2012
@Mouser X: Sorry, I can't really process more than 4 games per day. Maybe once we reach GBA/NDS era, since most of those are already ripped and timed. :)

@CapComMDb: Not sure, the timers were either submitted by the tagger or I did the best I could with them. If you think any of them are faulty, feel free to submit corrections.
by TheUltimateKoopa at 3:48 PM EDT on July 3, 2012
Well the fact that most of the M2 music is that god awfully annoying "multirhythm" thing where you get a random melody with a certain loop, but another channel will have random enviromental or weird sound effects that have a completely different loop. I've mentioned Game Boy Camera with this kind of thing as well, in the past. You get a tune in that game that's seemingly about 5 seconds long, yet because of all the annoying background noises, it might not loop until at least 14 minutes, heck one of the GBC music has a loop of 21 minutes. It'll be the same thing with these, some not having a true loop of maybe more than 30 minutes, thus for 2 loops, we'd be talking over an hour.
Metroid II timings. by Electric Keet at 8:06 PM EDT on July 3, 2012
I seem to recall that my thought process on those timings went something like this: "Oh, the way these tracks are generated, they would go days before hitting an actual loop point, possibly longer. How about I just take the most prominent line in each and look for a point that meets two criteria: first, it must sound like a reasonable loop point to most non-discriminating ears, and second, it must be short enough that it won't drive anybody insane."

Truth is, I nearly went insane picking loop points, because there just simply is no good way to do it if listenability is taken into account. I know. I tried. I tried a lot. I began to hear things... see things....
by Mouser X at 8:08 PM EDT on July 3, 2012
Really? I thought there was a tool for timing GBS files.... Though, if my memory is correct, it required converting the GBS to a GB, and then converting the GB to a GSF set, and running it though GSFopt. I think ugetab even created a series of tools to automatize the process somewhat. That being said, I don't know how accurate GSFopt is, when timing GBStoGSF conversions. Though, it seems like it'd still be worth a try, as it might be accurate enough, and therefore save time.

I didn't realize that all these sets were, essentially, being timed manually. That's a lot of work! As appreciative as I was for the site (and the work that goes into it), I'm even more so now than I was before, since I had assumed you had a tool that could time the sets for you. Wow! Thanks again for what you've done! O_O That's a lot more work than I realized you were doing. Mouser X over and out.
by Knurek at 1:07 AM EDT on July 4, 2012
@Mouser X: I'm using the auto-timer, but it can be wrong at times (either outputs one loop or just plain weird times), so I still have to listen to all the sets and correct the times. And with games like Legend of Zelda having more than an hour of music, it takes a while (though usually Game Boy games have 15-20 minutes of music per game).

Plus, of course, this method doesn't work for Game Gear games, so those need to be timed manually unless there's a VGM set available on SMSPower.
Metroid II Timings by CapComMDb at 8:23 AM EDT on July 4, 2012
@TheUltimateKoopa: Thanks for the term! I could never figure out what to call it :) However, I don't believe all the tracks use random environmental or weird SFX. They're basically multirhythm loops, so you have to look at each sound channel individually. (see below)

One thing you WILL notice is there ARE random clicks and pops that are incorporated. I did multiple recording tests off the actual hardware and the 3DS Virtual Console. I concluded that since a) the clicks and pops appeared in random times in different recordings and that b) they appeared to be absent from the 3DS version, they might not have been intended by the composer. So I used Audio Overload to record (it doesn't play the clicks and pops, except in one track, and I just edited it out of that one manually).

@ElectricKeet: I used a similar process to you when working on the game rip I put up. I used a player that would allow me to isolate individual channels, then recorded five-minute loops for each one (just to be on the safe side). I plugged them in to a multi-track WAV editor and picked whichever channel was the longest and used that to determine track length. With the more annoying tracks (Metroid nest and Metroids hatched on your playlist - as well as Omega Metroid area, which is exceedingly long), I just used a single loop. Metroid hatchling is definitely the hardest track to find the loop point in unless this method is used and is the best example of multirhythm music in the soundtrack.

@Knurek: Alas, I am untrained in the arts of timing GBS files. That's why the rip I did was done manually :)

I wasn't aware of other games that did this, but you say Game Boy Camera has it? Very interesting...

edited 8:26 AM EDT July 4, 2012
by TheUltimateKoopa at 4:23 PM EDT on July 4, 2012
gsfopt is relatively accurate but then not all the time.

It managed to pick out that the Stage Results theme from Wario Land 3 stops playing the 'noise channel' after about 4:37 or something.

Listen to this video and somewhere between 4:30 and 4:40 the percussion will just stop:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peLMSvk1G9g
by dissident93 at 12:50 AM EDT on July 22, 2012
Some updates.

Hit the Ice = Toshiko Tasaki (I've confirmed with her personally that she is Seriinu/Seline.)

Batman Returns = Motohiro Kawashima (Yuzo just did supervising work)

Super Golf = Fumito Tamayama (His site lists it)

by Knurek at 11:51 AM EDT on July 22, 2012
Updated all three entries, thank you.

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