Is there a way to rip high quality music from GBA non Sappy engine games? by marcoxD95 at 8:35 AM EDT on July 29, 2022
I know there is AGBPlay or GBA Music Ripper for games that use the Sappy sound engine, which is roughly half the games it seems.
But what is with games that do not use Sappy? Are we really stuck with minigsf renders and that is all there is?
I have some games which I would really like to remaster or hear in better quality. Some of them are even mono mixing only and I was wondering if there is a way to extract individual sound rendering channels from non Sappy engine GBA games and then mix them down in true stereo and with generally higher quality.
Is anything like this possible or is there just no way? Why is it that all HQ rippers only support Sappy anyway?
I already tried some things such as using viogsf to rip some individual sound channels like PCM A, B, Noise, Wave, etc but almost all games only output everything in one single channel mixed down to mono. Holy damn... No wonder most GBA music is considered unlistenable. Maybe there are emulators that can properly record individual rendering channels of music? I know some like BGB can but BGB is obviously for Gameboy music and not GBA.
There are rippers/converters for other GBA sound drivers out there but they are hit or miss. Some are very accurate aside from some minor issues (which are possible to fix) and others are very unfinished. No ripper for the DKC GBA games though afaik, as they use a custom driver by Rare.