Could PJ64usf only be listening to, and ripping, a certain few channels? Could it be something to do with the fact that the game I'm trying to rip, Forsaken 64, creates the audio sequence with alCSeqNew, but uses alCSPSetSeq, alCSPPlay, etc.? Maybe the priority of the music channel(s) are lower than those of the sound effects?
Any thoughts or help would be appreciated.
To clarify - If you wanted to play SPCs on a SNES, you can do so. There's even ways, through hardware, to mute various channels. That's how the system was made. The N64 can't do that. If you were to attempt playing a USF on the N64 (to do so would take some work in itself, but that's beside the point), you would be unable to mute channels on the hardware level. You'd have to create some form of Gameshark or Action Replay code, or hack the USF file itself. To do channel muting, it must be done on the software level. And that changes for *every* game (well, for the most part). In other words, not only can 64th Note not do channel muting, but it'd be completely idiotic for it to attempt to do so, because it would require a specific hack for any and every game you wanted to mute channels with.
Hopefully I've made this abundantly clear. Placing blame on the people who are correctly emulating the N64 hardware (well, reasonably closely anyway) is stupid. What you are asking is simply not possible with N64 hardware. And for emulator authors to even attempt to alter that would be stupid. Not because it differs so much from the N64 hardware, but because it's not an emulation or emulator issue. It's a N64 hardware and software issue that needs to be fixed at a higher level than hardware (and thus can't be done by emulators anyway). Mouser X over and out.
edited 3:42 AM EDT July 26, 2008
In this case, if you can hear audio during the ripping process itself, then the channel volume themselves is right. BTW, you can adjust the volume, by the A1 argument of alCSPSetVol.
In this case the ripper does something that prevents the music from being loaded / started.
A way around this might be to start the rip a little later after the track has loaded, but before the music starts. This means that a savestate must be made for each track though.
I'll try creating the save state after the track is loaded. Forsaken has an odd music player... From what I can tell, its called once to load the sequence, once to play the sequence, then 80 times to fade it in (where I'm pretty sure the volume is being adjusted).
The source for pj64usf isn't available, is it?
Enjoy! Let me know if there's anything wrong with it.
Are there any other soundtracks you're interested in ripping?
Digging forsaken64 music =o