Ficedm doesn't understand this ancient format and Google isn't helping. (As if it ever did for me, I just get lead to places to download the DLL's for IMA and articles about it's introduction into video gaming... as well as a article about how to set it up on a website of all things)
If anyone has any clue to this estranged format and how to get it playing (or better convert it to dmsp aka Direct Music Producer) I'll be eternally grateful.
DLL's involved with the API (as far as I can tell):
AM18.dll - Microsoft AudioMan IMRT25.DLL - Microsoft Interactive Music Engine - RT IMRT1625.DLL - Microsoft Interactive Music Engine - RT16 IMRT3225.DLL - Microsoft Interactive Music Engine - RT32 IMUSIC25.DLL - Microsoft Interactive Music Engine MSynth25.dll - Microsoft Synthesizer
P.S. If anyone needs files and feels confident to look into this.. reply and I'll upload the shopop folder to my dropbox.
I'll have a look, please upload the files. BTW, you should try searching for info at Microsoft about the engine, particularly about the API it uses.
Here you go stranger. by RukarioGyiyg996 at 12:10 PM EST on December 27, 2012
http://udhq.org/dl/Shogo.tar
Last time I ever been to the microsoft website for information most of it's buried beneath all the Windows 8 hype. I'll try looking around but most information I ever found was about DirectMusic more than IMA...
EDIT: If you need the DLL's too or hell a copy of the game itself (a legit copy since I have cash to spare... for the moment) let me know. The game goes pretty cheap (usually) on GOG.com and has a working installer that does not rely on 16-bit installshield to work.
I have good news and bad news. The bad ones: 1) The file structure used it's kinda complicated and for sure difficult (if not impossible?) to convert to another midi-like format, unless Microsoft released the papers describing the format. 2) For playback, we could use the original libraries... either by figuring out the way the API works (debugging 'em) or using a SDK provided by Microsoft (if it was ever released). Debugging 16-bit code (or creating a 16-bit player) seems rather useless, so... The good ones: 1) At least in this game, the audio system clearly uses 'layered' music, so recreating the music from scratch should be a piece o' cake! All the samples are just big parts of the actual song, there are 3 instruments and 15 samples only! 2) I have extracted all the sample data for you ;-) so here it is: All the samples in WAV format and IT & FT2 instruments just in case you want to track something... That's all for now...
Ah thanks, do you recommend anything (or actually HAVE anything) that will just dump all the sounds in a DLS to wav with the proper sampling rates? Since my original plan a long time ago was to make IT's out of Shogo and Blood II's music.
Hmmm, I don't know if a 'DLS WAV dumper' exists; I guess it's enough to open the DLS in a soundfont editor and grab the wavs manually. About that, I've been told Awave Studio it's the best DLS editor, but it isn't free and I haven't found a cracked version yet... :-( BTW, can you explain the 'with the proper sampling rates' thing? The DLS format already stores sample rates, so...
There are alot of awave studio cracks on 4shared, rapidlibrary and filestube has some links...i would link some but i'm not all entirely sure if there virus free or not, you wanna be safe y'know :) lol man awave studio seems to have all the answers to everything dls.
Well to explain, what I primarily use to get into DLS in the first place is OpenMPT and for that matter "ModPlug Tracker"... It's a *HORRIBLE* tracker and sometimes when getting the samples out of DLS they are in some ridiculous sample rate "we're talking WAY beyond frequency response 47789965 hz or something like that)
I'm pretty sure it's a stupid bug but it's really retarded that I have to guess the sampling rate because MPT doesn't know it.
There's also the problem that the instrument in the DLS has more than one sample, dragging and dropping it into samples only picks the first most one, whereas dragging it into instruments grabs all of it but gives them bogus sampling rates (probably to make it play properly as a instrument but I do not use instrument control in my IT's only sample control so I have to guess what the correct sampling rate is)
I wonder why it's never crossed anyones mind that there should be a FOSS thing dealing with DLS, if OpenMPT can almost do it why have some proprietary program hold a monopoly over it? I might look into DLS myself and RIFF and make my own damn ripper.
Edit: Found awave studio here, tested and works. i don't think it's a cracked version either, MSE and malwarebytes scan results came back clean. it's an older version though (newest is 10.6) enjoy. :)
Double Edit: Hmm...that's weird. my previous link above is acting strangly. ok i've uploaded the file here just incase http://www.filedropper.com/awavestudiov10.