Sega Genesis Thread by Mr.Sanic at 1:25 PM EDT on October 20, 2017
This thread is supposed to help people with certain problems ripping Genesis sounds.
1.Sega Music is sequened,using SMPS or GEMS 2.You can't simply extract a soundfont,you need the samples. Also Sega doesn't use soundfonts,it's everything sequenced. 3.Sega CD uses streamed audio,but some games have their samples separated from the streams. 4.And no,Sonic 2 doesn't have the same samples as Sonic.1,theres a lot more than that.
Well,let's start our discussion Are you having trouble with something?
First of all you need to know if your game was sequenced on GEMS or SMPS. Most of games are on GEMS,But other ones used SMPS,And i strongly recommend SMPS2MID for almost every game.
Sometime back, i found some tools that could rip the driver, samples, sequences, and envelopes of a gems game, and there was a player to go along with it.
I cannot seem to find those tools anymore sadly.
There was also a gems2mid tool if im not mistaken.
If someone could find and link the tools here, that would be very nice.
I need a newer method than the one I'm currently using to rip midi sequences from sega genesis games with the percussion fully intact accompanied by a rip of the soundfont (sf2 or dls) of also said sega genesis midi sequence, which software should I download to accomplish this?
@MarkGrass Yes, but it uses an unusual pointer table format that differs from the standard one. ValleyBell has notes about it in and the pre-extracted songs from the game in his "SMPS Research Pack", and I actually asked VB about it in another forum. With the songs extracted and a certain hex address, they will work with SMPS2MID. I also have the MIDIs extracted based on hex data I painstakingly ripped from the ROM based on ValleyBell's extracted data, so if you want it, you can ask me.
@Infomaniac95 Those are two tools, GemsScan and GemsPlay. They are actually easy to find if you look them up online (the source is also included). However, please note that GemsScan doesn't work properly, completely (if there's more than one set of data, such as in The Simpsons: Bart's Nightmare), or even at all (sometimes just the driver). For all the cases that fail, the data must be extracted manually using a hex editor. I have actually managed to rip all the data I could from every single ROM I have in my collection, and I also have a batch script available for playing each of the extracted data in GemsPlay as well as a modified version of the "My_GEMS_Pointers.txt" file containing all the addresses that I could find. Again, if you ask, I will be able to give you the set of data.
@dj4uk6cjm I can't tell exactly what you're saying. Do you mean that you're trying to convert music from MegaDrive ROMs to MIDI, but you're not content with the method you're currently using? And you are also trying to convert samples to SoundFont 2?
edited 9:33 PM EDT August 28, 2018
by Infomaniac95 at 12:48 AM EDT on August 29, 2018
Could you send that GEMS collection per chance?
It would be nice to have a collection similar to the SMPS Research Pack.
Oh wow! Yes, please! I would love to have the MIDIs you've extracted :)
I've had the SMPS Research Pack and it's great to listen to them with SmpsPlay and all, but I've been dying to get my hands on these specific MIDIs for years!
That's exactly what I'm saying, thought I was clear enough. Well the program I'm currently using is v2m05src and it doesn't rip the percussion from sega genesis games correctly nor can it rip the soundfonts from vgm. Is there another way I can do this?
Alright, to reply to all three of you once again...
@Infomaniac95 Here are the MIDIs ripped from Mega Man: The Wily Wars. Note, however, that they play at a slightly faster tempo than they do in-game which is due to them being rendered at the 60hz tempo rather than the 50hz tempo in-game. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qurv5YQzk6QOvTGtBWaA923OmWmUnrLJ/view?usp=sharing
@MarkGrass Here is the set of extracted GEMS data (that I could rip) from every ROM that I could find. GEMS2MID and GemsPlay will work most of these rips, but some are known to be problematic. I have also included the heavily modified version of My_GEMS_Pointers.txt for all the ROMs that are included with them. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bZhKsLj9gA5v7YCFF9SYaUJzwafn1mcB/view?usp=sharing
Since the previous versions of GEMS2MID wouldn't work properly with some games, I contacted the author and he fixed them, so here's the most up-to-date version of GEMS2MID: https://drive.google.com/file/d/17xo-2CfJ8-JGlYPlxOpwyxRPvlDdIGO9/view?usp=sharing
And here are the batch scripts to play each set of data in GemsPlay (just copy each of the data files in the "Data" folder and you're set!). https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WHfjYFmLEqvgCzqhGrM170wcb8wDh9HM/view?usp=sharing
Good luck with those!
@dj4uk6cjm
If you're trying to convert from VGM, then depending on the game you're trying to convert from, you probably would be able to get better results with a MIDI converter designed for the game's sound engine, if there is one. DAC samples are in general hard to rip from without a dedicated ripper. Which games do you want MIDIs from?
My idea to fix this is to have the sound core use the cycle accurate Nuked OPN2, which also has a lowpass filter that real consoles do, so it makes songs such as the Sonic Spinball options theme no so harsh on the ears.
who is create that archive with a lot of GEMS banks? why it have same arhive inside that arhive? so size at twice useless bigger.
next - why sometimes banks is a little cut? for B.O.B. case it is not have one instrument. another few games have same problem.
about GEMSPlay - unfortunately it have a looooot of bugs :( Nightmare Circus is champion to show how many bugs that player have. and it have problem with core ym2612 - play Comix Zone 003 track to hear that problem.