Ripping a GBA soundtrack by Altissimo at 11:51 AM EDT on September 20, 2015
hello, I am new here and if this is better suited to a specific thread or something feel free to point me in the right direction. Anyway I am on a quest to eventually find someone who can help me rip a certain GBA soundtrack that doesn't use the Sappy engine. The game in question is Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Games and I don't know specifically which engine it does use, only that's it not Sappy. I'm trying to upload the soundtracks of the four localized Hamtaro games to youtube (because no one else has ever bothered) and while recording all tracks off my emulator worked fine for one of the games, I'm now at a wall because this game has an ambient soundtrack with many different songs and I don't know how many there are or what they're even called, which is why I want a rip just to be sure I have everything. I understand that without the Sappy engine this is a difficult task, but if anyone could help me with it - or point me in the direction of another person or forum who can - I would be super appreciative.
by birdmanager6 at 8:20 PM EDT on September 20, 2015
First of all, try loading the file into Audacity as an unsigned 8-bit PCM or as ADPCM at about 8000hz or so, and look through the data. If you find full songs, then it's streamed, so it can easily be ripped by splitting the data into the part with each song, and exporting the part as a WAV file. If you just get instruments, however, then I can't really offer any help. I don't know
This game might use the GAX engine. See if it's in the following list: http://pastebin.com/h2PSKQrf If so, then I don't know how to extract it, but I just posted a similar request.
Hmm, I don't see it in the GAX engine list. I have a friend who's helping me check for the Krawall engine, but we haven't come to any conclusions so far.
I did try to load the ROM into Audacity and saw a distinctive part of the resulting audio block (whatever it was called) that was thinner than the rest of it, but it didn't really sound like anything recognizable. I can try again, though, but I don't know how much I might find out from trying again. :/
Oh, and if it helps any: the game was made by AlphaDream (the same company behind Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, which does use the Sappy engine).
Some other research shows that someone requested a rip of Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Games (and also Rainbow Rescue, which I also need to upload to Youtube still) here but as far as I can tell nothing ever came of that. Is unknownfile still around and ripping?
edited 9:48 PM EDT September 20, 2015
by MurraySkull at 1:47 AM EDT on September 21, 2015
I wish someone would decipher the other half of the engine M&LSS uses in case the game uses midis.
by birdmanager6 at 5:43 PM EDT on September 21, 2015
From what I recall, the non-Mario Bros. portion of the music uses a MODIFIED version of M4A "Sappy", but not the regular version of it. It's most likely the same engine used in most of Nintendo's other games, like Super Mario Advance 2-4. But, yeah, someone SHOULD research that engine more, which probably does use MIDIs, as the normal M4A engine does. It's kind of surprising and disappointing that after about 10 years, we still only know how to rip one GBA sound engine.
and it doesn't include the games i want which is a sad fact indeed :p
by MindReader at 7:38 PM EDT on September 23, 2015
Someone needs to figure out the sound engine that Donkey Kong Country 3 uses. That soundtrack needs to be saved.
by RebeccaSugar at 5:52 PM EDT on September 26, 2015
@MR
DKC3's tracks have been ripped by SmartOne in another thread, the files are very low, about a 11300 sample rate in mono or something, still sounds better than it coming from the GBA though.
by MindReader at 8:54 PM EDT on September 26, 2015
@RebeccaSugar
I'd argue that !!!!!'s rip sounds better than that, but it would still be better to have GBAMusRiper support or something like that.
@MindReader there's only ONE thing that I would be doing if we could rip them as MIDI files with soundfonts... we could apply panning to individual instruments/sections.
Full stereo versions of those would be awesome. The old E3 demos were stereo (although the audio files floating around are mono): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsWYtWu72O8
by birdmanager6 at 12:54 AM EDT on October 2, 2015
...and also the first two games as well. Seriously??? Nobody's getting cracking on any of this research? Even die-hard DKC fans? Yet they cracked the SNES trilogy's engine... I know this sounds very sad, but I think M4A's probably the only engine we'll know about for at least 10 more years if nobody is interested in these sound drivers...
Is it possible to tell what engine a game uses just by listening (soundfonts, sound quality etc)? Because - this is back to my original question about ripping the Hamtaro track - I've personally uploaded a Youtube playlist with the entire soundtrack (recorded from emulator) of another game in the Hamtaro set that was also made by Alpha Dream and is unripped (implying a non-Sappy engine, just like the game I want ripped) and I was curious as to whether it might provide some clues toward the engine of itself and the game I want ripped.
Huh. I'll have to check this out over the weekend. Thanks!
edit: And then I checked it out tonight but how can I listen to the files? I downloaded Audio Overload, which should let me listen to them (I use a Mac) but it tells me it can't play them, even though it should support minigsf. Forgive me if I'm being technically incompetent, I really don't know much about these kinds of things, I just wanted a rip of a soundtrack :V
edit edit: A friend using Winamp said she didn't have any success either :/
COG WORKS LIKE A CHARM THANKS THANKS I AM SO HAPPY YOU DONT EVEN KNOW
by ChillyBilly at 10:31 PM EDT on October 22, 2015
As long as this thread is addressing as-of-yet to be ripped GBA titles, I'd like to ask: Is it possible to rip any of Konami's Pocket Power Pro Kun GBA entries? I've been searching for rips of those for quite some time, but.... no dice. I'm also curious about Natsume's GBA Power Rangers titles, for that matter. I wouldn't mind taking a whack at ripping those games myself if I have the chance, but I'd like to know if ripping them is possible at all period, lol.
Not that I'm going to accomplish anything useful, but how do real people do reverse engineering? For example, is there free software that will disassemble a GBA binary? Like, is there free software better than this?:
A decompiler would be cool. Something tells me Donkey Kong Country 3 was written in C, so it might be easier to understand whatever a decompiler could deduce in C. Something doesn't tell me that Donkey Kong Country 3 was written in ARM/THUMB assembly.
Sheesh! I would love a midi rip of Metroid Fusion, I have used the android app VGBA to try and record some of the music in the game to midi in the past but it hasn't worked and I think the game uses a different engine so gbamusriper doesn't work either :( hope someone figures the format out soon.
by birdmanager6 at 2:54 PM EDT on October 23, 2015
@rebooter23 VGBA didn't record in MIDI, because the recorder only records the PSG channels.
Wow Koopa, thanks! I used Google and couldn't find anything.
I second dj4uk6cjm. Any Metroid Fusion Midi Rip there?
by birdmanager6 at 5:23 PM EDT on October 24, 2015
Good news, guys! I managed to find a find a new program that rips MIDIs from Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga (except for the Mario Bros. music) today: http://origami64.net/portal.php?page=2 Soundfont support isn't present yet, but it also includes support for Banjo Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge, with partially implemented soundfont. He should really release the source code.
Waaaahooooooooooooooooo!!!!! Yessssssss M&LSS midis!!! Thanks @birdmanager6 you are a godsend oh my gee I didn't know there was a converter out for this already :D its a dream come true lol am going to test this out immediately, hope it works. Thanks so much again.
Edit: Dammit...didn't see a way to convert anything to soundfont either but at least we have the midis now, that's what counts! Amazing how far VGM hacking has come. Hopefully this guy will get in touch with the author of gbamusriper and work on something for SF2 support in the future!
edited 9:12 PM EDT October 24, 2015
by robotortoise at 10:49 PM EDT on October 24, 2015
Awesome! Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga midis! We're one step closer to a static free soundtrack!
Knowing the reputation of this site, I'm pretty sure you've all heard these before, but whatevs. Take 'em. I also have some for MOTHER 3 if you guys would like them.
by Vector Harbor at 8:13 PM EDT on September 10, 2016
@RebeccaSugar
Awesome Remaster version !
I which you could do this for the rest of the soundtracks ^_^
by RebeccaSugar at 8:21 PM EDT on September 10, 2016
@Vector
Thank you vector! This was about a year ago though, I just never bothered to upload them, Unfortunately, I don't have the time to try to make a frankenstein soundfont either, or use FL Studio/Anvil to piece it together. I'm not too patient with these kinds of things.
I will keep it in mind though! Since I'm getting really impatient waiting for GAX/etc to be cracked! (:
I attempted to rip the music from an English Pokémon Ruby ROM using saptapper. The result was a .gsflib file and .minigsf files with hex IDs ranging from 0000 to 01D3.
The problem is that neither Winamp or foobar2000 can play them. And yes, I installed the GSF player component on both players.
Ripping Gba Non Sappy by KVega at 10:36 PM EDT on April 11, 2020
Hello for if anyone decides to respond. Is there a way to rip a GBA soundfont/midi for Chicken Little for the GBA and for Scooby Doo Unmasked for the GBA too?? I've tried countless times to find something but nothing at all within my efforts. Could anyone please help out? It would mean so much and put to rest my quest after 3 years of trying and giving up XD
I'm trying to rip the sound files from The Land Before Time GBA game but it doesn't use the sappy engine and i dont know how to just, extract and get the files themselves :(
From what I know, if a GBA game uses a own non Sappy sound engine, you are pretty much screwed since there are no extractors for it. Best you can get are low quality GBA sounding GCFs but no Midis or Soundfonts. So far I havent heard of a method to extract non Sappy game music but feel free to update me on this front.