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MIDI and/or Enhanced Music


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#1 Riflezen

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Posted 23 March 2021 - 09:03 AM

After years of lurking and not touching ZC, I've finally returned to tinkering around and seeing if I can motivate myself to make it past the two-dungeon milestone. And one important aspect of a quest is the background music.

 

The ZQuest MIDI importer looper thing tool was actually super easy for me to understand, but I kept finding myself thinking "Aw man, I wish there was a MIDI of *song* that I can use." And then I found some quests like The Neverending Fantasy that just... have the music. Like, literally just the same audio from the source game. Game changer.

 

So, how does enhanced music work (what file format, how to use it in ZQuest, etc.), and when YOU design a quest, do you prefer to use MIDIs or Enhanced Music?


Edited by Riflezen, 23 March 2021 - 11:01 AM.

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#2 klop422

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Posted 23 March 2021 - 09:44 AM

Enhanced music literally just plays the music that's in the 'enhanced' format. I personally use it with nsfs cos I like my 8-bit music. Problem is, at least with nsfs, the only thing you can choose is the file/track that you're going to use (i.e. no seeking). Looping has to be covered by the music file too, so mp3s don't really work for it (unless there's some fine control to jump to sample no. whatever, which I don't think is the case?).

 

So, basically, if you want fine control over all your music (including things like dynamic soundtracking etc.) you probably want to use MIDI, but if you just want the music as-is (which I think most people are doing nowadays, though I'm not 100% sure) then use the enhanced music. You can get nsf, spc, and gbs files (the music formats for NES, SNES, and GB©) on Zophar's Domain.


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#3 Riflezen

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Posted 23 March 2021 - 10:04 AM

Alright, but what about music from other games? Now that I think about, I'm pretty sure TNEF used mp3s.

 

Wait, didn't one of Joemacool's quests have MLG music?


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#4 klop422

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Posted 23 March 2021 - 10:16 AM

I believe you can use mp3s, but I dunno if you can loop them. Someone who uses them (or Zoria or Venrob) could maybe give more info on this, but your best option if you want them is to get a long-looping mp3 (though then it's a trade-off between size and number of loops). Obviously if you don't care about looping that's not a problem.

 

The wiki lists some usable formats, but idk how up-to-date it is. In any case, if you're planning on using video game tracks (generally old stuff, like DS and older), it's worth seeing if you can get them in those formats first, for the sake of looping, but if you're looking for stuff that's just recorded (like, actual songs, or music from newer consoles) then an mp3 will have to do.


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#5 Russ

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Posted 23 March 2021 - 11:55 AM

Yes, you can use MP3s (or OGGs, which are really a superior format), but you can't set loop points. ZC will play the song from beginning to end, then resume at the beginning. While this is kind of annoying, I've found that in basically all the quests I've played with enhanced music (my own included), it's not an issue cuz you rarely go long enough for the song to end and loop (unless it's quite short), and it isn't that big of a deal to hear it end and resume again. And of course, if you're using chiptune music (.nsf or .gb as an example), the loop data is built into the song, so that works fine. As far as I'm concerned, enhanced music is just far, far superior to MIDI, which exists more as a legacy feature at this point.


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#6 Moosh

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Posted 23 March 2021 - 08:50 PM

I'm fine with any music format when playing a quest. MIDI has the best support but also has some of the worst bugs sometimes. Trackers are basically flawless from what I've seen, but have the least diversity for selection, you're mostly gonna only find stuff from existing older games unless it's NSF. OGG is great, easy to use, I don't really have any complaints aside from the lack of looping. Sometimes the music format you're going with should depend on the quest, such as a faithful NES styled quest not having OGG music. But it really doesn't matter that much as long as you have some good tunes.


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#7 SkyLizardGirl

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Posted 26 March 2021 - 04:27 AM

Use the program 'Audacity'  to trim off the blank ends or beginnings of an Mp3 or Ogg

if it leaves a long empty pause until resuming/replaying the song again.


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#8 Riflezen

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Posted 26 March 2021 - 12:52 PM

After downloading some music, I found that I have absolutely no clue how to use .nsf, .gbs, OR .spc. I've tried multiple sites double check that I'm getting the right format. Also, Zophar's domain downloaded the music as... (checks file) PKCS Certificates. What.


Edited by Riflezen, 26 March 2021 - 12:54 PM.

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#9 klop422

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Posted 27 March 2021 - 01:09 PM

If you're looking for the music on Zophar, you need to go to the music section (My Music, on the right of the homepage, or on this link). Then you can click on a console on the right. When you find the game you want (the list is alphabetical) you click on "Download original music files" (it should have a smaller size than the mp3s, generally). It'll come as a .zip, but the files seemed to work with the couple I just checked. It is a fairly confusing website to look through, to be fair.


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#10 Riflezen

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Posted 27 March 2021 - 05:09 PM

I did select the original music download, and it was in a zip. When I extracted the contents (Was I supposed to do that?) I got a bunch of PKCS Certificates with the names of the songs.

#11 klop422

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Posted 27 March 2021 - 06:46 PM

The music should be in the zip file, and yes, you'd have to extract it before using it. Dunno why it'd be in PKCS certificate format, but in all the ones I've ever downloaded that hasn't been the case...

 

Which one was it you were looking at, specifically? I know for a fact that several of them have worked for me (the most popular ones, at the very least, as well as The Little Mermaid for the NES, which was a random one I checked earlier to make sure it was still working :P). Only thing I can think of is that somehow you have some weird security setting enabled (I dunno, maybe it's possible?) or that the ones you checked just got uploaded wrong.

 

Just doing some more checking, another random one I just checked has a bunch of mp3s in the zip as well as a gbs file. Is it possible the nsf or gbs (spcs are apparently separate files for each track) is in the zip, and you just missed it?

 

(And, just in case, nsf is NES music, spc is SNES music, and gbs is Gameboy; dunno if that's the problem, and I hope I'm not being too patronising, but I just want to make that clear :P)


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#12 Russ

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Posted 27 March 2021 - 07:36 PM

I've seen some SNES music in the PKCS format. It'll work just fine with ZC. As far as using the music goes, you can just load them into the enhanced music section of ZC. You need special programs to play them outside as ZC (for example, NSFPlay for .nsf files), since these are kind of like midis but calling for a very particular soundfont.


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#13 Riflezen

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Posted 27 March 2021 - 08:46 PM

Thank you, and it was the AlltP soundtrack that I downloaded. I can't double check my settings since my current main computer is a desktop and I'm off spending a few nights at another house, but once I get back I'll check.
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#14 klop422

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Posted 28 March 2021 - 07:00 AM

I've seen some SNES music in the PKCS format. It'll work just fine with ZC. As far as using the music goes, you can just load them into the enhanced music section of ZC. You need special programs to play them outside as ZC (for example, NSFPlay for .nsf files), since these are kind of like midis but calling for a very particular soundfont.

Ah, it'd make sense that I've never seen it then, since I've only checked one or two SNES soundtracks (Chrono Trigger, I think? And maybe something else?) and it came as spcs.


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