Regarding the replacement of non-SNES songs with SPCs

[Imaynotbehere4long]

Recently, I discovered that the most recent version of Lua replaced the NSMB theme, Mt. Gorge, Beach Bowl, and most of the SM64 and Paper Mario songs with SPC demakes of the songs. Personally, I think that the SPCs sound worse than their original counterparts and I would like the original versions of the songs to be restored. On top of this, the change also messes with the intentions of older episodes that used those songs like The Invasion 2, Return to Yoshi's Island, etc.

What do you think about the change? Please cast your vote in the poll.

Keep in mind that "I would rather have the SPCs to save time downloading" isn't an option because it would mean people who want to use the original versions would have to use them as custom tracks, making the individual episodes take longer to download and thus defeat the whole point.

[HenryRichard]

I use a lot of those songs pretty often in my episode, which is supposed to have all N64 or higher quality music. This kinda messed that up.

[Circle Guy]

I like them. :P
They fit with SNES episodes.

[Wohlstand]

Horikawa Otane, we are already talked with Imaynotbehere4long, and he began this poll by my request.
My plan against music pack is:
- Until I will implement USF musics support to SDL Mixer X to allow playback of native Nintendo 64 chiptunes, I'll keep SPC/MIDI versions of SM64 musics.
- Especially for people who hates replaced musics, I going to make right-looped OGGs (for files where chiptune is impossible yet or just OGG with looper support is better than BRSTM) which are will be available in separated download (Anyway, good thing that LunaLUA downloads are configurable, therefore I can provide different music pack for SMBX 1.3 as radio-boxes for choice of everyone).

Spoiler: show

SDL Mixer X supports next looping formats:
- NSF/NSFE - NES chiptunes, simple wave additive synthesis. 6 channels.
- SPC - SNES chiptunes, every file has 64 KB size. WaveTable synthesis, samples encoded into ADPCM, max size of dump is 64 KB. 8 channels max.
- VGM - Sega Genesis chiptune, supports 6 FM Synthesis channels and 1 DAC channel (provides ability to play wave-based audio chunks)
- also other formats such as HES, GBY, GYM, KSS, etc.
- MIDI - Just a digital notes. In ADLMIDI is FM Synthesis, in NativeMIDI is dependent to pre-installed synthesiser, Timidity is WaveTable synthesiser. (MIDI-file is loopable in the ADLMIDI Synthesiser only, NativeMIDI and Timidity are loops entire song and are not understands loop points).
- OGG (since recent changes) - Lossy compressed wave-based audio data. Loop points are implemented as Vorbis-Comments which are parsed by SDL Mixer X and seeks a position from LOOPEND to LOOPSTART.

P.S. About making SPC's like original SM64 tracks: just need to convert ripped samples from SM64 into brr and attach to SPC's before compile. But limit is 64 KB or samples may not be fited inside SPC700 dump.

[Imaynotbehere4long]

- Until I will implement USF musics support to SDL Mixer X to allow playback of native Nintendo 64 chiptunes, I'll keep SPC/MIDI versions of SM64 musics.

But that's dumb since most people are against the change. SPC may be a better format for SNES music, but anything originally composed around better technology won't sound as good, especially if it's limited to SMW's soundfont. Besides, what about songs like the NSMB theme, Beach Bowl Galaxy, or Mt. Gorge? They use higher fidelity instruments than N64. Will you continue to use their inferior SPC versions even after getting N64 support?

[Wohlstand]

- Until I will implement USF musics support to SDL Mixer X to allow playback of native Nintendo 64 chiptunes, I'll keep SPC/MIDI versions of SM64 musics.

But that's dumb since most people are against the change. SPC may be a better format for SNES music, but anything originally composed around better technology won't sound as good, especially if it's limited to SMW's soundfont. Besides, what about songs like the NSMB theme, Beach Bowl Galaxy, or Mt. Gorge? They use higher fidelity instruments than N64. Will you continue to use their inferior SPC versions even after getting N64 support?

With N64 support I'll use original N64 versions for common SMBX usage.

SPC versions of SN64 themes I'll keep as separated music pack which will go as completely styled to SMW/SMB-AS (I already told that standard SMBX all old episodes like Invasion/Invasion 2, Great Empire, etc. are going completely SMB-AS/SMW styled and original non-SNES themes are not fiting into conception. Just my opinion). Just for comparison, I watched videos from SM64 and looked into SMBX: in SM64 those themes are idealyl fits with atmosphere (sounds, graphics, mood, etc.). In old SMBX's episodes SMW-like themes are better fiting into it's atmosphere. Most of works I made on music replacement to reduce total size of package.

if it's limited to SMW's soundfont

How I told, is possible to use a custom samples (how you see, Airship theme uses samples from the Final Fantasy). I already have a ripped SM64 samples, to use them I need to convert them into BRR format and then apply as custom samples to TXT files and compile SPC which will have those samples.

NSMB theme

Why you not like SMW-styled version? Best variant of this song is going in NSMB-Wii, on DS it sounds is not good because quality of used samples (Anyway, SMB3-styled levels are looks very cheap while I listened NSMB DS theme on them). Even generated on FM Synthesizer that may sound better. (Anyway to find best sound on FM synthesis need to do experiments with patch redefinitions which I usually doing in Cakewalk Sonar with any MIDI files while I listen them).

Beach Bowl Galaxy

Agree that this MIDI-version sucks, because author of this file wasn't cared much about orchestral score quality. It was in worst state, but I partially improved it with small corrections of notes/controllers/patches/etc. and added a loop points for ADLMIDI playing, but it still suck and requires more works to make it sound better.

Mt. Gorge

This music uses much channels, therefore I must remove a lot of notes/drums to be able convert it into SPC.

PM Yoshi Islands

This music itself is electronic, therefore I can do calibration of instruments and sounds to make it's sound very similar to original. (Since I added ability to reconfigure bank to don't sit on same #58-only bank, ADLMIDI has 67 banks!)

[Imaynotbehere4long]

Just my opinion

My point exactly. You made this decision based solely on your own personal preference without regard for what anyone else thought. You should have never made the change in the first place, or at least asked the community's opinion about it first like you wanted me to do (and then not have done it when you see the majority is against it).

Most of works I made on music replacement to reduce total size of package.

I know (and I figured that was your reasoning when I first noticed the change), but you obviously didn't consider the long-term effect of your actions: less people using default music; new users being unsure which version of the songs a level was built around or which set of songs to use as default songs; more people using formerly default songs as custom tracks and, by extension, increasing the size of episodes, thus defeating your point; etc.

Think about it: if you really want people's download times to be shorter, it would be best if you just kept the default songs as OGGs (until you get N64 support, obviously). If the few people who prefer SPCs use them as custom songs, episode downloads would be much faster than if everyone who prefers the original had to use their OGGs as custom songs (or even worse: MP3s! Dun Dun Duuuun!!!).

[lotus006]

Just my opinion

My point exactly. You made this decision based solely on your own personal preference without regard for what anyone else thought. You should have never made the change in the first place, or at least asked the community's opinion about it first like you wanted me to do (and then not have done it when you see the majority is against it).

You should thanks him instead of complaining because he made this in his free time, or else without him we will never get this , please dont be rude with him
and also if he want to do something only him can decide what he want

[underFlo]

Even if he did it in his free time, imnbh4l has a right to criticise Wohl's work. After all, he, too, seeks to improve the quality of the audio, and letting just one person handle subjective decisioms without input from the outside can often lead to reallu controversial decisions.

And I'll have to agree with imnbh4l: If people want to use the SPC versions of non-SNES tracks, including them as custom music won't increase the file size, but if people want to experience older episodes as they're meant to be, they'll need to download the OGGs separately.

What you're doing is going from your opinion "SPC sounds better" and generalising it. Yeah, in theory, SNES-style music would fit with SNES-style levels, but the tons of custom music people use are in their levels are rarely in that style, showing that many people don't really want any SNES music.
I think that any music which wasn't originally played using a sequenced audio format (so everything from the Gamecube and upwards) should use the OGG format, as everytying else would cripple the original song, as evident by you saying that Mt. Gorge would need to have some of its drums removed - as such, you yourself have proven that the SPC version is inferior in terms of audio quality.

[Wohlstand]

Spinda, I already told that I'll return back OGG versions of non-SNES musics (but optimized and with placed loop points to don't have repeating parts), and SPC/MIDI-based package with replacements will be available separately for people who likes them.
EDIT: Done
This pack contains everything that needed (SM64, Mushroom Gorge, Shiver Mountain, Welcome to Yoshi's Village, SSBB Airships) are in OGG format with loop points
http://wohlsoft.ru/docs/Music/SMBX-music-hq-ogg.zip (total size of this package is 25 MB.)
After some times It will appear on LunaLUA storage

P.S. "Metroid Charge" from Tetris-DS still be replaced with original Metroid Brinstar theme until I'll make good rip of this music
EDIT2: Just got full Tetris DS Music set and I finally ripped HQ version of "Metroid Charge", archive has been updated
EDIT3: LunaLUA repo finally takes a new music pack, so, enjoy

My music pack with replacements still available here:
http://wohlsoft.ru/docs/Music/SMBX-musi ... pc-mid.zip (include music.ini)

[litchh]

Btw I don't like that SPCs sound so quiet than other tracks.
Is there a way to make it sound higher a bit?