Topic: Trying to complete my Super NES music collection...

[JonLeung]

As you may have seen in my "YouTube channel! (JonLeung1)" topic, I recently created a video with one minute of music for every NES game:

Naturally, I'd like to follow this up with one minute of music for every Super NES game.  (Or every "SNES" game.)

Though I SHOULD be working on my Japan trip vlogs, it's easy for me to listen to Super NES music when I am multitasking (like updating VGMaps.com or other work) and surprisingly, I'm already 3/4 of the way done with choosing the music!  So though I still need to (re)collect (better) box art and screenshots - easy but time-consuming - most of the hard work is done...

Except for finding the music I'm missing...

The Super NES music files that I do have, I got from just two sites:

http://snesmusic.org/v2/ has lots of .SPC files bundled into .RSN files
https://spc.joshw.info/e/ has them in other formats, like .MINISNSF or .MP3, as well as some unnamed .SPCs not bundled into .RSNs.  (And .OGGs for The Chessmaster for some reason.)

But, at the time of making this post, those sites are missing sound files for these official North American Super NES games...

(EDIT: I will update this list as I find them, but I will leave the originally requested games here, in case others are looking for these soundtracks...)

-(Williams) Arcade's Greatest Hits - found something else to use, since this doesn't have music
-Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection 1 - had to do a workaround to recreate the Asteroids "music"
-Hammerlock Wrestling - got .MP3s from a YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hatWEi697p8&list=PL8AmPARnFwCfPsF2dVSrlvdq9Eup2RvU_
-The Irem Skins Game - I just picked the "Hole Introduction" music and made a .SPC of that
-Jimmy Houston's Bass Tournament U.S.A. - I just picked the "Title" music and made a .SPC of that
-Mario's Early Years: Fun With Numbers - might be the same as the other Mario's Early Years games?
-Mario's Early Years: Preschool Fun - got .MP3s from a YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn6HgtTq0Yk&list=PLHtPDKtqGdF_syGX5S99IYFJ3fpsn04zE
-Michael Andretti's Indy Car Challenge - got .MP3s from a YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HOgE-Sb_Jg&list=PLedxyAusHATGhYKM8jLqV3WArNy1uQHVn
-MLBPA Baseball - I just picked the "Title" music and made a .SPC of that
-NHL '95
-NHL '96
-NHL '97
-NHL '98
-Super Goal! 2 - ripped eight .SPCs, not sure if I have all the tracks
-Tecmo Super Bowl III: Final Edition - got .MP3s from a YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPa7B21L4mk&list=PLFFF5NK7e6GJZe59S1dzgiqGgaO_qjQF5
-TNN Bass Tournament Of Champions - ripped six .SPCs, not sure if I have all the tracks
-We're Back!: A Dinosaur's Story - Thanks, zagato blackfist!  Also got .MP3s from a YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7Nx9njOLnQ&list=PLU7NOYXOjyliApV76lTsRDLx-ZGntW33a

In addition, I assume that Clay Fighter: Tournament Edition has the same music as the original Clay Fighter (though why aren't the vocals for the title song in there?), and that the compilations Extertainment Mountain Bike Rally + Speed Racer In My Most Dangerous Adventures and Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World aren't going to be different than the soundtracks for the individual games, which I do have the files for.  If The Miracle Piano Teaching System is just like the NES one, where there is no soundtrack to rip from the game data because the music comes from the keyboard accessory itself, then I can probably use the same recording that I used in the NES music compilation which was from my own actual Miracle Piano keyboard.

In any case, I'm guessing there are probably technical reasons why there haven't been .RSNs/.SPCs ripped from at least some of these yet.  But, in the off-chance that somebody has music for these games (or can obtain/create them) in some format that I can use, it would be much appreciated, as it would allow me to complete that Super NES music compilation!  And if you do, please contribute to those sites to help build their archives, so that everyone interested in the Super NES can benefit!

Thanks in advance!

[dark_lord_zagato@yahoo.co]

I've checked my own collection and I seem to have the music for "We're Back!: A Dinosaur's Story" that I got from archive.org years ago. I'll email it to you later.

99% of the stuff in my video game music collection came from Zophar.net, which also does not have any of the missing titles you listed.

https://www.zophar.net/music/nintendo-snes-spc

If all else fails you can rip SPCs right out of the ROM using Snes9X. The downside is that you can only rip one song at a time, and the game has to be currently playing the song you want to rip. I guess it's not a problem if there's a sound test code or if you've already decided which music you want to put in your video. If you load the game in 9X and get to the music you want, just go file/Save Other/Save SPC Data.

[JonLeung]

Thanks, zagato!  I received the email you sent with the We're Back!: A Dinosaur's Story and Super Chinese World 2 (J) soundtracks.

As I said in the original post, I encourage you to submit anything you've personally ripped to the sites I mentioned, if they will take them.  For historical purposes, it would be nice to have as much 16-bit music as possible to be available at these popular sites, for prosperity.

And thank you for mentioning zophar.net.  I used them as my first source of NSF files to make my video of NES music, so I don't know why I didn't check there for Super NES music...

I haven't had a chance to check GameFAQs or elsewhere for codes for music tests, debug modes, or stage select, which would get me easy access to all or most of the music in those games above.  Those would be quick ways to find the minute of music that I would need for this project.  Though, now that I have We're Back!: A Dinosaur's Story, it looks like the remainder are all sports games, except for two Mario edutainment games (do they use the same music as Mario's Early Years: Fun With Letters, which I do have as MP3s?) and two arcade compilations.  (I don't know about those Arcade's Greatest Hits games.  Like Golf for the NES, I might just have to use some sound effects or something... ugh.)  So I doubt a typical stage select code would even exist for any of these.

Worst case scenario: I might just have to actually play those games to get the music (or sounds).  OH NO.  LOL.  That just means it will take a little longer, but it should be possible... any other help will still be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: Hold up, something seems off with this We're Back!: A Dinosaur's Story SPC set... they seem to cut out after a few seconds...
EDIT: I might have to make do with a YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7Nx9njOLnQ&list=PLU7NOYXOjyliApV76lTsRDLx-ZGntW33a
EDIT: WonderShare UniConverter can download entire YouTube playlists into MP3s, so now I've got these this way.
EDIT: Okay, the original files you sent me DO work - on SNES SPC700 Player (spcplay), which you can get here: https://www.smwcentral.net/?p=section&a=details&id=28962
These .SPCs don't work in SNESamp (as I discovered myself when I tried to rip the .SPCs myself) so I figured I should try different players, and what do you know, they are good after all.  Thanks, zagato!

[JonLeung]

So I found five random YouTube videos for the soundtrack of TNN Bass Tournament Of Champions, by ShyGuy64, including this one here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCrWiyswRXY

I decided to try manually ripping the .SPCs using ZSNESW (or is there a better tool?)... So by playing not very much of the game, I was able to recapture the same five tunes as heard in those YouTube videos, PLUS the title screen, so that makes six music tracks.

Which leads to my more general questions - is there an easier way to extract .SPC files, and is there some way to know how many tracks there are to capture?

[Grizzly]

As written on vgmpf: SNSF you either have the choice to play the game and dump the memory of the SPC700 whenever it received the instructions to play a music track or you may be able to find the original 65816 CPU instructions inside the ROM module which fill the SPC700's memory and create an SNSF file for it. I think MINISNSF are basically the cpu instructions and samples once and the raw note data in all the small files.
Just by searching I didn't find any tool that automates the process of finding places in the ROM which interact with the SPC700. So getting this extracted seems like a lot of manual work and requires understanding of the 65816 CPU instructions to recognize patterns.

[KungFuFurby]

You're only doing the US games, right? I ask because of possible regional differences... and also because I tend to lean towards the Japanese versions for content cutting reasons when I do SPC rips, although I also realized that there can be regional differences there too.

You caught my attention through the Discord server (which I joined on a whim just about now). I also have a copy of the rip of We're Back - A Dinosaur's Story: it's known to be problematic on SNESAmp. And so is Clayfighter 2 and Mickey's Playtown Adventure for the same reason: I have all three.

We're Back: A Dinosaur's Story SPC Set
ClayFighter 2: Judgement Clay SPC Set
Mickey's Playtown Adventure SPC Set

For all of the games listed except for Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits and Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection 1, I have a complete rip in varying states of completion. Mario's Early Years is a special case as it's undumpable under normal circumstances, which normally would mean you would get a SNSF. I actually made SPC sets of not only this game, but quite a few others. However, it is heavily sound driver dependent on which ones I did, and more importantly it has to not result in memory overflows (or that I only have to overwrite SFX samples to get the job done).

For Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits, I can rip the individual sound instances, but I haven't gotten around to marking them all down yet.

Now... this is where things get kind of sad for me.

So here's the thing... the SNESMusic.org forums went down in mid-August 2019 (that set off quite the search from me), and the last update on SNESMusic.org was in 2015. The last maintainer of the site that I can remember that was still doing updates effectively retired due to I think some kind of burnout over tracknames, that being YesleyKing. You got me considering trying to contact someone so that I could perhaps update the site myself since I still have a massive update collection locally still looking for a home...

And Zophar is no place for me to submit music, partially because I have no clue, and partially because I don't think it has been updated in years. It is also, in my eyes, a de-facto SNESMusic.org mirror, since it mirrored that collection.

So my update collection (as well as new rips) are effectively homeless. I know of Halley's Comet Software (the joshw collection), but it's just not as searchable as SNESMusic.org used to be as well as having more inconsistent quality because of its amalgamation of all kinds of archives. The other place is VGMPF (Video Game Music Preservation Foundation), which is also variable quality and involves articles. On one hand, I like that a composer, arranger, and a sound driver programmer can be individually credited. On the other hand... well... we have renders to take care of, and writing up articles on each one, and I tend to feel lazy on those grounds... on the render side of things, it's because of memory consumption, since they tend to run into the hundreds of megabytes, if not gigabytes, whereas the SPC sets come at 64KB a track (SNSFs are a bit more due to the SNES-side requirement), but I can get the entire thing for just a few gigs or so, and even the entire game collection clocks in at just a few gigabytes!

[JonLeung]

As you can see, I finally released my "One Minute of Music from EVERY SNES Game (US & Canada)" video!  This is why I needed the music.