Looking for Lemmings 3 composer information...

[Mr. K]

So in an effort to preserve DOS/Adlib music better, I've been working on soundtrack rips of various DOS games to VGM format.  Since Lemmings 1 and ONML were already taken care of, I decided I would do the often overlooked Lemmings 3 (All New World of Lemmings / Lemmings Chronicles).  Anyway, I have a finished rip now, and it's almost ready to go, however I simply cannot find complete information for tagging the tracks-- the last step.

What I've gathered so far is that the original Amiga versions were done by Raymond Usher.  However, I can't find out who did the Adlib conversions, or wrote the intro music (the intro is not present in the Amiga version).  I'm assuming that it is somebody different based on the pattern set by the earlier games.  If there are credits at the end of the game that tell me the answer, I'll never get to them because I suck way too much at this game.  Would anyone happen to know or be able to help me find out?

[Prob Lem]

Oh man, that's awesome - I'm quite fond of the MS-DOS version of The Lemmings Chronicles/All New World of Lemmings (it's a long and pointless story ), so I'm glad to see this. All three big-box releases of the game (Amiga, MS-DOS floppy disk, and MS-DOS CD-ROM with redbook audio*) use the same manual (there's also a later North American budget release as part of an eclectic multi-disc set, which as far as I know doesn't come with the manual), which I've uploaded a PDF of (link below). The only music/sound credit given at all is for Raymond Usher, unless I'm overlooking something somehow. The manual credits the MS-DOS version's intro to Lenny Lane, although it's not clear whether this is an audio credit or one for putting it together. (EDIT: The info on MobyGames suggests that this credit relates to 3D animation, so it may not be an audio credit.)

You can grab the manual from here.

The errata sheet that was supplied with the game simply relates to the save-system (which was changed between the time the manual was printed and when the game shipped), so that doesn't shed any additional light.

Anyway, that said, the credits for the game as found at MobyGames (Amiga and MS-DOS) also mention a music credit for Colin Anderson, alongside Raymond Usher, but since this doesn't correspond with the manual, which doesn't appear to mention Colin Anderson at all, I'm unsure as to how accurate this is.

I hope that this helps some!

*I've uploaded my rip of the MS-DOS CD-ROM version's music here, if you want it.

[Mr. K]

Wow, that's more than I asked for!  Thanks.

I'll just make the assumption that Raymond Usher was the only one involved, since it seems to be the most repeated credit.  I did see that Colin Anderson credit on Mobygames but after some Googling I can't find a single other reference to it anywhere on the Internet, so I can't say I'm sure it's accurate (in fact, that discrepancy is what led me to ask here if someone else was involved).  I figure I can always update the VGM pack with updated credits later if I'm wrong.

EDIT: I've attached the pack since it's done now    It's actually intended for the VGM archive over at http://vgm.mdscene.net/ so it's labelled as such, but it probably won't be added there for a few weeks so I thought I'd go ahead and make it immediately available here.  (Also, if you go check out the archive you can get the Lemmings / ONML pack!)  I'll probably tackle Lemmings 2 next to finish things off.

[Prob Lem]

No problem - glad to have been of assistance!

I'm going to make MP3s from these, as I've done before, when I've got a free moment, if that's quite alright.

[Mr. K]

Feel free to!  Although do note I'm not sure that the emulation is 100% accurate yet (the percussion sounds a bit off to me, but I can't check against my physical Soundblaster Pro until I'm home in a few days)  Luckily though, since it's a pure log of the OPL commands any future improvements in the emulation will be reflected in these files right away.

[geoo]

Thanks! Just wondering, what do you use to get vgm rips. Last time I checked (ages ago) DosBox could only dump .dro raw OPL output files. Is there a converter, or do you do it some other way? I wanted to rip music from one or two games for myself that I only have ogg/mp3 versions of.

Btw, I think Simon made ogg or mp3 versions of the L3 music once, but I don't know where they are (I just know I got them).

[Mr. K]

Over at VGMrips (linked above) the current maintainer of the VGM format has a suite of tools which includes a DRO-to-VGM converter.  He also has a special build of DOSBox available which fixes a few problems with the DROs before they become VGMs (namely, it used to create dual-OPL2 VGMs even though only one was used, therefore they were inaccurate).  So, I start with DROs, convert them to VGM, and then do the trimming and tagging.

[Prob Lem]

My apologies for the major bump, here, but I finally got the free time to try to convert the VGMs to MP3s, and have encountered something incredibly weird with both the zip file provided here, and the one from the VGM archive at MDScene.net.

I'm unsure if this is a result of the WinAmp plugin that I'm using for VGM playback (I use WinAmp under WINE, and its Diskwriter plugin, to convert things more quickly, at present), but the tunes end up being of absolutely astonishing length (some are several hours long, so I aborted the conversion), because the notes are being played extremely far apart for no apparent reason.

Is anyone else seeing this, or should I look for a different VGM plugin?

[ccexplore]

Does the VGMs at least play correctly in WinAmp using the same plugin, or do they sound exactly like what the conversions sound like?

[Leo]

When 'Diskwriter plugin' is used, be sure to turn off repeat in WinAmp, otherwise song will play in endless loop forever. Also it's a good idea to turn off equalizer. If you use equalizer with 'Diskwriter' and again with 'produced' mp3, song will be equalized twice, and that can't be good thing.

[Prob Lem]

Does the VGMs at least play correctly in WinAmp using the same plugin, or do they sound exactly like what the conversions sound like?

For some reason, I can't get any audio out of it in realtime with Diskwriter off, but stuff output from Diskwriter is always identical to what was played. It was the track-lengths that WinAmp was displaying that clued me in to the problem - they don't match Mr. K's readme, not even close. The resultant WAV files are what I listened to (and it was agonising given how slow they were ).

When 'Diskwriter plugin' is used, be sure to turn off repeat in WinAmp, otherwise song will play in endless loop forever. Also it's a good idea to turn off equalizer. If you use equalizer with 'Diskwriter' and again with 'produced' mp3, song will be equalized twice, and that can't be good thing.

No worries, I know - I've already got it all set up that way. I'm using the same fairly quick method that I used for all of my previous MOD and VGM conversions.

[ccexplore]

I just downloaded the attachment in Mr. K's post and noticed that all the files are actually VGZ, which is basically taking the uncompressed VGM file and 7-zipped it.  Does your WinAmp VGM plugin actually support VGZ or only uncompressed VGMs?  Granted, I'm surprised that you would get any recognizable sound at all if the plug-in doesn't recognize VGZ, but perhaps it's something to look at.

For example, I've attached "01 Intro" in VGM format by uncompressing (using WinRAR) the corresponding VGZ in Mr. K's attachment.  Try your WinAmp conversion on this file and see if it works better?

I also notice another oddity examining the resulting VGM's header data (based on the file format information here).  It sets the "rate" of the recording to 1000Hz (rather than the typical 50Hz or 60Hz expected from consoles for example).  1000Hz seems completely bogus and this could potentially be the cause of the abnormally long length.  I've attached a "zerorate" version of the VGM where I reset that rate value back to zero, which according to the file format should mean "don't apply any rate scaling".  See if that file works correctly for your conversion.

[Mr. K]

You guys using the latest version of in_vgm?  Shouldn't have any problems with it-- in the plugin settings you can change the number of times it loops before fading out, and it also supports VGZs on its own (which is the preferred format for VGMs because it greatly reduces the filesize).  I use it basically every day, no problems.  (Although admittedly not in WINE like Prob Lem-- possibly try using the terminal-based VGMplay, also in the link above?  It's Linux native and I think it can dump WAVs...)

ccexplore, I dunno about the the rate thing.  Nobody's ever called me out on it, nor told me it was causing problems, so I think it's just a default that the DRO>VGM converter I use sets.  *shrug*  I'm honestly not particularly well versed on the actual file structure-- I just rip stuff and make sure it sounds nice.

[ccexplore]

To be clear, I don't have Winamp installed on my (working) machines and don't care to, so I have no way to test anything at the moment.  I was just making educated suggestions based what I see.  And yeah, the rate thing seems like something the program that rips or converts to a VGM would set, and not by the user.  The value is definitely in the file and seems bogus, perhaps a good plugin will ignore questionable values, while a bad one will always try to use it regardless of whether the value is suspect, and end up with incorrect playback.

I hesitated to blame WINE because I got the impression that Prob Lem's VGM setup was working correctly for her previously in WINE.  I did forget about the possibility of old versions of plugins though.

[Prob Lem]

The MDScene.net link is down right now, but damn, I never thought about the possibility of an outdated plugin, either! I'll take a look at it when the site's back up later, and I'm on my remaining x86 box. (Then I'll look at the Linux native stuff as well - I just didn't know it was around, for some reason.)