Author Topic: Music packs - track ordering (Read 10789 times)

namida · « **on:** May 16, 2015, 01:37:21 PM »

So, as you probably know, by default NeoLemmix includes the Amiga version musics. Music packs are also available to instead give them the Master System, Genesis or DOS musics (and others could be made too).

However, the question is - each version has a different track order. So far, in the case of DOS and Master System, the ordering has been consistent with the order in these versions (Genesis has simply used the Amiga order, since the Genesis version doesn't have a track order as such); but should this be changed so instead the music packs are consistent with each other? (In which case, the most likely candidate would be to follow the Amiga order in all packs).

Wafflem · « **Reply #1 on:** May 16, 2015, 02:16:45 PM »

Just to be sure, this applies to NeoLemmix only, right? I don't want the music packs to go in the Amiga order in the Traditional version.

namida · « **Reply #2 on:** May 16, 2015, 02:39:34 PM »

NeoLemmix only; and it would only affect the NeoCustLemmix music pack too. (For the record, however, the NeoLemmix music pack *can* be used with the traditional versions anyway; the reverse is not true due to the lack of gimmick/frenzy tracks.)

namida · « **Reply #3 on:** May 17, 2015, 06:54:11 AM »

Seems the preference is for consistency with each other. As far as those for official games go; I've maintained default order, but for the NeoCustLemmix ones, I'm working on getting the order consistent. I've put up versions of the Genesis and Master System music packs with consistent ordering; will fix the DOS one soon. Also; I'm working on a SNES version music pack.

Obviously, for those making custom packs with Flexi, it's entirely up to them how their music packs work.

Wafflem · « **Reply #4 on:** May 17, 2015, 11:42:13 AM »

Will you also be able to make music packs for the Acorn versions of Lemmings and ONML?

The problem is that the Lemmings one has 18 regular tracks, and the ONML actually has 25 regular ones (with one song exclusive to Superlemming).

namida · « **Reply #5 on:** May 17, 2015, 12:04:14 PM »

If the music exists in some format that can be converted to either OGG or IT, then yes, it can be made. It's better if its in the native format, or a format that supports looping.

EDIT: Ah, so they're already in MOD format. Awesome. I can do this in a few minutes, then...

EDIT: Okay, here!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ffihf6x5rk85kv9/CustLemmixNeo_Music_Acorn.dat?dl=0

It uses the DOS versions for the OhNo tracks (otherwise it kills the idea of keeping consistent songs (just different versions) across the different packs) - I'll change this if I discover variants of the DOS tracks among the Acorn version's ONML tracks. As for the OhNo tracks themself, that might be a bit trickier.

One thing I did do here (though now I'm wondering if I really should've) is used the Acorn version's unique track #14 as the gimmick level track and the ONML SuperLemming track as the frenzy track for that music pack.

Wafflem · « **Reply #6 on:** May 17, 2015, 01:48:56 PM »

Thanks!

Are you also able to do one for the Original Amiga Demo Soundtrack?

Again, the problem is that there are 20 regular tracks. Four of those actually are part of the current Amiga soundtrack. Those four can be removed if not necessary, but that would bring it down to 16...

Another interesting thing to note is that there is no particular play order for the tracks, so this soundtrack would work very well in NeoCustLemmix since it chooses tracks randomly.

namida · « **Reply #7 on:** May 17, 2015, 02:16:07 PM »

Essentially, the purpose I'm going for here is to have different versions of the musics, but still the same musics themself. Entirely new tracks may be missing that point a bit; though if they're in OGG format, or in IT or a similar format (including MOD), they can absolutely be used in a Flexi pack. If they're mostly the same with a few different tracks (such as the Master System version), that isn't such a huge issue; but if they're entirely different... :/

Of course, if you have the tracks in a suitable format, there's nothing to stop you creating a music pack yourself. Basically, use the Flexi toolkit, follow the section on creating a RES file of the musics, and the ARC file is your music pack; just rename it to the appropriate filename. For NeoCustLemmix, there should be a total of 23 numbered tracks (the 17 orig + the 6 OhNo), plus a gimmick track and a frenzy track. In all the music packs so far apart from the Acorn one (and I'm strongly considering changing this), the same Gimmick and Frenzy musics are used, which are the LPII ones. If using OGGs, note that NeoLemmix supports (but does not require) the "LOOPSTART" and "LOOPLENGTH" metadata tags.

Simon · « **Reply #8 on:** May 17, 2015, 02:16:35 PM »

Is ordering still an issue despite the planned select-by-name?

If yes, the soundtracks seem different enough to leave them in their platform-dependent order.

-- Simon

namida · « **Reply #9 on:** May 17, 2015, 02:17:51 PM »

That's a good point - for NeoCustLemmix at least, it won't matter, because if a specific track isn't specified, it picks randomly, not sequentially. The one case where it may matter is if people are making Flexi packs that just use the normal musics, but want to allow for use of different music packs. As far as Orig goes, the different version music packs for that do follow the original system order if there is one; the packs aren't entirely cross-compatible, the Cust ones will work on Orig, but they'll play ONML musics instead of the special ones on the special graphic levels.

GigaLem · « **Reply #10 on:** May 17, 2015, 04:23:01 PM »

Is it possible to make section of the neolemmix website to have ogg of lemmings soundtracks
we got
DOS
Genesis
Amiga
And Acorn
but how bout we get some
SNES
Tubographix 16
Mac (because it sounds bit richer)
X68000 or PC 98

namida · « **Reply #11 on:** May 17, 2015, 04:42:51 PM »

I'm not putting them all on the NeoLemmix website due to their large filesizes. I'm just putting them on Dropbox.

SNES is on the way; I've got IT format conversions of them but still need to fix them up a bit (most importantly, making them loop correctly). As for the other ones, I'll look into it eventually.

I also have NES in its native format, but need to look more into how to go about converting it. Unlike a lot of other versions, it just consists of one single file containing all the tracks, which can often be problematic for these kind of things.

GigaLem · « **Reply #12 on:** May 17, 2015, 04:50:16 PM »

That works too

Wafflem · « **Reply #13 on:** July 18, 2015, 04:17:20 PM »

Quote from: namida on May 17, 2015, 04:42:51 PM

SNES is on the way; I've got IT format conversions of them but still need to fix them up a bit (most importantly, making them loop correctly). As for the other ones, I'll look into it eventually.

How's the progress on this one?

namida · « **Reply #14 on:** July 18, 2015, 04:18:21 PM »

Completely forgot about it. Let's see what I can do...

EDIT: Okay, working on it again. I already have all the tracks in IT format, but they don't have proper looping so I have to do that manually. It gets annoying after a while, so that's why I haven't done the whole thing in one swoop.

Wafflem · « **Reply #15 on:** July 20, 2015, 02:23:14 AM »

Would MODs be easier to work with? I do have them, but they're in a Cheapo style.

namida · « **Reply #16 on:** July 20, 2015, 02:43:01 AM »

If they already loop, then YES, DEFINITELY! I should be able to extract them - if Essman's extractor can't handle them (since Cheapo by default doesn't support MOD; it's the result of a hacked version that added the support, so Essman's tool might not account for it), I can probably work out how to do it manually, and it's probably less hassle.

If they don't already loop properly, then it probably won't make much difference.

mobius · « **Reply #17 on:** August 01, 2015, 06:30:04 PM »

I have a question and I don't know what better place to ask it:

How can I open up and modify/extract the contents of a music DAT file for NeoLemmix?
It seems like LemResource builder can only create files.

namida · « **Reply #18 on:** August 02, 2015, 06:33:23 AM »

Currently there's no way to do so (other than modifying the source code of LemResourceBuilder from the Lemmix source code), but I can probably make something...

namida · « **Reply #19 on:** August 02, 2015, 08:05:58 AM »

Here's a modified version of LemResourceBuilder that supports extracting as well as building, and also lets you choose a filename rather than defaulting to "lemmusic.arc".

In regards to the SNES music pack, honestly, I can't be bothered with looping the tracks (and unfortunately, the Cheapo style didn't help). If anyone else wants to modify these IT files to make them loop properly, go ahead and I'll be happy to make a music pack out of them. The first 6 tracks are already done (included in case someone wants to use them for something else).

mobius · « **Reply #20 on:** August 02, 2015, 01:28:34 PM »

wow, thanks a lot!

Dullstar · « **Reply #21 on:** May 23, 2016, 01:46:29 PM »

For quality purposes on the SNES music it would probably be better to use an ogg conversion instead of an IT conversion, since the SPC to IT converters out there aren't particularly great. They work, but they lose a large amount of quality in the conversion process. I've found a program that can create SPCs, and the instrument definition is sufficiently different that I'd hazard a guess that the converter is forced to just kinda try to replicate the results.

I've got the ogg files lying around but they're too big to attach and I'm too lazy to find somewhere else to upload them.

Also I haven't bothered with looping either.

namida · « **Reply #22 on:** May 23, 2016, 01:48:19 PM »

Quote from: Dullstar on May 23, 2016, 01:46:29 PM

For quality purposes it would probably be better to use an ogg conversion instead of an IT conversion, since the SPC to IT converters out there aren't particularly great.

I've got the files lying around but they're too big to attach and I'm too lazy to find somewhere else to upload them.

Also I haven't bothered with looping either.

The SPC > IT conversions sound fine to me. It's just a matter of them needing looping added. I've done the first few, but honestly, that stuff kinda gets boring after a few tracks...
Of course, OGG is fine too. Still need proper looping set though if I'm going to pop them up on the website as an "official" music pack.

Dullstar · « **Reply #23 on:** May 23, 2016, 01:59:09 PM »

The lemmings conversions do at least still sound passable after the conversion. I've heard much worse conversions. I assume it depends on the style of the track.

I'm a bit of a stickler for quality, so I'll always be bothered if it sounds a little off - probably one of the reasons why I was never very fond of the GBA port of Yoshi's Island - it just sounded so wrong to me. But I don't really use the music packs much anyway, so don't fret too much over catering to my pickiness

EDIT:
I tried running one of the conversions myself, and it seems you have a slightly better converter (although it seems to make everything a bit sharp). I wonder if I could use the results of my conversion to improve the tuning of your conversions. For comparison, here's my conversion output compared to an ogg recording of the original. The tuning is closer to the original in my it conversion, but yours is better in every other aspect.

Poll

What do?

Author Topic: Music packs - track ordering (Read 10789 times)