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Rusty porter looking to get back into it: What's changed?

Hello there. It's been a hot hour!
Okay, it's been YEARS since I've been here in the community. (I do love to play hacks though, but that's another post...)

I used to port once upon a time, but I'd like to get back into it. Have the methods greatly changed? Do they still use MML and TinyMML to convert MIDIs to MMLs? What is the standard Addmusic to use? (DO they even still have an addmusic player? I haven't gotten to checking everything out yet.) What about the guidelines? Have they changed? I know the guidelines got stricter several years ago and a few of my tracks were grandfathered in (bless your hearts, Music Staff).

I compose for other things, but I really miss porting. (Especially when I play amazing hacks) Some of my best early music memories are around this place. It'd be nice to be able to start porting again, to kinda keep to my roots a little bit. Any info helps! Thanks so much, guys!


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Since AddmusicK became the only Addmusic tool this site support several years ago, the quality standard is raised a lot. AddmusicK has more features for better quality SMW music.

AddmusicK has a "porter mode" that lets you hear your port without inserting them into ROM.

TinyMM still works, but it's no longer recommended. PetiteMM do the job better, plus handling triplet notes correctly.

For the rest of your questions, I recommend you just relearn everything. Wakana's tutorial explains porting for AddmusicK pretty well.
In addition I recommend you take a look at AddmusicK's readme.html. It has very comprehensible sections describing each command (old and new) which you may find interesting and/or useful, and it also has a few neat features like an automatic ADSR generator. Also, AddmusicK has mixed the majority AM4 and AMM's hex commands, and now BRRs are the standard instead of BNKs.

The basic mml structure hasn't changed at all though. I'd say the "biggest" change would be what you put at the top of your txt now. (See readme.html > syntax reference > special commands)

Finally, SPC700 Player is still the norm, but now there's a BRR Player that allows you to hear the BRR samples before you use them in any given song, and there's a BRR Samples section that needs a bit more love, but that is made a lot better by this BRR Player tool.


I may be missing something but that's the general gist of it, I think.
tl;dr: amk's readme.html will get you up to date.

Also welcome back #tb{'U'}


E: it seems like you were definitely around when AMK was a thing... probably you already knew everything i just wrote here. in that case, not much has changed lul
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Originally posted by tcdw
Since AddmusicK became the only Addmusic tool this site support several years ago, the quality standard is raised a lot. AddmusicK has more features for better quality SMW music.

AddmusicK has a "porter mode" that lets you hear your port without inserting them into ROM.

TinyMM still works, but it's no longer recommended. PetiteMM do the job better, plus handling triplet notes correctly.

For the rest of your questions, I recommend you just relearn everything. Wakana's tutorial explains porting for AddmusicK pretty well.


I see. Yeah, it would be best to re-learn everything and start from the bottom, eh? Hahaha... Maybe then I'll realize the dream of someone using my port(s) in a hack <3. Thank you so much for all your help. I really appreciate it!

Originally posted by Maxodex

In addition I recommend you take a look at AddmusicK's readme.html. It has very comprehensible sections describing each command (old and new) which you may find interesting and/or useful, and it also has a few neat features like an automatic ADSR generator. Also, AddmusicK has mixed the majority AM4 and AMM's hex commands, and now BRRs are the standard instead of BNKs.

The basic mml structure hasn't changed at all though. I'd say the "biggest" change would be what you put at the top of your txt now. (See readme.html > syntax reference > special commands)

Finally, SPC700 Player is still the norm, but now there's a BRR Player that allows you to hear the BRR samples before you use them in any given song, and there's a BRR Samples section that needs a bit more love, but that is made a lot better by this BRR Player tool.


I may be missing something but that's the general gist of it, I think.
tl;dr: amk's readme.html will get you up to date.

Also welcome back #tb{'U'}


I see! I tried my hand at samples and failed miserably, hahaha. I might give it another shot, but I'll most likely stick to vanilla ports. (Hopefully the community doesn't have anything against those yet! :P )

Thanks for the help, both of you!


VTuber, musician, composer, voice actor. Check out my socials!

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Vanilla ports are still a big thing in the community. I'm biased against them but there will always be those who favor vanilla to chocolate.

Personally dislike chocolate IRL.
I mentioned one of these in the Discord, but I figure it wouldn't hurt to have them here as well in case somebody else finds this thread in the future.

-Level/OW headers are a thing of the past. Any song can now be played anywhere.

-AddmusicK shifts around things (afaik?) which makes it so that sound effects only play on channels #6 and #7 now., and no longer on channel #4.


And yeah, while vanilla ports are still very much popular (I'm one of the people who prefers them, honestly), the general standards for all ports have gone up. It's hard to describe exactly, but generally, ports should be much fuller if the original song is full (e.g. 3-channel ports of CD-quality music don't cut it anymore), and hex commands are almost a must to give ports a nice flavour.

Originally posted by bebn legg
(e.g. 3-channel ports of CD-quality music don't cut it anymore)

Not necessarily true. Search the SMW music sections with the tag "retro" and you'll be able to find acceptable sounding songs that use very few channels.

Most unsampled ports that get submitted today use echo parameters and custom ADSR to keep them from sounding very bland.
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