Using loveemu's SPC to MIDI Converters
Welcome to a small Tutorial which is meant to tell you everything about the Midi Converters by loveemu. These Tools can convert SPC Files (SNES Music Files) into MIDI Format, very useful for Music Porters.
At the moment, loveemu made the Program compatible with:
- Nintendo Games (click here to get a List of the Games)
- Rare Games (click here to get a List of the Games)
- Square Games (Every Square Game can be converted)
- Chunsoft Games (click here to get a List of the Games)
- Capcom Games (click here to get a List of the Games)
- Konami Games (click here to get a List of the Games)
- Hudson Games (click here to get a List of the Games
- Compile Games (no List available)
- HeartBeat Games (DragonQuest 3 + 6)
- Software Creations "Plok!"
If you know a Game but not the Company who released it, go to Zophar's Domain SPC Page, search for the Game and then, in the Name of the ZIP you'll find the information.
Then, you should get the program(s). Click here and choose the one which supports your Game.
If you extracted the Archive, you will find 5 Folders: bin, dis, doc, misc and src. The main Program lies in the bin-Folder. Since you have to control the Application via Command Prompt and not per GUI, some Batch Files would be nice. Loveemu has already written those Batchfiles, and they are in the misc-Folder. Copy all Batchfiles (in most cases cleanup.bat, convall.bat and logall.bat) into the bin-Folder.
Then, you can drag your SPC File into the bin-Folder too. Make sure it has no spaces in its name! Now, you're ready to start convall.bat. Windows cmd.exe will popup for a short perdiod of Time and after that, you should have a MIDI File in the Folder with the same Name as your SPC. Try to play it in Windows Media Player and you'll notice that in most cases it sounds like crap, because the Application just converts all Notes into MIDI and then gives it Instruments (I don't know what's the reason for the Instrument Choice).
If there's no MIDI, check a TXT-File called "stderr.txt". Any bugs and errors will be reported there. If it says: "Uncompatible Game", probably the Game isn't compatible though it's a Game from the Gamecompany the Tool is designed for. Sometimes, only a few Songs from a Game can be converted and not every Track (for example softSPC can convert the Beach Theme from Plok!, but not the Boss Theme). In this case, we must hope that loveemu will make all Games fully compatible.
So now we have our MIDI, but what to do with the other Batchfiles? cleanup.bat, like the Name says, will simply delete all MIDI's and SPC's in the Folder. And logall.bat will create an HTML File besides the MIDI, which reports the whole Song. It tells us when an Instrument changes, it tells the original Vibrato Values,... it tells us every event from the Song chronologically.
If you really want to work with the HTML File, you'll notice that there are every channels mixed (First column of the Table shows the Channel number from 1 to 8). If you want the Channels sorted, copy all Files from the doc-Folder into the bin-Folder. Then open "nintspc.css" for example in a Text Editor of your choice, and at the Top of the CSS, you will see this:
Code
/* mask */
/*
table.dump tr.track1 { display: none; }
table.dump tr.track2 { display: none; }
table.dump tr.track3 { display: none; }
table.dump tr.track4 { display: none; }
table.dump tr.track5 { display: none; }
table.dump tr.track6 { display: none; }
table.dump tr.track7 { display: none; }
table.dump tr.track8 { display: none; }
table.dump tr.sub { display: none; }
*/Remove the /* after /* mask */ and the */ at the end. Then, simply delete the Line of the Channel which you just want to be displayed. If we want to just see Channel 4, we would have:
Code
/* mask */
table.dump tr.track1 { display: none; }
table.dump tr.track2 { display: none; }
table.dump tr.track3 { display: none; }
table.dump tr.track5 { display: none; }
table.dump tr.track6 { display: none; }
table.dump tr.track7 { display: none; }
table.dump tr.track8 { display: none; }
table.dump tr.sub { display: none; }That's it. Save the File and run logall.bat again. Now, only everything from Channel 4 will be displayed.
Wait, a small Tip at the End: The MIDI loops the song one time, and for porting, this is just unnecessary. If you want to disable this annoying thing, open up the logall.bat and convall.bat in Notepad and where it says:
Code
--loop 2
Just replace the 2 with a 1 and you're done.
Now, you're able to create the best MIDI's of SNES Games for Porting. I hope I was able to help you!
PS: It is possible to create MML Files with this Tool, but JUST with nintSPC! I'm not going to explain this since I think this function is more work than comfort and Ice Man already wrote a very nice Tutorial on how to do that (here if you're interested).
