New big update on mid2seq

[magnavespa]

Hey everyone,

I recently read the article on Sega Saturn, Shiro! about Frogbull's experiments with audio on SRL using mid2seq and TON files extracted from other games. That motivated me to give the last push I needed to completely revamp mid2seq and add TON generation to it! You can basically now create an SF2 soundfont, compose all your music as midi, and then export both the SF2 to a TON file and the music as SEQ files. I still didn't get DSP effects to play on the sequenced audio, but that's the next step.

If you don't know about mid2seq, check it out here: GitHub - jfsantos/mid2seq: Software to convert format 0 MIDI into the SEQ format for Sega Saturn games.

I have also improved my DSP assembler and can now create DSP effects that I can run on CDDA audio. That is another project that I am hosting on Codeberg: scsp-fx. Both projects have lots of documentation but this is the first time I'm sharing them publicly with docs so some stuff might be incorrect. Let me know if there are any fixes needed!

Cheers

 

[vbt]

well done, so you convert midi file and replace all sega limitations to make a valid sequence ?

 

[magnavespa]

Yep! You can make your own instruments instead of using whatever is in the original sound pack, and there's zero need to use the old PowerPC software. I will eventually make a video demo of how it works and how it can be used to get your music in a game.

 

[magnavespa]

Here's a demo video showing mednafen rendering the same demo song using two different custom instrument kits: one based only on PCM samples (similar to a MIDI soundfont), and another using FM instruments, which are the star of the Yamaha YMF292 chip on the Saturn.

 

[rorirub]

Couldn't the old tools already create soundfont files? I distinctly remember loading converted MIDIs and SF2 soundfonts into Winamp to listen to some Saturn songs, it worked decent as long as the music did not use the DSP, but that was almost 20 years ago.

 

[nando]

Couldn't the old tools already create soundfont files? I distinctly remember loading converted MIDIs and SF2 soundfonts into Winamp to listen to some Saturn songs, it worked decent as long as the music did not use the DSP, but that was almost 20 years ago.

Probably - but the entire point is we don't want to have to use old tools that only work on old hardware/software.

You could maybe use a VM or emulation, but that just adds an extra layer of BS to deal with. It's like - you want to make music files. Great, maybe you know how to do that, because you're primarily interested in music.

Oh, but now you also have to know how to set up a VM, install an ancient OS and use some really old software to make that work. And maybe it works - maybe you hit some road block, because you're a musician and you don't have a CS degree.

So after you spend a week messing around trying to find an answer to why it doesn't work, you just give up. That's the death loop Saturn music has been stuck in since forever. That's the point of these newer tools.