Saturn streamed audio

[visciouslymamed]

Does anyone know of a program that will extract and play/convert the streamed audio in Saturn games? I have tried XAEX, XAPlay, and XA2WAV with very limited results. Any help would be greatly apprieciated.

Attn IceMan2k - I love the OST sections as well as the whole site. Keep up the great work.

 

[Big]

You might try Cinepack. I use it for DC but I know it has an option in the open file section for Saturn.

Maybe worth a try....

 

[MasterAkumaMatata]

If you're referring to the background music played from the CDDA tracks of Saturn games, you can pretty much use any burning application (e.g., CDRWin) or MP3 ripping application (e.g., MusicMatch) to extract the CDDA tracks to WAVs onto your HDD. To play them, simply play as a normal music CD, but starting at track 2 (or sometimes track 3).

For games that don't utilize CDDA for background music (e.g., Shining the Holy Ark), you can hook up the left and right audio channels (of the stereo A/V cable) to the Line-in jack of your computer's sound card via an adapter (input: 2 x 1/4" Phono (RCA) Jack; output: 1/8" Stereo Phone Plug) and record during gameplay that way. Such adapters can be found at RadioShack. Just make sure to have Line-in checked under Recording option in Volume Control properties. It's either that or look for a custom audio conversion tool for a certain game you're trying to rip (probability of success: near zero since different games uses different formats).

BTW, those tools you've mentioned above are meant for PSX games.

 

[RadSil]

Quote: from MasterAkumaMatata on 4:49 pm on Feb. 4, 2002

For games that don't utilize CDDA for background music (e.g., Shining the Holy Ark), you can hook up the left and right audio channels (of the stereo A/V cable) to the Line-in jack of your computer's sound card via an adapter (input: 2 x 1/4" Phono (RCA) Jack; output: 1/8" Stereo Phone Plug) and record during gameplay that way.

...

BTW, those tools you've mentioned above are meant for PSX games.

I did that just to get some tunes from Saturn Magic Knight Rayearth... the best music to come out of the Saturn's sound chip, bar none. (Except maybe Scorcher, bad game, good music.)

Also I've heard that those PSX XA tools work with some Saturn games, but I don't know what ones.

 

[visciouslymamed]

Thank you for the replies.

Big, I didn't know that Sega used Cinepack for DC. I have played with cpkview, but all the games I tried just used it for movies.

RadSil, I don't know what games use XA audio, but I remember it worked for 1 of my games (tried it ages ago). I will have to give MKR a try, maybe even Scorcher.

MasterAkumaMatata, yes I am refering to the non-CDDA, (I guess streamed was probably the wrong word). I was just hoping for an easier way than an analog audio record. Thank you for the detailed explanation.

 

[CyberWarriorX]

I would like to remind you that there are around 3 commonly used saturn streaming audio formats.

PCM - From what I know of, just raw adpcm data.

AIFF - Same as the popular mac audio format.

CD-XA - Supposedly very similiar to what the PSX uses, but I have noticed that some saturn games won't work with any of the xa tools out there(Langrisser III would come to mind).

CD Audio isn't considered a streaming audio format(at least according to their docs 😉 )

Identifying which format you're dealing with shouldn't be too much of a problem, as they usually keep it standard(like .pcm for pcm, .aif for aiff, .xa for CD-XA, etc.). But if you don't see anything like that, just open up your trusty hex editor and look at the first 20 bytes or so of each file.

Cyber Warrior X

--------------------------------------------

Ah yes, also forgot to mention adx as well.

(Edited by CyberWarriorX at 2:41 pm on Feb. 8, 2002)

 

[MasterAkumaMatata]

How would you classify those *.MUS files found in SFA2, SFA2G, and SFZ3 (that is if you've come across them before)? Unfortunately, I'm at work and don't have the game with me to check with my trusty free hex editor. 😉

 

[CyberWarriorX]

It would depend on the size and header of the files. If they're <200k, my guess is that it's seq and/or tone data or their own propriety format. SEQ is basically cut down and converted midi data. Tone data is obviously the instruments.

The header tends to vary, but it usually starts out like this(in hex):

0001 0000 0006

I've also seen a few other variations. I have no idea how to properly convert them, so don't ask 🙂

Cyber Warrior X

 

[Matze]

Some games like parodius used the apple streaming audio format aiff, you can open the music with a normal pc-audioprogram (goldwave, cool edit)!