Updated Chrono Trigger conversion script (ATTN DarkShock/Kakashi)

I've spent the last few weeks polishing DarkShock's Chrono Trigger MSU-1 pack, properly normalizing the volume levels, fixing up some popping loop points, adding some fade ins/outs to smooth some rough cuts, etc, and I think I'm ready to release it.  One thing that might still require some fine tuning is some tracks might still have a bit of variance in their volume level, as I haven't had the chance to play through the entire game, and I don't have a good way to listen to the final exported tracks back to back for a good A/B comparison, so if you notice any tracks that need their volume adjusted up or down, please let me know.  Actually, if you notice any issues at all, let me know.

DarkShock, feel free to steal this if you like it.

Download Here

I'll attempt to convert these to bash later on.

If you manage to get the config file working in bash as-is that would be awesome.  I'm planning on doing that eventually, but if you get there first, great :)  All 3 of the dependencies are available in Ubuntu.  You can get sox and normalize-audio from apt, and wav2msu can be compiled from source.

Thanks for this qwertymodo, I'll check it out in the next day or two to see how it sounds and report back. I haven't soldered my board yet to upgrade it to a revision H, so I'll be boosting these to +12dB (I have a revision F).

Why don't you just use the boost option in the firmware?

The op amp mod is better for a few reasons but it's late and I should be asleep instead of mindlessly web browsing so I'll leave it at "it was always a hardware problem and fixing it in software can only do so much." For one, clipping can get pretty bad if the tracks were recorded at a decently high level because you're boosting the volume up then back down again, and you don't always have the headroom for that.

Kakashi wrote:Why don't you just use the boost option in the firmware?

That is what I'm doing. Here is a quote from qwertymodo in regards to what is the appropriate volume settings for each sd2snes revision board:

qwertymodo wrote:Ok, just to clarify, all of the following should be roughly equivalent in terms of volume, and should be considered "correct" volume-wise:

higan (all versions, but if you're going to do side-by-side listening tests with MSU-1 vs SPC you'll want >= v100)
bsnes-plus (all versions, but side-by-side tests should be done with higan >= v100 instead)
SD2SNES rev. >= G with 0 boost
SD2SNES rev. <= F with op-amp mod and 0 boost
SD2SNES rev. <= F with firmware >= 0.1.7b @ +12dBFS boost
*SD2SNES rev. <= F with +5V mod (*this one's iffy, I tried it and couldn't get it to work on a rev. E1, really if you're going to bust out the soldering iron, just install the op amp instead, it's not that much more work).

If anybody has actually tried this script yet, I'm still making some really tiny adjustments here and there (I literally finished it all at 1AM, so I'm taking another quick look at it with fresh ears and a bit more patience), so don't ditch the FLAC files just yet.  I also have one question with regards to Frog's Theme.  I know the intro (0:00-0:17 in the FLAC file) is part of the song, I've definitely heard it before, but in every SPC rip I can find, it just plays 0:17-0:49 on a loop without that section of the song.  Can anybody comment on why this is?  Are there 2 separate versions of the track in-game, one with the intro and one without?  If so, is the intro looped every time, or just played once?  If anybody can point me to game footage or a save file where I can hear it for myself, that would be preferred. I've played through the game twice before, but it's been years...

Haven't gotten a chance to try this out, but I'm starting a New Game+..
My first playthrough of the game ever was with DarkShock's pcm's so I'm not sure if there is an SPC version of Frog's Theme with that intro. If I recall correctly, every time I heard the theme in the game it contained the intro lead in (0:00-0:17 in the FLAC file), so maybe DarkShock just forgot to edit the intro out?

I know how DarkShock did it in his PCM, I'm trying to figure out how the original SPC is done. I have loop points figured out for either option, I just need to know which one is correct relative to the original SPC.

Should I wait, then?
I already have bash scripts that badinsults wrote based on DS's original batch scripts, so it wouldn't be too difficult, I expect.

Yeah, at least give me through the weekend to finalize things. Now that I managed to get cross-fading added in as a config file option instead of having to do it manually, I'm taking one more look at a few tracks.

All this config file stuff gave me a idea for a C++ program that will combine mp3/flac/etc to wav conversion, normalizing, cross fade and MSU pcm output. It would use a JSON file as a input for batch processing. I'll use libsox, integrate nongnu normalization code and wav2msu in the same program.

I'll start working on that this weekend

Well... that would be awesome. I know it's a bit tricky getting mp3 support in sox though. The Windows dll's for it are nearly impossible to find.

qwertymodo wrote:Well... that would be awesome.  I know it's a bit tricky getting mp3 support in sox though.  The Windows dll's for it are nearly impossible to find.

Well personally MP3 is a nice to have, I usually use WAV or FLAC

Yeah, I tend to use FLAC too, since usually my first step before doing anything else is to simply resample to 44.1K, so I don't have to recompute my start/stop/loop samples later, so I output to FLAC to avoid any additional losses with the extra encoding step.

Great idea DarkShock, that sounds awesome.

Qwertymodo, I've looked at multiple parts of CT where Frog's Theme plays and none have had the intro that is present in the FLAC file. However, this doesn't mean it's not present in the SPC-version of CT.

Hmm... I'm curious if maybe it's used in a special event like one of his storyline quest triggers or something. I know I've heard that intro before.

The latest script/config file are up on github, the bin folder is unchanged, so you can just grab the updates here https://github.com/qwertymodo/ChronoTrigger-MSU1

I asked about Frog's Theme over in /r/chronotrigger, and somebody there said that the intro never made it into the game, but was released later on the OST, so that explains why I've heard it, and why every remix out there seems to include it, but I can't find it in-game. I've updated my config file to remove it, but left in the loop points with it there, just commented out, in case you want to use that version instead.