Earthbound

Project FINISHED:
https://www.zeldix.net/t1931-earthbound-msu-1

Alright, here's the asm to use in xkas on a non-headered earthbound US rom


The loop table needs to be finished up.

Make a breakpoint at the unpatched rom at
$C4/FBF6 8E 3B B5    STX $B53B  [$7E:B53B]   A:FFFF X:0001 Y:0001

or patched rom at
$EF/FE02 8E 3B B5    STX $B53B  [$7E:B53B]   A:FFFF X:0001

Look the value in the X register that is your hex pcm number (marked red)

For example Earthbound Title Screen is
$EF/FE02 8E 3B B5    STX $B53B  [$7E:B53B]   A:FFFF X:00AF

I think it is loop, but if it were non loop you find a loop table at the end of the asm. If AF is non-loop go to that entry in the loop table and give it the value 01 for non-loop (all are by default set on loop $03).



Much fun

Update:
v4 better mute and spc fallback
v5: loop table finished, bml and ips added
v7: sfx distortion fix
v8: added fade
v9: performance on fade
v 10: added fade half, slow, up
v 11: added support for themes beyond BF

v11:
http://bszelda.zeldalegends.net/stuff/Con/eb_m

su_patch.zip

http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/2644

With that mod, you simply examine Ness's ATM card in your inventory, and it opens the fully translated debug menu. Jukebox option in the debug menu is a music player.

That'll make creating a Track ID list for the PCM's quick and painless. It might even make finishing up the loop table easier (not sure on that one).

Hope it works!

I had a small correction (dunno whether it was severe). But added v2 in first post - in case you already downloaded, re-downlaod please.

Edit:
goddamned. My first version was correct updated it to v3 now. Now it should be ok

And I just found some people who have been working on a PCM set for a while, but haven't said anything publicly because they didn't have the ASM knowledge to make the MSU patch! Same thread as Byuu's post.
https://forum.starmen.net/forum/Community/PKHack/EarthBound-heavy-duty-music-hacking-MSU1-other-stuff/page/1#post2236576

They're more than happy to work with us to get everything working!

Looks like the Onett Theme might need some special handling, Apparently it skips the first few patterns (a sunrise sound apparently) depending on a certain flag's status, so the MSU code will probably need a bit to split that track into 2 PCMs and choose which one to play based on that flag's status.

Great that you can take it from here

Conn wrote:Great that you can take it from here

If I knew ASM maybe... Sadly, I don't.

Oh I mean the pcm, and that people are going to help on byuu.
The asm should work, only thing left is to complete the loop table, then it is done.

Or is tinkering needed. I do not really understand your split message with a flag.
I never played the game, so I do not know what onett theme and sunrise means.
If I need to split it, I also need a not used theme number to map it to. Like AF is already taken. Do you know a pcm number from the jukebox that's not taken yet (can be anything between 00 and FF)?

Conn wrote:Oh I mean the pcm, and that people are going to help on byuu.
The asm should work, only thing left is to complete the loop table, then it is done.

Or is tinkering needed. I do not really understand your split message with a flag.
I never played the game, so I do not know what onett theme and sunrise means.
If I need to split it, I also need a not used theme number to map it to. Like AF is already taken. Do you know a pcm number from the jukebox that's not taken yet (can be anything between 00 and FF)?

Onett is one of the towns, I believe.

I know Earthbound has a day/night cycle, so I'd guess if the song starts during the morning, it plays a sunrise jingle at the start of the song.
https://www.zophar.net/music/nintendo-snes-spc/earthbound
Tracks 19a and 19b are the 2 versions of Onlett's theme.

I've never played the game either.

Spending all of 2 minutes in the Jukebox, it looks like track 04 might be unused. At least by the jukebox's numbering. I'm planning on setting that breakpoint you posted and going through the jukebox to build a track ID table (and possibly a loop table), but that'll take a few days to get done; especially as I'm focusing my work on YS IV's MSU mod atm.

Mh, If it is just a jingle (which could also be a sfx,did you try?), I'd suggest renouncing on that... probably too much effort for too little gain.
Before aiming at nitpicks at this early stage, I'd suggest to concentrate on a pcm pack and a playtest. If anything is out of order I can (with savestates, it's not on my agenda make a complete playthrough) still work on workarounds... then.

Still best to post what's found, as it's found; so when we do get to the stage of fixing the stuff nothing is forgotten.

I'm starting to appreciate GitHub's issue tracker, lol.

https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/1347/
I think that utility might actually list all the Track ID's already.

If it's right, $04 is empty and $0A is unused... If those are both accurate, could one of them be used to do the mute so we could get track-by-track PCM verification/muting?

Also, if I'm reading that utilities help>'code list' file right, it looks like the mute is $FC... I'm probably reading it wrong though.

I'll try to mute with fc when I'm home. If it works I can implement a spc fallback.

But don't get me wrong I AM retired. This only jumped into my eyes since byuu already found some codes. I'll work on it maybe,maybe not and if on a releaxed level. Not sure if I care much about nitpicks. If somebody else wants to advance the asm, be my guest

Ok, fc did crash the game, but 04 seem to work.

if you redownload the patch (v4) from first post, it now has the mute track 04 set and a spc fallback in case the track is missing!

Hey Conn!
First of all let me thank you for putting such great work into this.
This is something quite a bunch of people have been wanting to do in the EB hacking community, but there was no one with the required knowledge on MSU/ASM.

With that said, I saw your table and decided to give it a try.
Just to clear it up, 03 is for looping songs, 01 is for those that DO NOT loop, right?

If that's right, then here's the complete table:

Code:


org $EFFF00 ; loop table
; 01-Non-loop, 03-Loop
;   00  01  02  03  04  05  06  07  08  09  0A  0B  0C  0D  0E  0F
db $03,$01,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$01,$01,$03,$01,$03,$01,$01,$01 ; themes 00-0f - 00
db $01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01 ; themes 10-1f - 10
db $01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03 ; themes 20-2f - 20
db $03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03 ; themes 30-3f - 30
db $03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$01,$03,$01,$03 ; themes 40-4f - 40
db $01,$03,$03,$03,$01,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$01,$01,$03,$03,$01,$01 ; themes 50-5f - 50
db $03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$01,$01,$01 ; themes 60-6f - 60
db $03,$01,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$01,$01,$03,$01,$01 ; themes 70-7f - 70
db $03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$01,$03,$01,$01,$01,$03,$03,$01,$01 ; themes 80-8f - 80
db $03,$01,$03,$01,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$01,$01,$03 ; themes 90-9f - 90
db $01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$01,$01 ; themes a0-af - A0
db $01,$01,$03,$03,$01,$01,$03,$01,$01,$03,$03,$03,$03,$01,$03,$03 ; themes b0-bf - B0
db $03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03 ; themes c0-cf - C0
db $03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03 ; themes d0-df - D0
db $03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03 ; themes e0-ef - E0
db $03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03 ; themes f0-ff - F0


Two things to note at simple glance:
$04 seem to be an empty/non-existent track, and the whole tracklist ends at $BF in case it helps.

Also, Conn, here's one of the PCMs we came up with, you can PM @vince94 or me if you'd like a link to the dropbox folder where we'll be adding new ones:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sv7fspu3zr4331x/5C%20Ahmusic%20-%20Coffee%20Break.pcm?dl=0

The loop points are stored in the PCM files already, but do you still need to specify in the table if a song loops or not even if the PCM has a looping point set?
One thing worth noting, is that some songs in EB have an empty pattern at the end of them which loops indefinitely, but most of the time these seems to be the case for certain SFX which only play once, and then the empty pattern looping, I considered this to be non-looping songs for the sake of making the PCMs.


From the code byuu posted in PK Hack:
https://forum.starmen.net/forum/Community/PKHack/EarthBound-heavy-duty-music-hacking-MSU1-other-stuff/

Both me and user @vince94 have been giving PCMs a try. I'll be quoting his posts from PK Hack here since he doesn't have a Zeldix account:

vince94 wrote:
Me and ShadowOne333 have actually been gathering and making seamless-loop’d PCMs using my favorite fan covers as well as other sources for a while, and testing in-emulator by swapping stuff into the Zelda MSU-1 patch! (we started a few months ago, but then got discouraged after we realized we didn’t know enough ASM) We’d love to work with you guys to make this thing happen!

We don’t have PCMs for everything yet, but the EarthBound Music Editor has a full tracklist of every song in the game, so we can use that to make a checklist. I think the main problems that’ll need to be figured out is how to approach the sound stone parts, which the player can get out of order (maybe just letting the SPC700 briefly take over would be a good solution?), and the Lost Underworld theme. The eighth sound channel has the SNES’s noise generator going for the whole song, and it raises and lowers the volume on the fly to make the geyser sound effect.
Also, the game does some sort of voodoo with the Onett theme, it skips the first few patterns (the sunrise bit) depending on if an event flag is set iirc
That said, I want to make sure everything has a nice, polished-sounding version. Some songs like Venus’s Performance have a surprisingly small number of Good fan remixes, so I made this with FL Studio and some isolated tracks from the SPC version. I’d love to work on building up the PCMs with shadow (at our own pace, of course), and test stuff for you!

If you'd like to join a slack channel where we can communicate easier, PM tragicmanner on the starmen forums and he'll send you an invite.

We'd love to keep contributing PCMs!

With that said, I saw your table and decided to give it a try.
Just to clear it up, 03 is for looping songs, 01 is for those that DO NOT loop, right?

All correct!

Two things to note at simple glance:
$04 seem to be an empty/non-existent track, and the whole tracklist ends at $BF in case it helps.

I used $04 as mute track ($00 didn't work, neither $FC), so this is it (luckily). v4 of my asm is in first post, it also has a spc fallback in case a track is missing (no pcm). Now it is v5 with your loop table.

If the table continues to FF or has unused tracks, it doesn't matter (just obsolete unused bytes).

It's maybe embarrasing, but I only do asm and project maintainance (check everything is there and so on). I actually never did even one pcm  (or wait, AST I did, but these are non-loop). So there's nothing I can contribute in creation of the pcm:s.
But I think edale is happy joining you. I think all of you together can manage a gorgeous pcm set

Much thanks for your loop table and the infos regarding the last theme is bf.
I could make a bml now. I also included a ips and readme to this new v5:

v5 (loop table finished, ips and bml added):
http://bszelda.zeldalegends.net/stuff/Con/eb_msu_patch.zip

Edit: Forgot to reply on this:

The loop points are stored in the PCM files already, but do you still need to specify in the table if a song loops or not even if the PCM has a looping point set?

Yes, you always have to define it.
If it is set to 01 (no loop) and the loop point is defined in the pcm, the pcm will stop at the loop point playing
If it is set to 03 (loop) and no loop point is defined in the pcm, the pcm will restart playing the theme from beginning.

And regarding the onmett theme $19? I'd either need a ram to differ or try to find it out myself. Then I need two Geiger snes9x debugger savestate before the theme is played, one savestate without jingle and one with jingle. I can map one theme then to an unused theme then in the c0-ff region

Thanks for the updates, Conn!
As for the Onett flag, I think it is flag 107 according to the documentation (6B hex), and I believe event flags begin at RAM address $7E9C08.

I will try to upload the savestates from Snes9x Debugger this weekend to help out with this.

Also, Conn, there is one other song vince mentions which might be cumbersome to an extent.
It's the Lost Underworld song, and apparently this one uses it's 8th channel for the geysers found in said place.

However, these geysers (from what I can tell) are not dependant of the song, they seem to be handled by some other stuff in-game.

Is there a way in which, for this particular song, we can load both the SPC with all channels muted except the 8th one and the PCM so that we can maintain the geysers effects while still being able to play the PCM?
The song's ID is $44 from the table.

Thanks again, Conn, I'll keep you updated and reply back with the savestates to help with the remaining songs.

The SPC file of Lost Underworld (on zophar.net) doesn't have any data in the 8th channel, so it's possible it's handled as a separate SFX rather than part of the song. If that's the case, it might play the geyser SFX while the PCM song is playing as-is.

Someone needs to get to that part in-game, and test it with the current MSU patch to see how it behaves.

Yes... from the descriptions with the geysirs, I have no idea. I need to see it in a video or whatever. But I also think it is a sfx and is played as usual parallel to the pcm.

But for now I recommend some playtests, before making further plans...

With luck, the Onett jingle is just a sfx.
If not easiest solution is to use the spc fallback, but this is no good solution. If necessary I make a workaround with the flag.

Okay guys, guess what?
I managed to get both songs I was talking about working with MSU properly

To start with, the Lost Underworld song didn't need any change.
Turns out the geyser's sound was INDEED an SFX, I don't know where we got the idea that it was part of the song lol

Now the interesting thing comes when trying to get Onett working.

Get this...
Turns out the game actually uses TWO Onett songs for this particular sequence I was talking about.

So when you exit Pokey/Porky's house after you leave him and Picky at their home, the game uses track 7A JUST for the intro, but track 7A has the whole Onett song there too, it simply cuts-off after the intro and switches track to 2E, which is the usual Onett song.

Though track 2E is the same as well as 7A, they just start off at different points in the track.

So we didn't need any fancy ASM to work around this, the game already did it for us

So I simply took my Onett PCM with an intro and used it as track 122, and then an Onett PCM vince had without the intro as track 46, and the sequence works as intended
After that, only the non-intro song is used, as it should be in-game.

With that said, I think there are no more problematic songs in the game.

If anything still comes up, I will let you guys know for sure.
In the meantime, I will try to rework the Onett PCM I have to accommodate for this little trick, and I will also rework the PCMs I already have to make a PCM Pack with the most important songs in it.

Perhaps we can dive in into the jingles and fanfares later.

Also, I hope you don't mind, but I want translate your ASM code into a CCS file that can be used alongside CoilSnake, so that any user that wants to include MSU into their hacks can simply put the CCS with the translated ASM into it.
Please let me know if you are okay with this, I already made an early transcription of the ASM code to a CCS file, I just need to test it out properly, but I have this CCS kept personal right now, if you are okay with this, then I'll release the CCS to the public.

I will make a MaternalBound 2.0 release with this as proof it works as a CCS file, perhaps alongside the PCM Pack
Of course, all of this giving you the proper credit in both the MSU implementation and in the CCS file as the creator of the ASM code. If I'm missing another person that helped with this, let me know so I don't miss anyone in the credit for the MSU-1 CCS conversion file.



Thanks again, Conn, this is something I have, and many others, have been wanting to do for a long time, but in my personal case, my completely noobish knowledge of ASM proved to be a huge obstacle for me.

This is a dream come true for me as an EarthBound fan, and glad I can be of help throughout, thanks!

Nice to hear, I expected something like this there are only a few games tinkering directly the apu with different channels... an example is the riding yoshi drums, that cannot be mimicked by msu (at least as far as I know).

All my code is open-source and actually I do not pay much attention to credits (already have so many) - only reason I find them important is that people know where to address bugs to. If you credit, you should add byuu too since I took his found addresses for codings.
So do what you like... only condition is that you post the finished project here on the database with patch and pcm:s when done

BTW: the patch link

v5:
http://bszelda.zeldalegends.net/stuff/Con/eb_msu_patch.zip

is on a permanent server, you can use it for release if you like.

Much success with it

I gave the MSU a try a little further, and found out there were some songs which looped, but I wrote them as non-looping songs.

With that said, here's the updated looping table, Conn:

Code:


org $EFFF00 ; loop table
; 01-Non-loop, 03-Loop
;   00  01  02  03  04  05  06  07  08  09  0A  0B  0C  0D  0E  0F
db $03,$01,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$01,$01,$03,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01 ; themes 00-0f - 00
db $03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03 ; themes 10-1f - 10
db $01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03 ; themes 20-2f - 20
db $03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03 ; themes 30-3f - 30
db $03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$01,$03,$01,$03 ; themes 40-4f - 40
db $01,$03,$03,$03,$01,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$01,$01,$03,$03,$01,$01 ; themes 50-5f - 50
db $03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$01,$01,$01 ; themes 60-6f - 60
db $03,$01,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$01,$01,$03,$01,$01 ; themes 70-7f - 70
db $03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$01,$03,$01,$01,$01,$03,$03,$01,$01 ; themes 80-8f - 80
db $03,$03,$03,$01,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$01,$01,$03 ; themes 90-9f - 90
db $01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$01,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$01,$01 ; themes a0-af - A0
db $01,$01,$03,$03,$01,$01,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$01,$03,$03 ; themes b0-bf - B0
db $03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03 ; themes c0-cf - C0
db $03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03 ; themes d0-df - D0
db $03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03 ; themes e0-ef - E0
db $03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03,$03 ; themes f0-ff - F0


I already tried quite a few PCMs, and they work properly fine so far Though, there is still quite a bunch missing to make a full PCM pack, but once the pack is complete, we'll share it here for sure!

I'll let you know if something else comes up!

PS: One neat little thing, you can include additional songs as tracks 192-255.
Though the game tracklist ends at 191, if you add PCMs with those track numbers, you can get them to play through the debug menu. To what I recall, the game tended to freeze or glitch out if you try to play any track from 192 and onwards. Neat thing

Oh, I almost missed this message. If multiple posts are new in one thread, and you missed to read one, the unread get marked as read too if you log in a second time.
If there is no answer in 2 days, make a double post or pm me

v6 with updated loop table:
http://bszelda.zeldalegends.net/stuff/Con/eb_msu_patch.zip

I also put you in the credits of the asm file and readme for the loop table.

There is the possibility to map more tracks (192-255) via pcm:s like further events differing by ram values... but aren't 191 tracks enough

I don't know about making pcm sets but I highly suggest check this album out cause its amazing! https://sleepytimejesse.bandcamp.com/album/i-miss-you-earthbound-2012

Conn wrote:There is the possibility to map more tracks (192-255) via pcm:s like further events differing by ram values... but aren't 191 tracks enough

From what I've seen, asides from track $04, and possibly $0A, every single one of those 191 tracks already has audio data in it. So if any songs need to be split, like we thought Onlett's theme would need, then it's very useful to be able to just map tracks past that without too many problems.