converting a SNDH into a VGM sound file

[marss]

Hi,
how is it possible to convert a SNDH sound file into a VGM (Megadrive) one?
Thanks

[Greenious]

There is not even a VGM-player available for the ST.

http://vgmrips.net/wiki/VGM_Players

Maybe the VGM community can answer this question better...

[simonsunnyboy]

It's probably impossible for generic SNDH as each SNDH file contains a driver written in m68k to program the YM2149 chip through interrupts. They do not contain simple register data to play back.

Maybe .ym files can be converted.

[tonma]

Cool. With winston you can save music in YM format.

Can I modify a YM file like cutting multiple tracks? And can we convert or retrieve data for notes or instruments to redo it on another tracker?

[farvardin]

vgm is not only for the megadrive system. It can handle several other formats, such as master system, adlib, neo-geo etc. Deflemask is a tracker which can export to several platforms, in vgm format (not all vgm players can replay the newest specifications): http://www.deflemask.com/ (sadly, you can't create tunes for the ST / ym2149 chip, maybe one day...)
See vgm as a container. Like the YM format, it contains instructions for how to send data to the chip (through registers).

VGM is also supposed to handle the MSX sound format. They had several chips (AY-3-8910 and later ym2149 like on our ST, and on MSX2+, FM chip like YM2413). So maybe it could be possible to do something with it, but I don't know if it worth it, because it would only be useful for modern VGM player on your PC, where you also have plenty of YM players. If you intented to play YM files (or other format) to a console VGM player, on your megadrive for example, it wouldn't work anyway because it's not the same sound chip. On my Megadrive I can replay only VGM I made with Deflemask targeting the Megadrive, of course.

About YM, I doubt you could record / save music in YM format if you play it from SNDH. I would only work for game using more classic music. For example when recording the Xenon 1 music, a (spoken) sample was not recorded in ym. I guess it's the same for sndh. And no, you can't modify a YM file, you can't extract music and such, unfortunately. If you want to redo the music into another tracker, you can only do this if you can get the original source of the music (or by ear).

[tonma]

Thanks for info.
Yes I record music while the game playing. So I have to learn music.

Great music on your site.

[simonsunnyboy]

.YM file format samples direct register dumps of the YM2149 registers (16). IIRC a register dump for every 50hz tick is stored.

As sample playback requires much faster rates, so any digi samples on a STF cannot be captured this way.

OTOH replay is easy, "every 50hz copy register content to chip"

The files become large.

[farvardin]

while I think about it, some trackers such as Maxymiser save their files directly as sndh, so you should be able to reload them into maxymiser, see the notes and retype the music into another tracker (it will be a tedious work). Some others use an intermediary file.

[tonma]

I tried maxymizer with sndh file but everytime I load a song I have an "Disk op. FAILED (CANCEl)" message

[farvardin]

it probably mean this song was created using another tool. (For example musicmon which has its own format and can export to sndh)

[tonma]

Same result. I tested one of your music and it works.
I used a hexa utility and I see that my sound files are packed with ICE. I tried to unpack them (with multi depacker) and it still does not work.