RBY Music Importer (for .FTMs)

[Sonic65]

Figured I should probably register and post this here too, since this thread here was a big help to me...even if this entire post is basically just a copypaste from the Pokecommunity one (well, will be as soon as it gets approved anyway)

Anyway, I've been researching R/B/Y ROM hacking for a short while now, and I found that there was little real documentation or tools on the music side of the game (well actually in general, compared to 2nd/3rd gen). So I made this program to import music into an R/B/Y ROM - more specifically, import .ftm songs made with the program Famitracker, a music tracker for the NES.

Example of what this program can output (in-game sound recording)

What does it support?

• Importing of all 4 basic sound channels (square 1/2, triangle, noise)
  
• Both .ASM and .BIN export
  
• Quick ROM inject feature for .BINs
  
• Famitracker note fade-outs (using the volume column) and duty cycle changes (by changing instruments)
  

What doesn't it support?

• MIDI import or any other file format other than .ftm
  
• Any Famitracker effects
  

Link to download

Files in zip:

• rbyImport.exe - The actual RBY Music Importer program.
  
• blitz3d_gui_dll.dll - A DLL the program uses.
  
• readme.txt - Derp. Doesn't have anything this post doesn't anyway.
  
• route202.ftm - Sample FTM file to import (used in tutorial below). A NES/GB demake of the Route 202 theme for Pokemon Diamond/Pearl.
  
• noiseChannelDoc.txt - Documentation on the music format Pokemon R/B/Y uses for noise channels (this didn't seem to be documented anywhere, so I investigated it myself - it's different from the regular music channels, and uses drum presets)
  
• pkms.asm - Macros and equates for ASM files created with RBY Music Importer. (PKMS is what I call the Pokemon RBY music format, standing for Pokemon Music System)
  
• rgbasm.exe - GB compiler, part of RGBDS suite
  
• xlink.exe - GB linker, part of RGBDS suite
  

How to Use: A Tutorial

To illustrate how to use RBY Music Importer, we're going to import the sample song (route202.ftm) and replace Pallet Town's music with it. Here's a step-by-step guide (I suck at writing tutorials but hopefully you'll understand this):

• Open up RBY Music Importer and go to the FTM->ASM section. Load route202.ftm using the Load FTM button.
  
• Using the DataCrystal ROM map of Pokemon Red, you'll find that Pallet Town's music data starts at $A7C5, so put in $A7C5 as the start offset.
  
• Check the "Import noise channel" box. You don't need to change the tempo for this particular song, but you might need to for other songs (more on that later).
  
• Click the "Make ASM File" button. RBY Music Importer will generate an .asm file called route202.asm. At this point you have one of two options: either you can go and tweak the ASM file (changing notes, adding effects like vibrato and modulation, etc.), or just proceed straight to .BIN conversion. Let's go straight to .BIN conversion and injecting, for the purposes of this tutorial.
  
• Go to the ASM->BIN section and load the route202.asm file we just created.
  
• Click the "Inject music into ROM" checkbox.
  
• Set $A7C5 (the same offset as above) as the injection offset. (If you changed the start offset in the ASM file, you'd put that value here instead.) Using the same ROM map as above, you'll find that Pallet Town's song pointers start at $822E, so input that for the pointer offset.
  
• Click the "Compile BIN File" button.
  
• Done! If you did everything right, when you load your RBY ROM, Pallet Town's music should be replaced with Route 202!
  

Special Notes

There doesn't appear to be any hard-set formula for converting Famitracker song tempo into PKMS song tempo, but here are a few tempo matchups which might be useful to you:

$E0 - speed 6, tempo 85
$D0 - speed 6, tempo 90
$C0 - speed 6, tempo 100
$B0 - speed 6, tempo 110
$A0 - speed 6, tempo 120
$90 - speed 6, tempo 140
$80 - speed 6, tempo 160
$70 - speed 6, tempo 180
$60 - speed 6, tempo 200
$50 - speed 6, tempo 220
$40 - speed 6, tempo 260
$30 - speed 6, tempo 340

Finally, I'd like to thank:

• Coolboyman and Melash, for creating the document I linked
  
• Data Crystal, for their Pokemon ROM map
  

So yeah, that's all. Hopefully this utility will be useful to somebody other than me.

[Luigi-San]

It never asked me for the song pointer offset.

[Sonic65]

Sept 5, 2010 23:05:07 GMT -5 Luigi-San said:

It never asked me for the song pointer offset.

Wait, it didn't? Did you say Yes when it asked you whether you wanted to inject the song in or not?

Works fine on here and on the other computers in the house.

[Luigi-San]

Sept 5, 2010 23:11:13 GMT -5 Sonic65 said:

Sept 5, 2010 23:05:07 GMT -5 Luigi-San said:

It never asked me for the song pointer offset.

Wait, it didn't? Did you say Yes when it asked you whether you wanted to inject the song in or not?

Works fine on here and on the other computers in the house.

Yeah, I said yes.

[~Red]

You could've atleast made it possible to show errors. Whenever I try to compile to bin it throws a compilation error at me and when I attempt to view the errors the prompt closes before I can so I don't know what the problem is. Fix it please.


EDIT: I tried a different file and it just caused my game to freeze when the music was supposed to play.

[Sonic65]

Updated OP with new version (the interface's also been slightly changed, so check the also-updated tutorial if there's any confusion). Hopefully this will fix some of the bugs people are having.

[iimarckus]

Looks like a useful tool. Haven’t tried it yet, but I certainly like the idea.

[Mateo]

This seems like a pretty nifty program. I haven't tried it out as I don't hack Red myself, but I'm sure people will find it useful. Do you think it would be possible to make a version that compiles songs in the GSC format as well?

[Luigi-San]

Works like a charm now!

[Sonic65]

Sept 12, 2010 21:39:53 GMT -5 Luigi-San said:

Works like a charm now!

Heh, nice.

I didn't use Route 1 for the tutorial since I always test the music with a savestate at the beginning of Pallet Town =P

EDIT: also lmao at ads next to Youtube videos

[Miksy91]

I'm not that big fan of D/P/P but that was just amazing in R/B/Y

Btw Sonic65, you made a really nice tool (and the one for G/S/C wouldn't hurt either)

[iimarckus]

Sept 12, 2010 18:39:24 GMT -5 Mateo said:

This seems like a pretty nifty program. I haven't tried it out as I don't hack Red myself, but I'm sure people will find it useful. Do you think it would be possible to make a version that compiles songs in the GSC format as well?

Should be.

[~Red]

Still does not work. Still freezes the game when the music loads. Only route202.asm has worked so far.

[Sonic65]

Sept 13, 2010 11:20:35 GMT -5 ~Red said:

Still does not work. Still freezes the game when the music loads. Only route202.asm has worked so far.

Can you attach/send the .ftm file you used? All the .ftms I tried are working (though most of them are ones I've composed/sequenced myself).

Alternatively, try importing without the noise channel enabled.

Remember, it doesn't support Famitracker effects as of now (this shouldn't cause any huge problems because the code skips over them but maybe there's a bug there).

[djincendration]

I tried launching the program, but it gives this error: "Unable to create 3D scene."
I would really like to put a couple NES tracks in there, since they're my favorite NES songs.