I've looked around some VGM packages out there and notice that a lot of games end up having unused tracks that the ripper found inside the ROM. I know a common procedure for ripping VGMs is to log the sound while playing the game through Kega, but obviously for hidden unused tracks, the process involves finding the unused data within the ROM somehow...right? Anybody able to tell me how this is done?
I need to know this too. I have a few tracks from the Jurassic Park Rampage Edition 0708 beta I need to rip.
Nineko said he found a hidden track in Snow Bros. by changing the sound test value to something different. I believe hidden songs were found in Streets of Rage 3 by the same method.
This simply involves writing an interpreter or converter for the original sound driver format that writes the VGM commands and keeps track of timing to set the appropriate loop point. For sound drivers with support for unconditional jumps (read: most of them), the complexity of doing this increases. GEMS has a conditional branch and write-only registers, so good luck with that.
Meh, the track isn't exactly hidden so perhaps if I create a Game Genie or PAR code that will freeze the game but not the music I could rip the music I needed from JPRE.
Not really. I went to the pointers to the songs, and I changed the first one to point to the hidden song. Which is usually the best way to play hidden songs normally. The point is, the songs must be in the rom somewhere, but they're not referenced by normal means. Just change one of the other pointers and you're done.
