Snow Bros and Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine

Yes, this is where the confusion came from.
I tried to convert voices from Snow Bros and Dr. Robotnik's to Sonic 1, using a 1 2 3 4 to 4 2 3 1 code, and it didn't work. I later tried to do 1 2 3 4 to 1 3 2 4, and they worked fine. So there is a problem here, as it seems that Snow Bros and Dr. R's uses the same operand order as Sonic 2 (within a group of operands, as they are still sorted in different ways). Maybe the wiki is wrong, I'd like to hear Saxman's opinion on this, but I didn't see him online lately.

Yes, I noticed that. I have a $7F as "fourth operator" if I do 1 2 3 4 to 1 3 2 4, another reason that leads me to think that either the wiki or your assumptions are wrong.

 

Two words of introduction. I know I requested to be banned from Sonic Retro, but I've been told that Wiz kept on researching on the Cube/Iwadare driver, so I thought it was fair to update him about my progress. Without his contact info, I had to ask Tweaker to unban me, and I really thank him for that; however, as my initial decision stands, I'm only going to post in this only topic.

NOW, to my real point.

Song 9 from Snow Bros
Song 17 from Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine

Yup, I can convert from Cube to SMPS. The converter is still quite buggy, but it works.

Comment plz.

edit: CAPS in the url aren't good

 

Actually, the voices are the same. What's missing is vibrato, pitch bends, volume.

Your description was clear enough, you were completely right also about subcommands 2-3-4.

Right now I'm unrolling all the internal loops, keeping only the big main loop, but I think it's possible to preserve something. I'm not very good when it comes to SMPS loops.

Not sure when I'm going to use that song in a "real" hack, I'm planning to use it (along with other Cube songs) in soni2neko, my upcoming hack of Sonic 2, but I don't know when it's going to be completed. I can, however, already release a test Sonic 1 rom with that song in Green Hill if you want...

What

Yeah, I hope I can get something good out of this... My problem is always the same as before, my job eats all of my free time. But I'll do my best, now that I'm close to the goal.

 

Yeah, hence the "What", as I never said I'm going to make such a converter. I can't read from SMPS, end of story. And I can't write to cube, too.

The converters I have ready and working are:
XM to smps, Cube to smps, Cube to XM. Period. I thought about Cube to midi, but I dropped it as midi files are gay.

The converters that will never exist are:
smps to XM, smps to Cube, XM to cube¹, smps to midi.

I hope this clarifies.

--- notes ---
1) I may try to work on this one if someone with better ASM knowledge than me manages to port the Cube driver to Sonic. I'd love to see that, as Cube is much² more powerful than smps.
2) Very much

 

Proof of concept: the Genesis is completely capable to output songs with 6 FMs and 4 PSGs at the same time.
We know that SMPS can't do that because of some kind of limitation (memory issues, Tweaker and Puto know that better than me so I won't try to explain as it's likely that I would be inaccurate), but Cube/Iwadare can.
In this test song (that uses PSG1 and 2 by default) I mirrored FM2 (the lead channel) on PSG3, and I added crappy hi-hats on PSG4 (it's not easy to make good hi-hats with this driver, I admit that). It may sound wrong, but it's yet another proof of Cube's superiority over SMPS. Now plz someone port this driver to Sonic <.<

Also relevant as it's probably the first successful reported attempt to edit by hand a song in this format.

 

Sorry for the 1 year 5 months 6 days bump, but I asked Scarred Sun beforehand.

After all this time of hiatus I finally found some motivation to resume the research on the Cube driver. For now I'm not going to post the full extent of my work because several things still need to be fixed, but I've got something to share. I documented some locations in almost all the known Cube games, I'm leaving out only few of them (one of which is apparently unlicensed, even) but I might cover them soon. Not sure though.

So here's what I've got, I tried to format things as nicely as possible (believe me when I say that my docs were much worse than this).
The list uses this format: internal code, official name, number of song banks, bytes (decimal) per voice¹, location of the voice bank, pointer offset² for bank 1, location of bank 1, repeat for other banks:

Code (Text):

1. GM MK-1025 -00 Jewel Master&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1 29 $77521&nbsp;&nbsp;$70000&nbsp;&nbsp;$78000
2. GM MK-1138-50&nbsp;&nbsp;Zero Wing&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 1 29 $C1483&nbsp;&nbsp;$C0000&nbsp;&nbsp;$C8000
3. GM MK-1315 -00 Shining Force II&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;2 29 $1EB000 $1E8000 $1F0000 $1F0000 $1F8000
4. GM MK-1353 -00 Landstalker&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 2 29 $1F8000 $1E8000 $1F0000 $1F0000 $1F8910
5. GM MK-1706 -00 Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1 29 $F8000&nbsp;&nbsp;$F0000&nbsp;&nbsp;$F937C
6. GM T-081046-00 The Steel Empire (Koutetsu Teikoku) 1 29 $D14FD&nbsp;&nbsp;$D0000&nbsp;&nbsp;$D8000
7. GM T-25123 -00 Gleylancer&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1 29 $F8000&nbsp;&nbsp;$F0000&nbsp;&nbsp;$F937C
8. GM T-32023 -01 Granada&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 1 25 $7074C&nbsp;&nbsp;$68000&nbsp;&nbsp;$71400
9. GM T-32043 -00 Dino Land&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 1 29 $7F8BC&nbsp;&nbsp;$70000&nbsp;&nbsp;$78600
10. GM T-46023 -00 Maten no Soumetsu&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 1 29 $F8000&nbsp;&nbsp;$F0000&nbsp;&nbsp;$F8AE0
11. GM T-46033-00&nbsp;&nbsp;Kishi Densetsu&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1 29 $F8000&nbsp;&nbsp;$F0000&nbsp;&nbsp;$F8AE0
12. GM T-48083 -00 Snow Bros.: Nick && Tom&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 1 29 $F8000&nbsp;&nbsp;$F0000&nbsp;&nbsp;$F937C
13. GM MK-1312 -00 Shining Force&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 2 29 $178000 $168000 $170000 $170000 $178AE0
14. GM T-11036 -00 Space Invaders '91&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1 25 $38036&nbsp;&nbsp;$28000&nbsp;&nbsp;$34000
15. GM T-144026-00 Crusader of Centy&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 2 29 $1F7000 $1E8000 $1F0000 $1F0000 $1F8000
16. GM T-68013 -01 Galaxy Force II&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 1 29 $F14BD&nbsp;&nbsp;$F0000&nbsp;&nbsp;$F8000
17. GM T-025143-02 Langrisser II&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 3 29 $1EE000 $1E0000 $1E8000 $1E8000 $1F0000 $1F0000 $1F8000
18. GM T-49146 -00 Ys III: Wanderers from Ys&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 2 29 $F8000³ $E8000&nbsp;&nbsp;$F0740&nbsp;&nbsp;$F0000&nbsp;&nbsp;$F8740
19. GM MK-1076 -00 Ranger-X&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;2 29 $F8000&nbsp;&nbsp;$E8000&nbsp;&nbsp;$F2000&nbsp;&nbsp;$F0000&nbsp;&nbsp;$F8AE0
20. GM MK-1310&nbsp;&nbsp;00 Shining in the Darkness&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 1 29 $F2DA5&nbsp;&nbsp;$F0000&nbsp;&nbsp;$F8900
21. GM G-005534-00 Lord Monarch&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;3 29 $1ED000 $1E0000 $1E8000 $1E8000 $1F0000 $1F0000 $1F8000

Notes:
2) The "pointer offset", as I called it, is what you should add to the pointers to get the real location. Please remember that the pointers are byte swapped because this is a Z80 driver. So if you read 01 02, it's really a 0201, and if the offset is $10000, the song is at $10201.
3) There is an identical bank also at $F0000, probably this is done to minimize bank switching.
1) Most Cube games use 29 bytes per voice, effectively allowing to use the SSG-EG (though most of the voices don't use it). Granada and Space Invaders instead use 25 bytes per voice just like SMPS, which means that the SSG-EG isn't usable. To convert a Cube voice to SMPS (discarding the SSG-EG where present) you can use this Basic code (it works in both QB and VB; for Space Invaders and Granada replace 29 with 25):

Code (Text):

1. MID$(b$, 1, 1) = MID$(a$, 29, 1)
2.  
3. MID$(b$, 2, 1) = MID$(a$, 1, 1)
4. MID$(b$, 3, 1) = MID$(a$, 3, 1)
5. MID$(b$, 4, 1) = MID$(a$, 2, 1)
6. MID$(b$, 5, 1) = MID$(a$, 4, 1)
7.  
8. MID$(b$, 6, 1) = MID$(a$, 9, 1)
9. MID$(b$, 7, 1) = MID$(a$, 11, 1)
10. MID$(b$, 8, 1) = MID$(a$, 10, 1)
11. MID$(b$, 9, 1) = MID$(a$, 12, 1)
12.  
13. MID$(b$, 10, 1) = MID$(a$, 13, 1)
14. MID$(b$, 11, 1) = MID$(a$, 15, 1)
15. MID$(b$, 12, 1) = MID$(a$, 14, 1)
16. MID$(b$, 13, 1) = MID$(a$, 16, 1)
17.  
18. MID$(b$, 14, 1) = MID$(a$, 17, 1)
19. MID$(b$, 15, 1) = MID$(a$, 19, 1)
20. MID$(b$, 16, 1) = MID$(a$, 18, 1)
21. MID$(b$, 17, 1) = MID$(a$, 20, 1)
22.  
23. MID$(b$, 18, 1) = MID$(a$, 21, 1)
24. MID$(b$, 19, 1) = MID$(a$, 23, 1)
25. MID$(b$, 20, 1) = MID$(a$, 22, 1)
26. MID$(b$, 21, 1) = MID$(a$, 24, 1)
27.  
28. MID$(b$, 22, 1) = MID$(a$, 5, 1)
29. MID$(b$, 23, 1) = MID$(a$, 7, 1)
30. MID$(b$, 24, 1) = MID$(a$, 6, 1)
31. MID$(b$, 25, 1) = MID$(a$, 8, 1)

This is just the top of the iceberg of what I want to do (or I already did? Surprise!), but for now it's all.
Thanks to Wiz for his assistance once again.