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M1 Arcade Music Player

Current version: 0.79a1 (released on 2012-04-26)

Technical discussion about the VGM format, and all the software you need to handle VGM files.

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  • ValleyBell Offline
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Post by ValleyBell »

Quote because of page break:
TEOL wrote:In the modded Software itself the tune themselves work on my now old Quad Core 2 Vista PC but the -g command for logging doesn't as I don't see any VGM's going into my wave folder guess Vista PC's can't log which is bummer as I was going to have some fun messing about playing silly buggers with this type of thing.

Arcade > VGM > VGM2MIDI > GXSCC 8|

I'm not really interested in logging full sets in VGM or anything of tunes but I love bollocking about in the GXSCC software with random tunes rather than full sets just for fun.
At first I need to know a few things:
- which game?
- which chips/sound hardware does it use?
- Are the non-CPU chips in the "Logs chips" list in the OP?

If you can answer the last question with "no", you can do nothing about it.
Also, you please note that vgm2mid doesn't support all chips the VGM format supports. It can only convert SN76489, the OPL (YM2413, YM3526, YM3812, Y8950, YMF262, YMF278B) and OPN (YM2612, YM2203, YM2608, YM2610) family, YM2151, NES APU, GameBoy and SegaPCM (with hardcoded OutRun samples right now). (I worked on AY8910 support some time ago.)

Post by GTheGuardian »

This was recently running through my mind but I am wondering, would it have been possible to implement a "overclock" feature so that we could overclock the Sound CPUs? This could have been specifically useful for games with tempo issues.
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Post by MusicFox »

I was looking for a VGZ rip for Red Hawk/Stagger 1 because it doesn't play properly (it randomly hangs on a note) in M1.
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Post by ValleyBell »

GTheGuardian wrote:would it have been possible to implement a "overclock" feature so that we could overclock the Sound CPUs? This could have been specifically useful for games with tempo issues.
I might be able to hack something in that lets you adjust the CPU clocks via the commandline, but I'll need to look how I handle the case of multiple CPUs.
Also I remember that I once tried to fix a tempo issue by overclocking a CPU and failed, because it relied on timers or interrupts.
Doommaster1994 wrote:I was looking for a VGZ rip for Red Hawk/Stagger 1 because it doesn't play properly (it randomly hangs on a note) in M1.
That's probably an emulation problem then. I can't do anything in this case.
Maybe it works in MAME and has a Service Mode with sound test.
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Post by dissident93 »

I'm having a few problems with M1. let me start off by saying I'm trying to log Armed Police Batrider's soundtrack to WAV (I just want the soundtrack in MP3, although I would do a VGM set but the percussion doesn't play in the VGM. is MSM6295(2x) supported?)

When I logged every song to WAV with BridgeM1, the first few seconds for most of the songs didn't play. I assume this has to do with the normalization/fixed volume setting? I then went to the normal command M1 (VGM modded, if that matters), but the song names are not the same as the one from BridgeM1, even though they are both using the same exact listfile. (I.E Stage 6 boss in BridgeM1 is Stage 4 Boss in VGM M1) I'm not sure which version is right either, as I've never played the game.

also, how do I make the VGM M1 mod auto advance to the next song? it plays a track forever unless you manually advance it (which is why I choose BridgeM1 to log wavs). I'm sure you can force it to fade out and advance on a set time, but I don't know how.
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Post by ValleyBell »

OKIM6295 is supported, but the game isn't. See [pack] Known not-working games (MAME/MESS topic).

You can turn the normalization off with the -n or -v100 switches.
M1 doesn't come with a commandline switch to force a fixed song length AFAIK. The last time I recorded VGMs with M1 I just edited the list file.

Example:

Code: Select all

$0f Mega Driver
became

Code: Select all

$0f Mega Driver <time="120">
About the list file issue: I don't know, but my M1 version should be a bit newer. I'd recommend to search for a let's play video of it to verify the game.
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Post by MusicFox »

I remember asking Belmont about the game. He said he didn't know if/when the game will be fixed. The game doesn't have a sound test. Just my luck! Heheh.

Also, I tried converting one of the VGMs for Journey to MIDI but the MIDI file was empty. Does VGM2MID not convert the AY chips? I'm not too familiar with it. Thanks!
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Post by dissident93 »

ah, that's what I was trying to (although I think put it 2:00 rather than 120)

and it seems like BridgeM1 is playing the songs with the wrong name. It turns out that song I mentioned in my last post actually came from Sorcer Striker, and it appears under the same name in VGM M1. (the song is called Spiral Locus, if anybody cares)
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Post by rata536 »

Hello all. I feel stupid fot asking this, but I have a problem with M1. Every time I attempt to launch it via command line, it says 'D:\>juegos\mame32\m1 mk2
Error: No games or couldn't find m1.xml!

M1: arcade video and pinball sound emu by R. Belmont
Core ver 0.7.9a1, CUI ver 2.4
Copyright (c) 2001-2010. All Rights Reserved.

No config file found, using defaults

D:\>'

Both m1.xml and m1.ini are present in the same folder than m1.exe, so naturally I have no idea what the hell am I doing wrong. I've readed the m1.txt file and didn't fin nothing new. Also, m1 is placed alongside mameppkgui, so everything it need should be there.
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Post by RichterEX2 »

Is m1.ini setup for the proper roms folder?
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Post by rata536 »

Yes, even with the full directory was given to it and it doesn't work. Even so, it doesn't even load m1.ini so it uses the default settings.
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Post by kirishima »

Operating system? I think I had a similar issue on my older computer with windows vista. Also, have you tried bridgem1?
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Post by rata536 »

Windows 7 SP1. I've tried BridgeM1 but I don't know what it is actually (GUI M1, I know that). I've downloaded something like that but it didn't even had an exe, so I'm completly lost.
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Post by kirishima »

BridgeM1 is a front-end interface for the command line m1, it needs to be placed with the m1 exe to work.

As for the similar issue I had with m1, all I did was make a shortcut of the exe on my desktop and run command prompt from there.
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Post by rata536 »

I realized what was my problem with BridgeM1. I was dumb enough to not download the program itself, but the core M1 files again. It's running perfectly now, thank you very much. I still would like to know what makes standard M1 useless, but well...

Again, thank you so much for your help.
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