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Noob question about Hoot and other players.

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

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  • Egon Offline
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Noob question about Hoot and other players.

Post by Egon »

Hi, I hope this is the right place to be asking this..

I've become interested in digging a bit deeper into Japanese rips and soundtracks. Snesmusic.org introduced me to the Hoot player and it's collection of Japanese game music, but their guide and links are way out of date.

Is Hoot still the best option for listening to Japanese rips or has it been replaced / superseded by something else? What do you use?

If Hoot is the best option is there an updated guide to getting the player working? I searched on here and found bits and pieces, including the link to http://hoot.joshw.info/, so I think I have an uptodate version of Hoot and the lastest updates from that page, but it doesn't want to play the music files. Any chance someone could walk me through it, or give me a link to an uptodate guide please?

thanks in advance.
Egon.
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Post by Egon »

Well I seem to have it working now. Though not sure how.

For the sake clarity (and for anyone else new to Hoot) here's the snesmusic guide with updated links which is what I've followed so far.
Installing, updating and using Hoot

Get the lastest version of Hoot and extract it to some directory (it will be referred as hoot directory from now on).
Get the Drum samples for OPNA sets and extract it into the hoot directory.
Get the lastest ini enhancements from http://hoot.joshw.info/. Extract it into the hoot directory and agree whenever it asks about overwriting existing files. Once new ini enhancements are available you can repeat this.
Down packs from ttp://hoot.joshw.info/ and put in subdirectories in the hoot directory. They should be packed, don't extract the sets themselves.
Now start hoot.exe, using the Enter, Esc and arrow keys you can browse your collection. If packs don't show up try system>reload titles. Enter on a song will play that song, P stops it, 0 restarts it, the keys 1-8 and Q-I can be used to mute the respective single channels, O to mute all and 9 to unmute all channels.
If there is anything missing please add on.
  • Egon Offline
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Post by Egon »

I'm not having any luck getting the 'vermouth' synth to work.

I've followed these instructions
Installing Vermouth synthesizer

Get the vermouth.dll and put it into the hoot directory.
Get GUS patches. For example, you can use eawpats11_full_beos.zip. Extract it to some directory.
Put the timidity.cfg into the hoot directory and edit the "dir" statement in timidity.cfg to point to your GUS patch directory.
I don't think the sounds are loading but the synth loads, the tracks play, but no sound.

Any advice on correctly editing the "dir" statement in timidity.cfg??

##############################################################################
#
# Instrument configuration file for timidity
#
# Specify library directory: dir <directory>
#
# - Multiple library directories may be given. The ones given last will be
# searched first so you can override them in later configuration files.
# Extra configuration files and MIDI files will also be searched in these
# directories.
#
# Set tone bank or drum set to modify: bank <number>
# drumset <number>
#
# Map program number to patch map: <program number> <patch name>
#
# - If the patch can't be found in the library directories, TiMidity will
# search again with ".pat" appended to the name.
# Programs without a loaded patch will be silent, except that for
# banks/drumsets >0, the corresponding patch in bank/drumset 0 will
# be used (if one exists).
#
# Read another configuration file: source <file name>
#

##############################################################################
# If you've moved things around since compiling, uncomment and edit this to
# point to the library directory:
#
dir /boot/home/config/share/timidity
#

##############################################################################
# This sets up the default patches in the TiMidity support package
# "timidity-lib-0.1.tar.gz":

#bank 0
# 0 patch/acpiano.pat
# 24 patch/nylongt2.pat

##############################################################################
# If you have Dustin McCartney's "wowpats" patches, you can source the
# config file to set them up for TiMidity:
#
# (Note that later entries in config files always override earlier ones)
#
#source wowpats.cfg
#

##############################################################################
# If you have Dustin McCartney's GS drum sets, you can source the config
# file to set them up for TiMidity:
#
#source gsdrum.cfg
#

##############################################################################
# If you have the GUS General MIDI patch set, uncomment the following lines
# and edit the "dir" statement to point to your GUS patch directory.
#
dir /boot/home/config/share/timidity
source gravis.cfg
source gsdrums.cfg
source gssfx.cfg
source xgmap2.cfg
#source proteus2.cfg
#source mt-32.cfg
#source sndfont.cfg
#####
# you don't usually need sustain.cfg anymore, use the -m option instead
#source sustain.cfg
#

##############################################################################
# If you have the Midia patch set, you can source midia.cfg to set them up.
# Note that midia.cfg sources gravis.cfg in turn, since the filenames are
# almost identical.
#
#source midia.cfg
#


##############################################################################
# End of configuration file
I replaced "dir /boot/home/config/share/timidity"
with "dir C:\users\name\desktop\gus patches"

Where am I going wrong?

Post by vampirefrog »

Hey man, welcome to the forum! I'm sure someone will be around to answer your questions, but if not, try the X68000 community (nfggames), and some other communities that might be familiar with hoot (hint: see the machines with the most songs in hoot, and find the corresponding community for those machines).

Also, since you're learning about hoot, once you find your answer, you could create a wiki page to describe hoot and how to install it, and add your problem in a FAQ section on that page, so other people have less trouble figuring it out.

Perhaps try putting the path in quotes?

Code: Select all

dir "C:\users\name\desktop\gus patches"
Good luck!
  • Egon Offline
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Post by Egon »

Thanks for the advice vampirefrog. The quotes seemed to be the trick as well. :beer:

Post by vampirefrog »

Good job!
  • Manos2610 Offline
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Help?

Post by Manos2610 »

I'm new to this forum, but I am having the exact same problem. I went into http://hoot.joshw.info/ and tried to download the necessary hoot player software and games that it can play. The XMLs seem to match what the games' zips contain, so why won't Hoot still recognize the files? Not even downloading the software from SNES hoot's website helps. Let me know if you have any questions or need to know my directory setup. Thanks in advance!

Post by Kaminari »

Do not use the XML sets from the Japanese Hoot program. Although they look similar, most of them are not compatible with Knurek's packs.
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Post by Manos2610 »

Okay, I think I FINALLY got the program to recognize the files. Even though I can't read Japanese, I (accidentally) discovered the action on the menu bar, I believe refresh, accessed by hitting CTRL-R. It reloads all available roms from the path you give it in the configuration file. I had wondered why I have aimlessly been trying all these methods with different XML files and paths with Hoot, without any visible effect. Thanks!

Next question is that, I know that Knurek said that to bypass the 1-minute limit from the program before all goes silent, I have to register on the Japanese site. But I click on the bottom link with my email address, and I get an error on the following page? Does this mean I'm stuck with the time limit?

http://dmpsoft.s17.xrea.com/hoot/getkey.html

Post by vampirefrog »

Good job getting it to work!
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  • MaliceX Offline
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Post by MaliceX »

Manos2610 wrote:Okay, I think I FINALLY got the program to recognize the files. Even though I can't read Japanese, I (accidentally) discovered the action on the menu bar, I believe refresh, accessed by hitting CTRL-R. It reloads all available roms from the path you give it in the configuration file. I had wondered why I have aimlessly been trying all these methods with different XML files and paths with Hoot, without any visible effect. Thanks!

Next question is that, I know that Knurek said that to bypass the 1-minute limit from the program before all goes silent, I have to register on the Japanese site. But I click on the bottom link with my email address, and I get an error on the following page? Does this mean I'm stuck with the time limit?

http://dmpsoft.s17.xrea.com/hoot/getkey.html
Well this explains a few issues... Kind of lame. :\
-dj.tuBIG/MaliceX

Post by vampirefrog »

Manos, can you add this info to the wiki?

http://vgmrips.net/wiki/Hoot
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