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Ripping the soundfont from VGM files.

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

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Ripping the soundfont from VGM files.

Post by Linguini_97 »

This is more of a question than anything. I don't know if this the right way to ask questions, but is there a way to rip the soundfont from VGM files, specifically ripping the soundfont from SNK NeoGeo VGM files?
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  • blitzlunar Offline
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Post by blitzlunar »

I think the best you could hope for is extraction of samples from VGMs that contain them. Of course, not all VGMs have sample data. NeoGeo is an interesting case because the YM2610 sound chip includes FM, PSG and PCM sound channels, so you'd only be able to extract samples for instruments that are used on the PCM channels (theoretically; assuming such a tool exists.) For the others you'd have to extract them in a synthesizer-compatible format, or manually sample/loop them yourself.

SoundFonts (SF2 format) require extra steps to construct and that process isn't usually automated. If you are able to extract and collect instrument samples with their looppoints preserved then building a SoundFont from there isn't out of the question (I have done this with SNES and N64 games.)
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Post by ctr »

The Neo Geo has two kinds of ADPCM formats. And due to the nature of either ADPCM format, in order to get optimal quality you have to split the samples _before_ converting from ADPCM.

For games that use normal PCM samples (CPS2, Namco systems, etc), you can just import the VGM in Audacity and split the samples visually. But for Neo Geo, that's much harder.

There are no tools that help you with this, but for converting the raw ADPCM data, I have my ADPCM library. You need to build it yourself though
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Post by Dekyo-NO »

For convert the ADPCM A/B samples, you can use YM2610 ADPCM Decoder. Although you need to know the playback rate of the ADPCM-B data, otherwise it will not sound in its correct pitch.
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