_____ ____ ____ _ _ _ ____ _ | ___| __ ___ _ __ ___ / ___| / ___| | | | | | __ ) | |_ ___ | |_ | '__/ _ \| '_ ` _ \ \___ \| | | | | | | | _ \ | __/ _ \ | _|| | | (_) | | | | | | ___) | |___| |__| |_| | |_) | | || (_) | |_| |_| \___/|_| |_| |_| |____/ \____|_____\___/|____/ \__\___/ ____ ____ ____ _ _ _ / ___| __ ) / ___|| |_ _ _ __| (_) ___ | | _| _ \ \___ \| __| | | |/ _` | |/ _ \ | |_| | |_) | ___) | |_| |_| | (_| | | (_) | [From SCLUB to GB Studio] \____|____/ |____/ \__|\__,_|\__,_|_|\___/ SCLUB for DOS (or OpenMPT) --> hUGETracker --> GB Studio v3.2.1 by TheOuterLinux (https://theouterlinux.gitlab.io) This file was last updated: 2024/04/30 Discussion URL (Reddit): https://www.reddit.com/r/TheOuterLinux/comments/jn6b6z/from_sclub_to_gb_studio/.compact Discussion URL (LinuxQuestions.org): https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/blog/theouterlinux-1169710/from-sclub-to-gb-studio-38480/#comments QUICK WORD OF WARNING... If you can simply just use GB Studio's built-in music editor for everything, then do that instead. There is no current fool-proof way that I know of in which to create a MIDI, convert that MIDI to a 4-channel MOD, and then have that MOD imported as desired in hUGETracker without a bit more work. If you are creating your own music, just use GB Studio's built-in music editor. Part 01: Option A - SCLUB for DOS --------------------------------- SCLUB for DOS: http://www.bluemoon.ee/history/scdos/sclub.zip SCLUB for Windows: http://www.bluemoon.ee/history/scwin/scw203.zip "Sound Club" for DOS (SCLUB) has the ability to import MIDI and 4/8-channel MODs and export as 4/8-channel MODs. The Windows version does not have MIDI import capability. "SCLUB" also seems to be one of very few modular music editors for DOS that uses a piano-roll interface. If you have ever played around with GarageBand, LMMS, or Aria Maestosa, this will be familiar to you and in my opinion, MUCH easier to use than a classic tracker. You can run this program using DOSBox and is mouse- friendly. To get the best sound quality in SCLUB, install Gravis UltraSound (C:\ULTRASND); pay attention to the "[GUS]" section in DOSBox's configuration file. That being said, after you have either imported a MIDI file or created a song using SCLUB, export the result as a 4-channel MOD file. You should probably also make sure to limit the amount of instruments to no more than three and then worry about any noise/drums later to prevent them from blending into the other channels and making a mess. Part 01: Option B - OpenMPT --------------------------- https://builds.openmpt.org/builds-archive/auto-release/openmpt/ OpenMPT is a free and open-source modular music tracker that supports MIDI files; unfortunately, the source-code is currently written in a way that makes it Windows-only. But, worse case, it does run using WINE. If you are not afraid of the way classic modular music trackers behave or just want something to convert a MIDI file, it is at least an option. It does not have a piano-roll editor like SCLUB. If you are creating a MOD from scratch, make sure to save your progress as an XM file with only four channels and then when finished, save as MOD. And as mentioned with SCLUB, I would wait until using GB Studio's music editor if you want noise/beats/drums on channel 4. Part 02 - hUGETracker --------------------- https://github.com/SuperDisk/hUGETracker hUGETracker is a classic-styled modular music tracker; HOWEVER, it is aimed at Game Boy music development and you can import MOD files. So, import the MOD file you exported using SCLUB. Next, correct the assumed instruments if needed, though you could also do this later within GB Studio as we only need this program to "Save As" a UGE file. IF YOU ARE HAVING ISSUES WITH AUDIO-PLAYBACK, ESPECIALLY ON CH3, AND YOU SEE "82B" OR OTHER "8??" EFFECTS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE INSTRUMENTS ON THE FIRST PATTERN, TRY TO REMOVE THESE AND SEE IF YOU GET THE CORRECT SOUND DURING HUGETRACKER PLAYBACK. GB STUDIO'S MUSIC EDITOR DOES NOT CURRENTLY DISPLAY THESE EFFECTS, EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE THERE, AND SO THIS NEEDS TO BE CORRECTED BEFORE-HAND. By the way, hUGETracker includes "Sample Songs" and may be worth looking at to better understand the effects that you can apply to instruments. The "hUGE" advantage to UGE files is that the Waveforms can be edited whereas the MOD format limits you to a set of pre-defined instruments that you are stuck with and those instruments must be ordered correctly and this must be done each and everytime you setup a new MOD for use with GB Studio and those MODs cannot be edited with GB Studio's music editor, only UGE. I would also like to mention that you can use hUGETracker to create a Game Boy ROM that just simply plays the music if you want to test it out before moving it over to GB Studio. Part 03 - GB Studio ------------------- https://github.com/chrismaltby/gb-studio/releases Now that we have our UGE file and everything has played-back okay, move that file over to your GB Studio project's "assets/music" folder. Also, make sure that GB Studio knows to use UGE files instead of MOD; unfortunately, at the moment, you cannot use both formats at the same time; you are stuck with one or the other the entire way during your game development. You should now be able to open your GB Studio project and see the UGE file on the list in the Music section; there is also a "File --> Reload Assests" option if you moved the file while still having the GB Studio project opened. Some tips and important things to note -------------------------------------- Modular music, if you are not familiar, can only play one note at a time per channel. Channels are not the same thing as "tracks" like in modern digital audio workstations that have MIDI capability. For example, if you only have one instrument but that instrument plays a chord, when converted from a MIDI to a MOD, those notes, because of the over-lap, will be separated into their own channels. So, it may be best, when the time comes, to export a MIDI as a MOD with each instrument as their own MOD file by muting the other channels. Then, copy and paste the results of each 1-instrument MOD into a "Master MOD" with the proper placement of those instruments in the correct channels and use that "Master MOD" with the hUGETracker. Keep you notes between C3 and B8 but you should probably not go past [Note]6 as this can get very high-pitched, especially with the Channel 1 and 2 instruments. In prevoius versions of this file I mentioned having to have all of the required GB Studio instruments and in a particular order and so forth. HOWEVER, thanks to the miracle of importing a 4-channle MOD to hUGETracker and using UGE files instead of MOD, those steps are no longer necessary. If you try to convert a modular music format with more than four channels to a MOD using something like MilkyTracker, there may be empty gaps between patterns. Write your own music using a digital audio workstation (DAW) that supports MIDI (LMMS, GarageBand, MuseScore, Rosegarden, Aria Maestosa, etc.) or find someone else's MIDI music that is Creative Commons licensed or Public Domain. Then, edit it down to as few instruments as possible. Make sure to remove the drum/beat-related tracks and add those manually back using GB Studio's music editor to prevent them from spreading to the wrong channels. You could also add them while editing in hUGETracker, but piano-roll editors are much easier to use. Try to use 'Aria Maestosa' MIDI program if you can; however, it has not been updated in a long time and GNU/Linux users will need to manually start FluidSynth like so: fluidsynth -a pulseaudio OR.. fluidsynth -a alsa ...before they start Aria Maestosa. Windows/Mac OS X users do not need to worry about this. If are a GNU/Linux user and the command-line still scares you, learn to use LMMS; both programs are cross-platform. LMMS is much more up-to-date but it is a bit harder to use. Aria Maestosa: https://sourceforge.net/projects/ariamaestosa LMMS: https://lmms.io/ If you want to use Rosegarden to create MIDI music for later MOD conversion, the "piano-roll" editor is refered to as a "Matrix Editor" and can be displayed by right-clicking the music on the tracks. However, you will have to start something like FluidSynth before-hand to get sound. If you can comfortably read/write sheet music, MuseScore may be your best option for creating MIDI music and is cross-platform. MuseScore: https://musescore.org Also, there is a free and open-source modular music tracker called "Furnace" that can export music to a plain-text file. This is useful if for some reason you are having conversion issues and need to input the notes manually into GB Studio's music editor while in the "Tracker view" mode. A plain-text editor is much easier to scroll through than a tracker program. There is also a "cheat way" (of sorts) in which you can convert audio to MIDI using a program called MeloMIDI that was oddly enough created using Godot, a free and open-source game engine. However, it is not perfect and you may benefit more by recording your instruments in which each have their own track and then use MeloMIDI against each of those tracks one at a time. And even then, it may be better to manually draw the MIDI ticks on top of the visual analyzer; if you try it, you will see what I mean; the audio is visually represented like a heat map for notes. MeloMIDI: https://github.com/4321ba/MeloMIDI