Cheat/code/hack to get all music to play in Sierra games (i.e. a sound test)

[Death=Adder]

Hello, all.

Is there a cheat/code/hack to get all music in a Sierra game to play? Something like a sound test? I know it's possible to do so in, say, the older AGI games, but I am referring more to the newer SCI adventures like Quest for Glory III, Quest for Glory IV, etc.

I'm asking this question specifically regarding getting the music to play 'ingame' and not using a 'ripper', 'extractor', 'converter' or any other such method. I ask because I run a website that offers hardware recordings of Ad Lib soundtracks, and I want to get full, high-quality soundtrack recordings from a few Sierra games. The best way to do so isn't to play through the game and record them one-by-one, as doing so will yield some foul instruments and/or music overlap. Thus a sound test type option would be much more convenient for me to get 'clean' recordings.

Any tips appreciated. Thanks for your attention.

[MusicallyInspired]

Nope . A long time ago I used to use SCI Decoder (the old DOS application) to extract sound resources from SCI games, renumber them, and put them in the same directory as the game's resource files. Once I figured out which number the main title theme of the game was I could rename and extracted sound resource to that number and the game would play that instead of the one in the RESOURCE.00* files. The result worked well and because not every sound resource has the necessary sound cue to make the game continue on to the introduction beyond the Sierra logo it would just sit there and loop forever while staring at the Sierra logo.

This is a very long and drawn out process, though. And I ultimately gave it up in favour of SCI Viewer. There's really no other way.

[jharris01]

I guess Hoot should be able to do something close to what the OP asks. Judging from the original post the midi record feature in DOSBox is out of the question. I think other than to code something on your own the only option available would be to record the sound from a real Adlib while playing realtime. You could always disable sound effects from those Sierra games that offer it.

[MusicallyInspired]

DOSBox can capture Adlib music in RAW format, though. Is there no way to play the RAW format back on a real Adlib card? And a lot of Sierra games use Adlib for sound effects.

[jharris01]

I don't know. What I was thinking was to extract the midi file using DOSBox's midi record and have the computer play it through the soundcard separately. I am assuming the GM midi file is the same a game would use for adlib, which is probably wrong.

[Death=Adder]

Hello.

A long time ago I used to use SCI Decoder (the old DOS application) to extract sound resources from SCI games, renumber them, and put them in the same directory as the game's resource files.

I have the SCI Decoder, and I can find the time to work with it to get the results I need, be it a long and drawn out process or not.

If possible, could you give me detailed, step-by-step instructions for what you did?

Judging from the original post the midi record feature in DOSBox is out of the question.

There is absolutely no emulation involved in what I am doing. I am using a special hardware card that connects directly to the YM3812 chip on the original Ad Lib sound card. What it does is capture all of the data sent to the YM3812 and converts it to digital audio. In essence it's the perfect hardware rip.

If you visit my website you can download and enjoy a few soundtracks that are already available:
Ad Lib music archive

[jharris01]

Judging from the original post the midi record feature in DOSBox is out of the question.

There is absolutely no emulation involved in what I am doing.

I wasn't referring to recording sound produced by DOSBox but considering DOSBox's ability to output midi data onto an external file.

[MusicallyInspired]

Do you have both versions of SCI Decoder (one for SCI0 EGA games and one for SCI1.0 VGA games)? If so just do it trial and error. Use the correct version to dump each sound resource, move them all to a separate folder, and then through trial and error take one of the sound resources and renumber it placing it in the game directory as SOUND.000, SOUND.001, etc (or whatever the game's intro music sound resource number is) each time starting the game up to see if the sound you're "replacing" is the title sound. Once you find it keep that resource number in mind and copy each sound resource that you extracted one at a time each time renumbering it to the title screen sound resource number so that the game starts up and plays that sound instead of the designated intro sound. Usually the intro sound resource is SOUND.001 or SOUND.000. Sometimes it can be in the 20s or 100s, though. So be prepared to do a lot of searching.

This doesn't work for SCI1.1 games. There is a SCI32 resource dumper program out there that I attempted to use with SQ5 with varying levels of success. It seems that when I try replacing sound resources in that game with sounds dumped with the SCI32 dumper some of them don't have all the MIDI channels included, which made me think at the time that they used two or more different sound resources for a single musical piece sometimes. But I can't imagine the benefit in that...

Anyway, hope I helped. Here's a ZIP of renamed SQ4 sound resources I ripped with SCI Decoder VGA. Some of them I kept the sound resource number intact as the file extension but most I simply named as *.SND for reasons I'll never remember. I'm pretty sure the intro music sound resource for SQ4 is SOUND.001, though. Try them out.

http://www.infamous-adventures.com/musicallyinspired/sq4_sounds.zip

EDIT: Here's some more sounds I discovered I saved from SQ1VGA and SQ5. I believe for SQ1VGA and SQ5 the resource number format is "1.SND" instead of "SOUND.001." Actually it might be the same way for SQ4, now that I think of it. The "SOUND.001" format seemed to only be for SCI0 EGA games and the EGA versions of SCI1.0 games (like SQ4EGA).

http://www.infamous-adventures.com/musicallyinspired/sq1vga_sounds.zip
http://www.infamous-adventures.com/musicallyinspired/sq5_sounds.rar

I don't know if all the sounds from the game are included or not. Just something to be aware of.

[Death=Adder]

Hello.

Use the correct version to dump each sound resource, move them all to a separate folder, and then through trial and error take one of the sound resources and renumber it placing it in the game directory as SOUND.000, SOUND.001, etc

I tried it out on Jones in the Fast Lane, last night. That's the first Sierra set I'll be recording. That was a very easy method indeed and I never would've thought to try it without your help. Thanks!

This doesn't work for SCI1.1 games. There is a SCI32 resource dumper program out there that I attempted to use with SQ5 with varying levels of success.

Then I suppose I'm hosed for QFG3 and QFG4, which were two of my major hopefuls. D'oh!

[MusicallyInspired]

Also, if a certain game is easier to use for playing back soundtracks than another you can copy the sound resources into a different game along with the PATCH resources and the new game will play back the music from the other game with the other games proper instruments. I had fun with this when I was younger with seeing how SQ4 music sounded in KQ5 with KQ5's instruments and vice versa. But copying over the PATCH resources as well will make KQ5 play with SQ4 instruments.

[Marten]

Given Alistair's common interest in having truly complete soundtracks, and because I haven't seen him post here on this topic, I'd recommend posting the same question over at his Sierra Music Central site and see if he has any thoughts.