NOTE: no FEBuilder support yet; sorry! A .ups patch is included that just adds the instruments to vanilla FE8, however.
UPDATE HISTORY:
2023-5-4: .ups patch has been updated to use a static offset; MusicVoices will now always be located at 0x207470 and BCVoices will be located at 0x207a70. Voice 63 was changed from a Genesis brass to a DX7 one. Murmuring crowd sample from FE7 added to voice 126. Minor envelope tweaks to some voices. Alternate versions of jingles (e.g. Level Up!) are now included in case you want your game to sound less typically like Fire Emblem.
2023-2-7: .ups patch has been updated to reflect the last few installer changes; recommend re-patch your rom if you are using it. Minor envelope tweaks to some voices.
2023-2-4b: DrumsGong entry 0x19 (25) using wrong sample was corrected. Minor envelope tweaks to some other voices.
2023-2-4a: the vox organ (voice 16) was using the wrong note chart; the orchestral drums (voice 127) had their high end changed to give you more options (think misc stuff that’s normally on the high end of midi drums, e.g. güiro, jingle bell, etc). The soprano percussion is still there; it just doesn’t fill several octaves of dead space anymore. Minor envelope tweaks to some other voices.
2023-2-4: some typos fixed; a sample was being included three times and is now only included once; #ifndef added for SongTableOffset in case you already have that defined somewhere else (shout-out to Contro). You will want to update your music_installer.txt.
Starfall music installer
Hahaha! You thought “project22” meant i was releasing it in 2022? Nope! But i am releasing it on February 2nd, so there’s that!
MUSIC INSTALLER SUITE:
FREE-TO-USE SONG COLLECTION:
FREE-TO-USE SONG DEMONSTRATION
Tactics Ogre - Revolt [aka: Thunder]
Dropbox - to-revolt.mp3 - Simplify your life
A personal favourite and a classic, this is a solid optimistic player phase theme. This is actually the third instrument set i’ve ported it for!
Langrisser II - Morgan
Dropbox - lang2-morgan.mp3 - Simplify your life
An enemy phase theme for dishonourable foes, this is a great demonstration of the bass sfx. I had a lot of fun with it. (Yes, i intend on porting all the other songs i did for Blitz 5)
Romancing SaGa - Destiny
Dropbox - rs1-destiny.mp3 - Simplify your life
A theme for dramatic scenes, this is a demonstration of how you can use the stereo drums to add extra oomph.
Summon Night (DS) - A Momentary Relief
Dropbox - snds-a momentary relief_amb.mp3 - Simplify your life
A theme of nostalgia or rest: this is an included alternate version that contains nighttime ambience. FE7 had songs with ambient cricket and bird noises; you can too!
- What is this?
This is a large part of the legacy of Starfall, a community project that i foolishly offered to head and ended up turning into vapourware because i’m not actually a good project head. But we’ve had that conversation already! This installer is a full conversion of the game instruments to use new instrument sounds from a handful of sources that all sound good at various pitches and both gives you many more options to work with than the native instrument map and doesn’t make your game sound like poopy midi instruments like All Instrument does. I tried to include an equal amount of “staple” instruments (Triton brass section, yummy!) and “wacky” instruments (Sega Genesis FM bass, groovy!). It’s “wide” enough to get a beginner excited (sax! orchestra hit! a good-sounding piano!) and “deep” enough for an expert to dig into and appreciate (guitar sfx on the high end of voice 31! catalog-style drum tables so you can use multiple types of cymbal/tom/etc without needing a program change! you like making versions of your songs that have ambient bird/cricket/wind/etc sounds in them? voice 126 has you covered!).
- Is there any more free-to-use music planned? Everything’s made for the native instrument map.
At the moment, i’ve ported only a handful of free-to-use songs for this (including jingles for level-up, item get, and weapon broke). I plan on continuing to port music from various games with good soundtracks that are lesser known because i’m sick of hearing the same handful of popular songs over and over. Watch for updates!
In the meantime, if you want to use music originally made for the native instrument map, there is a backwards-compatibility voice table that has instruments in places expected by songs made for the native instrument map. To make a song use it instead of the regular MusicVoices table, just change the “grp” parameter (the thing that is voicegroup000 by default) in your song’s .event file to BCVoices instead of MusicVoices.
- Does this change the original FE8 music?
No, it does not, aside from aforementioned GUI jingles. This is to be used for custom music. If changing all the FE8 instruments to these ones in each song were trivial, i would’ve done it, but it’s not, and part of this whole enterprise is encouraging people to put custom music in their games in the first place!
- I don’t like the new level up/item get/weapon broke songs! How do i keep them vanilla?
Simply remove the songs from the “songs” section of music_installer.event and the original FE8 songs will never be replaced in the first place. I put a separate section for GUI songs and sound effects after the “main” section for songs that are actual music. Get savvy enough with the installer and you can easily make your own versions of these songs if you want!
- What about ctest.event? What song is that?
This is a test song to be inserted over the opening movie song (0x1, The Valiant) by default so you can quickly see if the installer’s working. It’s originally from Ys 1, if you were curious. I don’t recommend using it in-game because it doesn’t actually sound very good. As of 2023-2-4b, it’s commented out by default.
Seriously, please don’t actually use it in your game. I don’t want to hear this every time i start up an FE8 rom.
- Is it only for FE8?
Nope! This was obviously made with FE8 in mind, so you may have to change some things to port it to FE6/FE7/Pokémon/etc, but it’s entirely doable. I will not help you troubleshoot porting it to other games, but if you have a good grasp of EA you should be able to do it yourself easily.
- How do i use it?
Put the contents of the .zip file in your project’s music folder. #include the music_installer.txt in your master build file. Make sure to add the soundfont to your VirtualMidiSynth configuration so you can work with it in Anvil Studio/whatever you use to make music. Don’t worry about the backwards compatibility soundfont; you shouldn’t have to use it unless you are specifically fine-tuning music that was originally made for the FE8 native instrument map.
- What is this commented-out “experimental” thing? Is it worth my while to try it out?
If you have to ask: no, it’s more trouble than it’s worth. If you are an advanced user and you know your way around music, hex editing, Event Assembler, etc, it’s a good starting point to increase the sampling rate of the game for higher quality audio. If you want to do this, you are on your own as far as troubleshooting/testing your game and replacing all of your samples with new ones that are based on the new sampling rate.
- Why is it so big?
Uncompressed audio is big. I mean, really big. You might think it’s a long walk down the street to the drug store, but that’s just peanuts to space… Anyway, it’s just under 3MB in size, comparable to the audio data for samples which is already in the game. I want to make a version that completely removes all original FE8 sample and music data, but that’s going to take a while.
- Future plans?
· more free-to-use music for this
· FEBuilder version
· version that excises original FE8 sample data
· installer that is more lightweight and only includes absolute essentials, ideally under 1MB
This instrument overhaul was intended to be a big part of the Starfall esthetic and i’m glad to finally be releasing it to the public. I hope to be hearing cool stuff made with it soon!
Instrument list
(NOTE: “fast env” or “slow env” means the envelope is altered to make the sample attack, decay, etc, more slowly or quickly)
MusicVoices
(NOTE: VOICES COUNT UP FROM 0, NOT 1!)
0 - piano (Korg Triton Extreme: prog BD Concert Grand)
1 - piano (fast envelope)
2 - piano (dynamic panning) (give this A LOT of berth-- long release times)
3 - piano (dynamic panning, reversed) (give this A LOT of berth-- long release times)
4 - electric piano (Yamaha YM2612)
5 - bell piano (Yamaha YM2612)
6 - harpsichord (Korg Triton: sample FACTORY-024 Harpsichord-Sngl)
7 - clavichord (Roland XV5080: Klavinet)
8 - celesta (Yamaha DX7: Finetales DX Collection: Celesta)
9 - pretty bells (Roland XV5080: Pretty Bells)
10 - pretty bells (fast envelope w sustain)
11 - vibraphone (Yamaha YM2612)
13 - xylophone (Yamaha YM2612: orig patch source Popful Mail)
14 - tubular bell (Korg Triton: sample EXB-PCM 007 Tubular Bell)
15 - dulcimer (Yamaha DX7: Finetales DX Collection: Dulcimer)
16 - vox organ (Korg Triton: sample FACTORY-037 E. Organ-Vox)
17 - BX organ (Korg Triton: prog Super BX-3) (FE7: Victory Now!)
18 - BX organ (slower dec)
19 - pipe organ (Korg Triton: prog Pipe Tutti)
20 - pipe organ (slower envelope)
21 - accordion (Korg Triton: sample FACTORY-095 Musette)
22 - accordion slow
24 - guitar (Korg M1: Guitar 2) (WANT A DARKER/LIGHTER GUITAR SOUND? TRY VOICES 106/107)
25 - guitar (fast envelope)
26 - balalaika hard (Proteus VX: Old World Instruments - C.Bass Balalaika: CB Balalaika Hard)
27 - balalaika hard (fast envelope)
28 - guitar (dark) (Yamaha YM2612: orig patch source Thunder Force 3) (c6=pickup; g6/c7=pick scrapes, Triton)
29 - guitar (dragon) (Yamaha YM2612: orig patch source The Legend of Heroes: Dragon Slayer) (g6/c7=pick scrapes, Triton)
30 - guitar (ice) (Yamaha YM2612: orig patch source Popful Mail) (g6/c7=pick scrapes, Triton)
31 - guitar (thunder) and sfx (Yamaha YM2612: orig patch source Thunder Force 3) (g4=hit; g5=pickup; as6=noise; g6/c7=pick scrapes, Triton) (LOOKING FOR REGULAR GUITAR HARMONICS? TRY VOICE 108)
32 - bass (SOA) (still slacking on those XNA remixes!) (Yamaha YM2612) (c7=slide, Proteus Emulator Standards)
33 - bass (finger) (Triton) (c7=slide, Proteus Emulator Standards)
34 - bass (ice) (YM2612: orig patch source Popful Mail) (c5=softer; c-1=harder)
36 - slap bass (Korg M1: Slap Bass) (a4/a5/c7=sfx1/sfx2/slide, Proteus Emulator Standards)
38 - bass (synthy) (YM2612) (c7=slide, Proteus Emulator Standards)
39 - bass (wave) (based on GBA wave memory) (c7=slide, Proteus Emulator Standards)
40 - strings1 fast env (NOT A VIOLIN) (SEE VOICE 48 FOR REGULAR STRINGS1)
41 - strings2 fast env (NOT A VIOLA) (SEE VOICE 49 FOR REGULAR STRINGS2)
42 - synthstrings fast env (NOT A CELLO) (SEE VOICE 50 FOR REGULAR SYNTHSTRINGS)
43 - zarastrings fast env (NOT A CONTRABASS) (SEE VOICE 51 FOR REGULAR ZARASTRINGS)
45 - pizzicato (Triton: sample EXB-PCM07 Pizzicato Ensemble)
46 - harp (Triton: sample EXB-PCM07 Harp)
47 - timpani (Triton: sample FACTORY-388 Timpani) (c0=roll; c5=Proteus VX: Old World Instruments: Soprano Percussion)
48 - strings (try using 48/49 as an L/R stereo pair!) (Triton: samples FACTORY-215 Analog Strings 1 + EXB-PCM02 String Ens. 2)
49 - strings (Triton: samples EXB-PCM02 String Ens. 2 + FACTORY-215 Analog Strings 1) (but sounds different than 48)
50 - synthstrings (Triton: prog Warm Analog Strings)
51 - synthstrings (Proteus VX: E-MU Classic Series vol. 1 - Emulator Standards: Zarathustrings)
52 - choir (Triton: prog Lush Vocals)
53 - choir fast env
54 - choir slow env
55 - orch hits (Triton) (C2-C4: C2-C4 L; C5-C7: C2-C4 R)
56 - trumpet/trombone (Triton: sample FACTORY-106 Trumpet-Medium (FACTORY-105 Trombone-Bright for C2) + FACTORY-108 Brass Ens-Sharp)
57 - trumpet fast env
58 - flugel horn (Korg M1: TubaFlugel)
59 - French horn hard/solo (NOT a muted trumpet; try 41 for that) (Proteus VX: Virtuoso 2000: brs:FrenchHorn*)
60 - French horn sect (Proteus VX: E-MU Classic Series vol. 1 - Emulator Standards: French Horns)
61 - brass sect (Triton: sample FACTORY-109 Brass Ens-1)
62 - brass sect (Proteus 2000: Section)
63 - synth brass (Yamaha YM2612: orig patch source Beyond Oasis)
64 - saxophone (Triton: FACTORY-092 Alto Sax-01/W)
65 - saxophone fast env
66 - FM sax (Yamaha YM2612)
67 - oboe fast env
68 - - oboe (Proteus VX: Proteus 2000)
69 - oboe +1 sample per voice (harder sound)
70 - hard reed (Yamaha YM2612)
71 - clarinet (Proteus VX: Proteus 2)
72 - simple flute (Yamaha DX7: Finetales DX7 Collection: Air Blower)
73 - flute (Proteus VX: Planet Earth: South Wind)
74 - flute slow
75 - pan flute (Yamaha YM2612)
77 - global winds (Proteus VX: Planet Earth: GlobalWinds1)
78 - global winds slow
79 - pan flute slow (slow atk, so lacks the chiff at the start, sounding more like a whistle) (for compatibility purposes for songs that want an ocarina-like sound)
80 - lead square (Yamaha YM2612)
81 - lead saw (Korg M1: Mono Synth; change waveform to saw and add chorus fx at freq 2Hz wetness 20%)
82 - lead PM (LMMS TripleOsc)
83 -lead warm (LMMS TripleOsc)
84 - lead (sonic) (Yamaha YM2612: orig patch source Sonic the Hedgehog)
85 - lead (marble) (Yamaha YM2612: orig patch source Sonic the Hedgehog)
86 - lead (evil) (Yamaha YM2612: orig patch source Phantasy Star IV)
87 - 81 fast env
88 - 80 slow env
89 - 81 slow env
90 - 82 slow env
91 - 83 slow env
92 - 84 slow env
93 - 85 slow env
94 - 86 slow env
95 - 48 slow env
96 - 49 slow env
97 - 50 slow env
98 - 51 slow env
99 - 46 fast env
100 - brightness (Triton: prog Brightness)
101 - 100 slow env
102 - 4 slow env
103 - 61 fast env
104 - dulcimer long (see 15)
105 - balalaika tremolo (see 24/25/26/27) (Proteus VX: Old World Instruments - Russian Strings: BalalaikaTremolo)
106 - M1 guitar; lower samples used for higher notes; “darker” sound (SEE VOICE 24)
107 - M1 guitar; higher samples used for lower notes; “lighter” sound (SEE VOICE 24)
108 - M1 guitar; harmonics only
(LOOKING FOR A BAGPIPE SOUND? USE VOICE 77 AND ADD PITCH EFFECTS AS NEEDED)
110 - harp fast env
111 - legendary weapon sound (Proteus VX: Proteus 1: Metal Vapor)
112 - legendary weapon sound slow env
116 - catalog: kicks/snares/cymbals
117 - catalog: toms
118 - synth drum
119 - drums oldworld (Proteus VX: Old World Instruments: African Perc: Ashiko Drum; Talking Drum; Metalophones) (gongs: Proteus VX: E-MU Classic Series Volume 1- Emulator Standards)
120 - drums industrial (all non-Proteus drums are Triton)
121 - drums room
122 - drums jazz
123 - drums electronic
124 - drums standard
126 - ambient sfx (e.g. arena crowd; ambient birds chirping)
127 - drums orchestral
Points of interest
MusicVoices
(NOTE: MIDDLE C IS C3. VOICES COUNT UP FROM 0, NOT 1!)
0 - this is the regular grand piano; 1 is the same thing with a snappier envelope. But 2 is where it gets interesting because 2 is set up for dynamic panning, meaning higher notes will be slightly more panned right and lower notes will be slightly more panned left. 3 is the reverse of this, panning higher notes left and lower notes right. Try using one of these two as your main track and the other as an echo track!
24 - this is a Korg M1 guitar wave. A guitar is a finicky instrument in midi because the real instrument has multiple strings each with their own timbres. For “lighter” or “harder” version of the guitar, try voice 106 or 107, or 108 for harmonics only.
27 - this is a balalaika. Try 105 for a balalaika tremolo!
31- this is a heavy, distorted-sounding guitar at low notes, but high notes are guitar sfx. Try playing G4 for a guitar hit effect, G5 for pickup noises, C6 for distorted noise, G6 for a low guitar slide, or C7 for a pick scrape (similar to the Powerful Foe sound from FE8). The slide and pick scrape are also accessible with voices 28/29/30.
34 - this is an FM bass with a distinct sound, great for songs that have a lot going on where you need the bass to still be audible. Try C-1 (that’s four octaves below C3) for the same pitch as C2 but a harder sound, or C6 for the same pitch as C2 but a softer sound. I used this approach instead of just making it three different instruments so you can access the hard/mid/soft notes all in the same voice with no need for a program change.
36 - this is a slap bass at low notes, but high notes are bass sfx. Try A4 for a bass hit, A5 for another bass hit, or C7 for a bass slide. The slide is also accessible with voices 32/33/38/39.
47 - this is a timpani drum, but with a drum roll on the low notes and soprano percussion on the high notes. Try C0 for a drum roll or C5 for soprano percussion.
48/49 - these string ensembles are made from similar Triton programs. If you have extra polyphony to spare, try playing 48 and 49 at the same time but with one panned all the way left and one all the way right. This stereo sound can make some epic-sounding background strings.
55 - this is a tutti hit; it’s not your garden-variety orch hit but i chose it for its distinctive sound. This was recorded in stereo, with the L sample centred on C3 and the R sample centred on C5. If you have the polyphony to spare, try using two different tracks panned all the way left/right to make an impactful stereo hit!
56 - this is the trumpet, and it has a very short/plain loop. It sounds best with a small amount of modulation (e.g. 1 or 2). Try adding even more modulation for a dramatic sound, like the trumpet player is really putting their lungs into it.
58 - this isn’t a pure tuba, but rather the Korg M1’s TubaFlugel wave. At mid-to-high pitches, it sounds more like a flugel horn. Consider it as a softer alternative to the trumpet.
59 - this isn’t a muted trumpet, but rather a hard solo French horn. Consider it an alternative to the French horn section. If you are looking for a muted trumpet-like sound, try 85 (marble lead).
62 - this is not a synth brass, but a secondary brass section. For true synth brass, try 63.
69 - this sounds the same as 68 at first blush, but it’s actually set to use “lower” samples for higher notes, giving it a harder sound. Consider it an alternative to the oboe.
72 - this is an FM flute with a short/simple loop. It sounds best with a small amount of modulation. If you want to be really fancy, you can add the LFODL event to your processed .s/.event file to make each note start with no modulation and begin to wobble in pitch only after playing for a second or so.
77 - this instrument is known as GlobalWinds in its original habitat (some E-MU Proteus rom i don’t remember which off the top of my head) and can stand in for a bagpipe or other ethnic wind instruments. Add pitch bend effects going up and then back to normal to create a flair at the beginning of each note.
80 - this is a square lead. It’s a good place to start as a replacement for GBA square waves. Note that the square lead in the native instrument map is natively transposed up one octave and this one isn’t, so if you’re converting a song that was originally made for the native instrument map you will want to transpose up the square lead to match.
81 - this is the Korg M1 mono lead, configured to use a saw wave with a slight chorus effect. If you are using Golden Sun music, this is a good place to start as a replacement for the Golden Sun synth leads (which i did not include in this installer at all because they’re finicky and i don’t want to have to troubleshoot them over and over). Note that the saw lead in the native instrument map is natively transposed down one octave and this one isn’t, so if you’re converting a song that was originally made for the native instrument map you will want to transpose down the saw lead to match.
82 - this is a PM triangle lead. It’s a good place to start as a replacement for a triangle wave.
83 - this is a “warm” sine lead. It’s a good place to start as a replacement for a sine wave or a simple vox sound.
84 - this is the FM “sonic” lead. It has a synth/strings-like sound.
85 - this is the FM “marble” lead. It has a muted trumpet-like sound.
86 - this is the FM “evil” lead. It’s best used for low notes (C1 range) to make dramatic evil-sounding sfx.
87 - this is the Korg M1 mono lead (81) but with a harsher attack. It has a more percussive sound than 81.
88 thru 98 - these are the synth leads and strings with slower onsets.
111 - this is the E-MU Proteus 1 preset “Metal Vapor”, known to us as the GBA FE legendary weapon sound (you know, the ambience that plays when Eliwood is about to get the Durandal). I stumbled upon it and thought “well, i can’t not include this”.
116 - this is a catalog-style drum table containing all of the kicks/snares/cymbals and some misc drums. For best results, do not use the “percussion” view in Anvil Studio so you still have access to the full midi keyboard. Refer to the table DrumsCatalogCymb in music_installer.txt to see specifically which note does what.
117 - this is a catalog-style drum table containing all of the toms. For best results, do not use the “percussion” view in Anvil Studio so you still have access to the full midi keyboard. Refer to the table DrumsCatalogToms in music_installer.txt to see specifically which note does what.
119 - this is the old-world drum set, named because it uses a lot of samples from E-MU Proteus Old World Instruments. For best results, do not use the “percussion” view in Anvil Studio so you still have access to the full midi keyboard. Refer to the table DrumsGong in music_installer.txt to see specifically which note does what.
120 - this is the industrial drum set (it’s cool, you guys, i swear). Refer to the table DrumsIndustry in music_installer.txt to see specifically which note does what.
121 - this is the power drum set. Refer to the table DrumsRoom in music_installer.txt to see specifically which note does what.
122 - this is the jazzy drum set. Refer to the table DrumsJazz in music_installer.txt to see specifically which note does what.
123 - this is the electronic drum set. Refer to the table DrumsElec in music_installer.txt to see specifically which note does what.
124 - this is the standard drum set. If in doubt about which drum set to use, start with this one! Refer to the table DrumsRock in music_installer.txt to see specifically which note does what.
125 - this is an empty table entry reserved for pre-recorded and/or special use samples. If you end up using prerecs, i recommend putting a drum table for them here so you can access them all without having to give them their own per-song voice tables.
126 - this is the table for ambient sfx (natural noise, crowd cheering in arena, birds chirping, crickets, wind, etc). Its use as a drum table within the main voice table is mainly intended for versions of songs that have ambience in the background (e.g. the alternate version of Silent Ground in FE7 that has birds in the background— yes, that bird ambience is part of the song, not a separate sound effect played at the same time). If you are making a song that is nothing but background ambience, i recommend you use SFXVoices1 as the song’s actual voice table (e.g. instead of MusicVoices) so you can apply pitch effects to the ambient noises (which cannot be done when they are used as a drum table).
127 - this is the orchestral drum set (bass drum goes boom, snare is a marching snare, hand clap is a drum roll, etc). Refer to the table DrumsOrch in music_installer.txt to see specifically which note does what.
119/120/121/122/123/124/127 - C0 thru G0 are alternate “stereo” versions of snares cymbals: two each with slightly different pitching and panning all the way left or all the way right. If you have extra polyphony to spare, try playing e.g. E0 and F0 at the same time for an impactful stereo cymbal.
NOTE: If you use any of the stereo stuff, be careful with it! Two samples playing at the same volume are effectively twice as loud as one and it’s very easy to accidentally get volume crackling in-game even for something that sounds good in Anvil Studio. Always test your music in-game!