NULL mag Issue 02 16 Convert SPC files to MODs

eZine lover (@eZine)

Published in 

null magazine

 · 26 Dec 2020

  

::s p c   w h a t ?:: 
The short version... spc is a file format used to dump SNES ROM sound files, 
sort of. 

::s n e s   m u s i c:: 
SNES was one of the first video game consoles to use samples. It had 8 tracks 
that could play very sort (in size) samples. This way, composers had to 
improvise to squeeze all the sound (music and fxs) of the game in just 64k. 
But the good thing, for us, is that made creators/composers more intuitive 
and made some great music. 

::t h e   t o o l:: 
Fortunately, there is a small utility, that we can use and convert SPC files 
to .IT files and play them for example with Audacious. The tool is called 
spc2it and we have to get it from its GIT repo at: 

                      https://github.com/uyjulian/spc2it 

I tested it and it compiles under Linux (Ubuntu 14.04 64b), so i hope it will 
compile for other systems too. Just follow the instructions at the git 
page... its easy. Make sure you have Git and CMake. 

git clone https://github.com/uyjulian/spc2it 
cd spc2it 
mkdir b && cd b && cmake .. && make 

::s p c   w h e r e ?:: 
Now we need SPC files! Yeah... just go to http://snesmusic.org, find the game 
you want and download the archive. For each game, the web page has the list 
of all the tracks, their length and time size. 

::s p c 2 i t   u s e:: 
To use the utility is very easy. Just execute it with the spc filename you 
want to convert. For example: 

                            ./spc2it smw-01.spc 

And after a while, you will see a smw-01.it file. This is playable with 
Audacious or other track players. Use the one you prefer.