Ambrosia Software Web Board: Ares Music: How to listen out of the game? - Ambrosia Software Web Board

The music in Ares is very cool, and as I was looking in the Ares Sounds file with ResEdit, I found a MADH resource. My extensive knowledge of MODs told me that this is a type of MOD, which happens to be a type of music file. So I've found the music, and now what? How do I listen to the music out of the game? Does it require ResEdit, or is there another easier way, or even another harder way?

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"You know what I'm thinking?"
"No."
"Neither do I. It's frightening, isn't it?"

Well, I'm pretty sure that it was placed on the [url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/games/ares/addons"]addons[/url] page a little while ago, so go there and see of you can't find it. I myself tried to rip it from the game, because it is really cool, but no luck. You might, however, be able to use Snapz Pro to get it out (if only I could get my version working...).

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"You will find that your device is highly non-functional...." - Bad Guy

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Yes, I've seen that, but it doesn't seem to have all the music from the game. I want it all! That Snapz Pro idea might work, but that would take an enourmous amount of patience that I don't really have... or something...

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"You know what I'm thinking?"
"No."
"Neither do I. It's frightening, isn't it?"

Nathan Lamont actually has a screen name here and can be reached by e-mail, however he may or may not approve of any tampering with his game. I have tried res-edit but it didn't seem to work, and I downloaded hexedit, but it is really too confusing. I'd say be patient and extract with snapz. In the meantime I'll post again with Lamont's address.

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"You will find that your device is highly non-functional...." - Bad Guy

Here's the email:

[url="http://"mailto:nlamont@arescentral.com"]mailto:nlamont@arescentral.com[/url]nlamont@arescentral.com

I don't know if this exists anymore, that web address (arescentral.com) is gone - so I dunno if the e-mail address will work or not. Good luck.

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"You will find that your device is highly non-functional...." - Bad Guy

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Sundered Angel,
The One and Only
Ares Webboard Moderator, and all-around Nice Guy

Ellway ellway, isn'ist thay omethingsay. Orrysay aboutay ouryay oniclechray oveiajay

aydaymay aydaymay aydaymay!

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I'm not even gonna try...

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"You will find that your device is highly non-functional...." - Bad Guy

Problem solved!!!

I bet you want to know how I did it. So here it is.

I used a utility called ResPloder (available [url="http://"http://ljug.com/sw/resploder.html"]here[/url]) to explode the resources of the Ares Sounds file. The MADH resources were in there, and they came out as text files. Then, I opened them with my MOD player (I use [url="http://"http://www.quadmation.com/pphome.htm"]this one[/url] and sometimes [url="http://"http://users.utu.fi/jariuppa/modplayer.html"]this one[/url]) to open the resources and play them as MODs!! Now I can listen out of the game whenever I want!! Amazing that I posted this question and didn't really get an answer and then figured it out myself... hmm, that makes the post quite irrelevant, wouldn't you say?

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"People who talk to themselves on the phone never
learn anything to their advantage."
And for more enlightenment, there's always [url="http://"http://www-kmadg.svf.stuba.sk/jmkollar/books/thhgttg/answer/"]Deep Thought[/url]

[This message has been edited by Shenlon (edited 05-15-2002).]

Not quite irrelevant.

If that's a process that can extract them, then the reverse of the process might possibly put MADH resources back in that Ares can interpret. Which happens to be a problem many of us have been racking our heads over for a long time.

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"Welcome to our Pirate outpost. Please enjoy your stay, and realize that any irregular actions can and will be used against you in the afterlife."

Ah yes, that's a good point...

And the good thing about ResPloder is, it doesn't just take the resources out ("explode" them) but it can also put them back in ("implode" them).

Dude, so that means I just figured out something cool...

Thanx to the ResPloder people!

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"People who talk to themselves on the phone never
learn anything to their advantage."
And for more enlightenment, there's always [url="http://"http://www-kmadg.svf.stuba.sk/jmkollar/books/thhgttg/answer/"]Deep Thought[/url]

Most interesting... especially the potential for custom music...

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Sundered Angel,
The One and Only
Ares Webboard Moderator, and all-around Nice Guy

Interesting...I did this the hard way, with Super ResEdit. My way might work well for putting stuff into scenarios though, but you need software that'll make MADH music files (I know PlayerPro does it, but it costs a good amount of money).

Basically, a normal MADH file stores its data in the data fork of the file; the Ares music has that data placed into the MADH resource. All I did was copy the stuff from the MADH resource and paste it into the data fork of a new file, and it was then readable by anything that can play MADH's (PlayerPro on Mac, some simple program by the same people for Windows). The problem with this is that the clipboard can only hold so much, so I had to copy-paste in several steps, making it rather tedious.

Actually, since I'm playing Ares in Basilisk now, I've actually found an easier way; there's a program called HFV Explorer that I use to copy stuff between Windows and the Mac hard disk file. One of the things I can do is copy only a file's resource fork into a file, so I copied one MADH resource into a new file and exported it into Windows using this method. I then used a Hex editor to compare the original MADH resource with the file I then had in Windows, deleting the extra junk that was tagged on (probably info like the resource ID and stuff). This worked pretty well; I bet if I copied the file back into my HD file as a data fork only, it would've worked in Mac programs.

Anyway, if anyone wants to have an MADH file made into an MADH resource (though I thought you could save files this way in PlayerPro), I'm willing to do it for people.

As a side note, the music for Bubble Trouble (and I think Mars Rising too) is in MADH format (but it's not encoded iinto the resource fork). If I really wanted, I'm sure I could make the music for Ares into the Bubble Trouble music...so if anyone wants to make a Bubble Trouble scenario...

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Mike Lee (Firebird)

Is there a way to get the ares music into iTunes?

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"Vampiric chickens are spiffy. Bak bak bak ARRR!"

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If people want, I can convert the Ares music to MP3 and upload it to the addons page, but I'd also have to consult with some Ambrosia people first.

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Mike Lee (Firebird)

I've heard that there is some way to convert MODs to MP3s, but I've never seen any application or anything that does it... Perhaps you could just tell us how you do it, Firebird?

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"People who talk to themselves on the phone never
learn anything to their advantage."
And for more enlightenment, there's always [url="http://"http://www-kmadg.svf.stuba.sk/jmkollar/books/thhgttg/answer/"]Deep Thought[/url]

Quote

Well, the Ares music might technically be a MOD, but specifically it's in the MADH format. I already manually ported the MADH stuff into the data forks of files and ported them to Windows, where my sound card came with a nice recording program that'll take the direct WAV output and record it to a file. I used the primitive WinPlayer by Quadmation (the developers of PlayerPro, who I believe created the MADH format) to play the music, then recorded it. So right now, I have the Ares music on my hard drive in .wav format; all I have to do now is encode it to MP3.

I'm sure many of you are capable of doing this, one way or another, but it might save some time if I just did it instead...the only issue is that since the music is meant to repeat, I just let the music go on for a reasonable amount of time and then faded it out.

If it's okay with Nathan Lamont and Ambrosia, I can make the MP3's and put them up on the addons page...

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Mike Lee (Firebird)

That would be very nice, thanks. Also, could you do a version where they don't repeat? You don't have to if you don't want to, it's just that it'd be nice for mixing them in with about 100 other songs, so I don't suddenly have a fifteen minute-or-so song amid the four minuters.

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"Vampiric chickens are spiffy. Bak bak bak ARRR!"

Well, the songs sort of, uh, end abruptly that way -- you're fine with that? No fading or anything?

I'll run over to the Ambrosia Banter board and ask a question about this.

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Mike Lee (Firebird)

Wouldn't they end abruptly, anyway?

At any rate, I don't think I'd mind too much. They'd be good during the middle, at least.

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"Vampiric chickens are spiffy. Bak bak bak ARRR!"

Quote

Well, I added a fade out at the end so they didn't. The question is, what you you people want?

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Mike Lee (Firebird)

-'ve heard that there is some way to convert MODs to MP3s, but I've never seen
any application or anything that does it... Perhaps you could just tell us how you do it, Firebird?

Okay, I believe you can use Soundjam's MP3 encoder to encode MODs, XMs, and ITs into Mp3s. If not, you could use Ambrosia's own Snapz Pro to capture audio being played from whatever mod player you use (MacMikMod actually has the best sound quality imho) and then convert that to MP3.


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-mark johns
[url="http://"http://www.sloppydisk.com"]www.sloppydisk.com[/url]

What's all the fuss about making the MODs into MP3s anyway??? Is it such a problem to listen to them as MODs?? The quality of the music is diminished when its format is changed, anyway.

If the trouble is that you can't find a player for the MODs, I already posted a couple, but here they are again:

[url="http://"http://www.quadmation.com/pphome.htm"]PlayerPRO[/url]

[url="http://"http://users.utu.fi/jariuppa/modplayer.html"]MODPlayer[/url]

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Rene Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am."
Does this mean that people that don't think are not?

iTunes > those you listed.

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"Vampiric chickens are spiffy. Bak bak bak ARRR!"

Indeed, but iTunes is also the only app I've seen that can successfully crash any computer running any Mac OS...

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"Don't piss me off - I'm running out of places to hide the bodies!"