towave - a program to extract individual channels from a chiptune file

To make the process of covering a LOT easier, I programmed a little something that will make WAV files that play a certain channel's worth of a song. The result is something I call towave. Just hand it a chiptune file (NSF, GBS, SPC, and a lot more) and it'll ask you which track and how long. Then it creates the WAV files.

I made it to run from the command line, but something I discovered about Windows 7 (I'm sure this works in at least Vista if not XP, too) is that you can drag a file onto towave.exe and it'll read it just fine. This is good if you don't want to mess around with Command Prompt.

You can download it at http://icesoldier.me/towave.html
I only wrote it for Windows, but I'm giving out the source code, too, so someone can compile it for Mac OS or Linux. I also only tested it on my Windows 7 64-bit computer, so if anyone runs into any problems, be sure to let me know.

In any case, enjoy the chiptune love!

(A note about file formats: I didn't actually do any of the decoding. I found a programming library, Game Music Emu, that decodes the file formats for me. What this means is that extending it to more files would take a lot more work than I've put in. Oddly enough, I feel a bit compelled to extend this; on the other hand, I want to add things like a user interface before worrying about PSF-based and other formats.)

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• chiptune
• program
• nsf
• gbs
• spc
• game
• music
• emu
• blargg
• windows
• c++
• famitracker
• mck

[HertzDevil]

And KSS and and USF and miniPSF and miniPSF2 and mini2SF and SGC and HES.

Plus you left the MMC5 undone. (in case you wonder, one game that uses it is Just Breed)

[BWIceSoldier]

@HertzDevil See the description for *SF and SGC. As far as HES and KSS go, towave can technically run them, but I felt a bit squeamish about it because those files don't report the total number of tracks. On the other hand, I don't use that information in my program at all, so if you already know the track number you need, fire away!

About MMC5: It turns out that towave can work on MMC5-extended files. I just overlooked the source file responsible for it, so I didn't mention it.

[LordWeegee450]

Thank you most kindly

[djarcade]

great tool thx

[gravywpg]

This is awesome!

Let's just hope the mexicans don't find this.

[psn8bit]

Nice! Just one question, does this work for .minigsf files (Gameboy Advance sound files)? As of yet I haven't found any program, plugin or application capable of seperating GBA channels (outside of recording via emulator) so it would be brilliant if towave can do this.