Playing SEQ from PS1 games?

Hey folks,

I have some SEQ files from a PS1 game I like the music of. My question is, how can you play a SEQ file outside the game?

There is a SEQ->MIDI converter, but it's not very good.

Basically:
1. If there is a good SEQ->MIDI converter; or
2. If someone knows how to play SEQ files outside the game,

Please, please let me know!

Regards,
- Spike

Just out of curiosity, what do you think is a good SEQ to MID converter? I normally use Pgconv (for Sony driver) or VGMtrans (for Akao driver), but I can see few problems in conversion, aside of instrumental info (this is a matter of course as PS SEQ files don't obey general MIDI standards' program number).

If this is a silly question, please feel free to ignore me. I'd also like to know more.

I haven't tried either of those

How do you tell which driver your game is using?


I've only tried SEQ2MID and it's not very good- sure, I get MIDI data, but multiple instruments have become one MIDI channel in some cases and in others individual instruments are fine. The instruments themselves are all wrong too, and only some tracks have proper volume/panning/etc.

Not a silly question at all, you obviously know more than me

- Spike

I’m a junior psf/psf2 ripper, so I’m sure what I’m telling you are full of incorrectness.

Originally Posted by Spikey

How do you tell which driver your game is using?

I don’t know. Perhaps most PSX games use a standard Sony driver which Pgconv and SEQ2MIDI support. When developed by SQUARE, however, a PSX game most likely uses the custom driver made either by Minoru Akao or Hidenori Suzuki. The games using the latter driver are rather a few; FFT, Xenogears and some. KOUDELKA (developed by Sacnoth) also could use his driver if music is sequenced.

Originally Posted by Spikey

but multiple instruments have become one MIDI channel in some cases

I haven't encountered the same problem, except when a SEQ uses more than 17 channels, and it's a matter of course, too (as you know, generally, MIDI hardware / software has only 16 channel).


When I'd like to get a MID file from a SEQ, I normally use the following. Of them, I think VGMtrans is only for psf2 (PS2 emulated format), so it’s irrelevant to your topic, although my previous post sillily referred to it.

Akao2mid - for PSX Akao games. I forgot how to use this, since it's basically underdeveloped.
Pgconv – for PSX in general
Pgconv2 – for PS2 in general
VGMtrans – for PS2 SQUARE ENIX game in general (from psf2 files). Underdeveloped.

When music is sequenced inside the PSX, beside a SEQ, it requires 2 other files. One is a VB that is ADPCM instruments date and the other is a VH that is header (there also could be VAG, VAB or SEP files, but I’m not familiar with them. They also are sequence or instrument files, after all). Therefore, I’ve thought it’s impossible to play properly a SEQ alone, and haven’t minded conversion problems if any.

I hope a senior psf/psf2 ripper gives us a more helpful and correct lecture.

I think you know a lot

Just on Pgconv, is there an English version of it? Or can you explain how to use it? I get a lot of ? (Japanese not converting to English) which isn't very helpful.

In case it helps, the game I'm trying to get music from is Uchuu no Rendevous-~RAMA~.

- Spike

Originally Posted by Spikey

Just on Pgconv, is there an English version of it? Or can you explain how to use it? I get a lot of ?

I don’t think it’s so difficult. Just press ｱﾅﾗｲｽﾞ (analyze) and select the files you’d like to convert. Then, press ｺﾝﾊﾞｰﾄ (convert) and select the .clg files you just got.

That said, if your purpose is to listen to the game’s sequenced music properly rather than to know how to play SEQ, I doubt Pgconv would help you much. As previously said, although a SEQ format is presumably so much based on a standard MID, it still obeys the instrumental bank set up by composers/programmers. Besides Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth for certain, any multi-timbre synthesizer/sampler couldn’t probably play SEQ as exactly as the PSX sound processor does, because of a lack of intended instrument samples.

In short, if you still want to listen to a SEQ file alone, I don't know. If you just want to listen to sequenced tracks the game has, however, I recommend you ask someone to make a PSF set for it. I could manage to if you give me SEQ and BD (BD or HD are often side by side with SEQ in a game’s directory), but I’m only an apprentice PSF ripper who just have succeeded in creating some files, and I can’t assure you of my commitment for it.

Originally Posted by Spikey

Not a silly question at all, you obviously know more than me

Based on your posts in general, I could hardly believe I know anything more than you. That's why I suspect I'm posting something too proverbial for you.

Please Post (Pgconv.rar) Rapidshare Download Link.
as reply in this thread.

iirc the only seq2mid util that exists is for saturn sequenced tunes, not playstation.

And which utility would that be, evilboris?

One that sucks ass because it leaves out instruments, misses out loop points, and its overall useless because you need a soundfont capable machine/player to pair it with the sample data - and even than there is a good chance it will sound bad because its missing the DSP code and the proper volume values.
Plus, the SSF ripping tools are much more accurate.