SPC

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SPC
SPC.png
Developer: ?
Header: Unknown
Content: Log
Instruments: Internal
Target Output
Output - Digital Audio - No.png Output - MIDI - No.png Output - FM Synthesis - No.png Output - PSG - No.png
Released: ?
First Game: N/A
Extensions
  • *.spc
  • *.rsn

The SPC format holds SNES game music. It is named after the SPC700 CPU in the SNES's S-SMP audio chip. The SNES was a major jump in audio technology from the NES allowing for stereo sound, more channels, and fully sampled instruments.

SPC stores the memory of the extrapolated sound code and music files sent to the S-SMP chip. This makes it much easier to rip music for SNES games, but it also has several disadvantages. For one, because an SPC file is a dump of the entire 64 KB block of memory, and not the used portion of memory, every song, even short ones, are 64 KB in size, each containing a lot of wasted space. See the Unsupported Games section for further details.

SPC collections are sometimes distributed as a single RSN file which is an SPC collection compressed into a RAR archive, renamed with an RSN file extension.

Players

(Category)

Converters

(Category)

SPC to ?

? to SPC

Games

(Category)

The majority of games released for the Super Famicom, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Satellaview and Super Game Boy can have their music logged to SPC format. A handful of games cannot and are listed below.

How to Obtain

Logging SPC files involves using an SNES emulator to dump the audio memory when the each song is loaded from the game. It's a pretty time-consuming process, but luckily, most SNES games already have their sound logged to SPC format and can be downloaded from the following sites:

Recording Guide

To convert an SPC soundtrack into one that can be uploaded to the VGMPF, see SPC - Recording Guide.

Technical

SPC files store their meta data in a custom tag called ID666. There are two versions of the tags: basic and extended. Even though the extended tags support more accurate timing (separate values for intro, loops, ending, and fade out, each with split-second resolution), it is suggested that you do not use the extended tag because each player handles the extended timing differently. Instead, use the basic timing, and set the song length to how long it would be at two loops and give it a 10 second fade out. This will play back the same way in all players.

Unsupported Games

Because the S-SMP chip had a limit of 64 KB of memory, several games dynamically altered the memory during the course of a song and the static dumps of the S-SMP's memory don't contain these changes. Therefore, games that use this technology will not play properly. Second, SPC dumps cannot be made at all for games that use the S-SMP chip in non-standard ways. In situations like these, SNSF files are ripped. Check the SNSF page for games with SNSF rips. The following games can not be supported by the current SPC format standards.

Links

  1. ↑ sourceforge.net/projects/sexyspc/
  2. ↑ foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_snesapu
  3. ↑ zophar.net/utilities/spc/spcamp.html
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