OK, here's the "dilemma:" I want a ton of SPC files that I want to convert to MP3; I already know how to do that. My question is, though, what's the lowest bitrate I could encode them in? Being that these are such small files to begin with, shouldn't I be able to convert them to MP3's with very low bit rate but still maintain very, very similar quality to higher bitrates?

I'm only talking about SNES / Genesis / NES music... I know that if I tried to rip CD audio it would sound terrible at low levels, but would the difference in these old, old school formats be basically negligible?

When I encoded at a bitrate of 220 or whatever, one song took up like four times as much as the ENTIRE FF3 soundtrack!

Thanks for the help / explanations.

You're comparing apples and oranges.

An SPC file is just a list of notes. It's like a MIDI file - it contains instructions that tell a synthesiser how to play the music - not the music itself. Hence the filesizes are relatively small. Ditto MODs, SIDs, MIDIs, and a thousand other sequenced music formats.

An MP3 is a digital representation that describes the sound of the music itself.

For the best possible balance between filesize and quality, you can never go wrong encoding with LAME preset V0. This is the highest quality variable bitrate setting available. It "listens" to the music you're trying to compress, and works out what parts are most complex and therefore harder to encode. It then gives over more bitrate to the harder stuff (maintaining its quality) and takes down the bitrate on the simpler stuff.

What you're saying to LAME is, "Here's some music. Compress it, maintain the quality as high as you can, and use whatever bitrate you think is appropriate."

All sorts of factors influence its decision - from dynamic range (ie, loudness) through to frequency range.

You will get the most efficient encoding possible.

Awesome! Very clear and helpful post. Thank you much.

Wait a second, I'm kinda confused here.

Where do I set the preset "v0" at? Is this in the out_lame plugin's configuration page? Does it refer to the VBR quality slider?

I don't see anywhere that I can configure the actual LAME plugin -- just lame_out.

Sorry if this is a stupid question..

I would like to know how to convert SPC to mp3. I want to convert the Super Double Dragon music.

I would like to know how to convert SPC to mp3. I want to convert the Super Double Dragon music.

I use the Winamp method.

First, you'll need SNESAmp; this is just a plugin for Winamp that lets you play SPC files:
http://www.zophar.net/utilities/download/SAmp303.exe

Install that; next you'll want to get "Out Lame." Out Lame is a program that lets you re-encode any file that Winamp can play as MP3; you can get it here:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/out-lame/out_lame.binf_v164.exe?download

Install that, too.

Now, go into Winamp preferences. At the bottom of the preference list, you'll see plugins. Find "Output." "DirectSound" should be selected -- you'll want to switch that to "out lame." Query a list of all the songs you want to play in Winamp's playlist; now when you attempt to playback a song in Winamp, you'll notice that no sound comes out, and that the track appears to be jumping multiple chunks of seconds at a time; if that happens, you know its working.

Now check the out lame output folder (I believe it defaults to C: [you can change it by configuring the plugin in the "Output" plugin folder]), and you should see a list of all of the songs you let play out through Winamp!

Make sure you switch the output plugin back to "DirectSound" before you try to play music again.

Hi mate



The red arrow is where you set V0. I've never seen that plugin before but it looks bloody useful!

You'll only be able to move that slider when you select Variable BR (see the red spot) -- then you can move the VBR quality slider all the way to the left.

Note that the blue spot quality setting can stay where it is. LAME is designed so that 2 is optimum. Hard to explain really - 0 and 1 are really just engineering presets. Quality = 2 is optimised.

Hope that helps :)

I use the Winamp method.

First, you'll need SNESAmp; this is just a plugin for Winamp that lets you play SPC files:
http://www.zophar.net/utilities/download/SAmp303.exe

Install that; next you'll want to get "Out Lame." Out Lame is a program that lets you re-encode any file that Winamp can play as MP3; you can get it here:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/out-lame/out_lame.binf_v164.exe?download

Install that, too.

Now, go into Winamp preferences. At the bottom of the preference list, you'll see plugins. Find "Output." "DirectSound" should be selected -- you'll want to switch that to "out lame." Query a list of all the songs you want to play in Winamp's playlist; now when you attempt to playback a song in Winamp, you'll notice that no sound comes out, and that the track appears to be jumping multiple chunks of seconds at a time; if that happens, you know its working.

Now check the out lame output folder (I believe it defaults to C: [you can change it by configuring the plugin in the "Output" plugin folder]), and you should see a list of all of the songs you let play out through Winamp!

Make sure you switch the output plugin back to "DirectSound" before you try to play music again.

Sorry for the late reply.

Thanks you for the suggestion. However, I don't use WinAMP. Is there an alternate way of doing it without WinAMP?

Can you give more steps on how to convert spc files into mp3 files please. I couldn't follow that very well.

Hey, is there an alternate way of doing it without WinAMP?


edit:

Found out: Audio Overload can play spc, nsf and many others and save as wav