Ripping Super Mario Sunshine by Muzer at 1:40 PM EDT on May 23, 2009
Sorry if this has been discussed before, but I'm new to this forum, and a search didn't really reveal very much. I've seen a few rips of Super Mario Sunshine music on the internet, but most of them are in poor quality MP3s. How would I go about doing it myself? I've already got the ISO dumped using my Wii and have it mounted in wiifuse, I just need to know if there is anything that can decode the sequence.arc file (I know it's a sequence, but since dumps exist, I assume it's been figured out). If it hasn't been figured out, are there any efforts to do so?
Super Mario Sunshine is, as you noticed, sequenced, and thus not ripped. What you've been finding (the poor MP3s) is a game recording. That is, a line-in recording where they hooked their Gamecube (or perhaps a Wii, but very unlikely) up to a recording device, and recorded the music as it played in the game.
In other words, your assumption is wrong. As of yet, no one has figured out what to do with sequences on the GC or Wii. A few people have attempted to figure out the format for the sequences, but no one has gotten very far. And for whatever reason, GC emulation is very poor in the audio department at this time, so attempting to run it through an emulator (for sound) is not really going to work either.
Super Mario Sunshine does contain a few streams (perhaps 1 or 2, but less than 10), and those have been ripped in their original format. I'm not sure where to get them from though. I think they're *.AST files, if that helps.
In regards to helping you produce a better recording, the only option currently available that I'm aware of is to do as I said above. Connect your Wii/GC to a recording device, and record the music as it plays in the game. You can check out the Zelda Twilight Princess rip that Prime Blue did (search these forums). I'm not sure on all the details, but HCS programmed a tool that was able to alter the audio banks (where various instruments (for the sequences) and sound effects are stored), and remove some of the sounds. Prime Blue used this to do an in-game recording, but without the sound effects and whatnot getting in the way. Perhaps, if the currently available Super Mario Sunshine rips can be improved, you could look into that and see if it's worth doing that.
Sorry to not be very helpful, but what you're asking for is currently not doable. Mouser X over and out.
No one that I know of is working on figuring out the sequence format for GC/Wii games. However, I would expect that GC/Wii emulator authors are still working on their emulators (though, often in spurts, so maybe no substantial work right now), so who knows what breakthroughs they'll have. If/when audio gets working on the emulators, someone will likely use their source code (if it's open source of course) to create a Winamp plugin capable of playing GC/Wii rips (none of which currently exist mind you. And, there's a very good chance that they'll be about as easy to rip as PSFs, but most likely harder).
As I said, what you want is not currently doable, and there's no indication that this will change in the near future (within 6 months or more). Mouser X over and out.
The Galaxy music thankfully is almost all streamed, so the only main Mario series game I'm missing a substantial amount of tracks from is now Sunshine. That doesn't really matter much, since I never liked that game ;)
Now comes the problem of renaming them... I currently have 70 left (after having done around 15)... hmm
EDIT: Luckily, krename is more powerful than I thought, I managed to get it to do it in the same style I was before.
No progress....srry. Nintendo seems to be lazy on releasing soundtracks although This compilation contains some SMS songs. The good ones like Delfino Plaza and Bianco Hiils are there.