by agu fungus at 12:47 AM EST on November 10, 2016
Update: So I tried extracting the SSEQ, SBNK, and SWAR and used them to replace one of the tracks in the main .sdat file. I tested it in VGMTrans, but I get an error message instead, while the other tracks play incorrectly (I used kiwi.ds to unpack and repack). Should I replace something in the SSEQ and/or SBNK to make them play properly? All that I know is that it uses more than one SWAR, one from the save, and one from the game, unless I'm wrong, and the musical SWAR got extracted incorrectly.
I've been looking into this too. I don't know what the game does to get the correct wave files but once you have them all placed properly in an SWAR you can use that SWAR with the SBNK and SSEQ you extract from the PMS file and play the song back properly. The problem is finding all of the correct ones and placing them in the right spots which takes a lot of trial and error (especially since from what it seems one of the SWAR files is calling for over 80 SWAV files). So far I've only done it for Musical Pokemon Party. I can post the result here if you'd like.
Here's the result: https://www.dropbox.com/s/274qbdxckjyv0d0/
It has vocals so you know I didn't just take it from the soundtrack CD (which doesn't have them for whatever reason).
And here's an SDAT with the SSEQ, SBNK, and SWAR I used. The former two were taken out of the PMS file while the last one was built from scratch as I said before. https://www.dropbox.com/s/avz2twnpkej56ez/
The song I replaced should be "SEQ_BGM_MSL_DL_01" which is blank and not used by the game, and is part of a quartet of blank songs with that naming scheme (SEQ_BGM_MSL_DL_02, SEQ_BGM_MSL_DL_03, SEQ_BGM_MSL_DL_04). The names of these empty tracks suggest to me either these were meant to hold the event tracks or these slots are used to fill in for the events when you actually get them. (BTW ignore SEQ_BGM_MSL_DL_02, I was in the midst of making an SWAR for the Carnival Ludicolo music so it's not finished but the sequence is there, it DOES NOT come with the game by default)
I'm not sure if you extracted the Musical SWAR "incorrectly" per se (though IDK if you can call pulling it out using a hex editor correct to begin with, lol) but in my experience it's not immediately compatible with the SBNK that's in there since it requires many more waves. That error you're getting is probably for that reason: I also got it until I stuffed the SWAR with enough waves that the bank was calling for.
Also I've noticed that quite a few of the waves in the archives (and by extension instruments) go unused by the songs, so for this one I just put random SWAVs to stuff it and not crash when something loads the SDAT. It shouldn't affect the song's playback at all though the unused instruments will be there when converting to DLS/SF2.
edited 10:50 PM EST November 13, 2016
by agu fungus at 11:23 PM EST on November 16, 2016
Thank you for the response, icecream. And yes, the SWAR was ripped correctly, as I managed to extract the SWAVs correctly from it. And thank you for telling me about the dummy tracks. If these tracks are meant to be used with the downloadable musicals, I wonder how all five can be injected if there's only four dummy tracks.