[General Topics] fredrik8:
[GUIDE] Video Game Ringtones and Notifications​

Okay first of all, about a year ago I started a thread called "Video Game Ringtones" on the Galaxy Note 3 forum. Well It didn't reach out to as many users as I'll hoped so I'm gonna give it another try. But this time with a guide aswell since ringtones and notification sounds are personal after all, and you might want to create your own.

Before we get started we'll need some tools to work with.

As far as I know you can use 2 different music players that has the plugin support for these files. The first one is foobar2000 and the other is Winamp, we'll use foobar in this guide.

You can download foobar2000 here

Depending on which plugin to use, each support different formats.

Game Emu Player plugin supports these formats: AY, GBS, GYM, HES, KSS, NSF, SAP, SGC, SPC, and VGM.

For example the .nsf* format is the sounds from Nintendo Entertainment System, so if you’re gonna create ringtones or notification sounds from 8-bit NES you’ll need this plugin to be able to listen and convert those files.

foobar2000 has many plugins to choose from but in this guide we’ll stick to Game Emu Player plugin and use .nsf* files, as a tutorial.

We’ll need a audioeditor software aswell but we’ll get there in a moment.

First thing you do is download and install foobar2000 from the link above aswell as the plugin.

As for the plugin, which should open with foobar2000 you’ll get a warning message. Since we downloaded the plugin from foobar’s own webpage we can trust the source, click Yes.

After we need to activate the plugin, to do so simply click Apply and foobar will restart.

Once foobar has restarted navigate to: File, Preferences then Playback>Input>Game Emu Player

In Game Emu Player menu you can change the default setting if you like, I’ll keep them default for now.

Okay so far so good, where do we get these types of files? Answer to that questions is easiest answered by downloading them from sites such as Zophar’s domain

Again, in this tutorial I’m gonna use NES, so we’re gonna need some .nsf* format files.

Here is a list of .nsf* files that Zophar’s domain has to offer.

I downloaded Lemmings, you can download any you prefer.

Once downloaded, the file should open with foobar, if it doesn’t:

Locate the file, Right-click it and choose ”Open with…” and then choose foobar2000 from the list, if doesn’t show, there should be an arrow you can click on to show more options.

Okay, now we can listen to each track, you’ll notice that not all of them are background music (BGM), many of them are sound effects, which are perfect as notifications.

You’ll stumble on few issues here, we can’t convert all tracks to the same destination because they all have the same name (they will overwrite eachother), in order to fix this we need to rename each file so they are unique. I used to do this one by one, its very VERY boring and time consuming.

But there is a faster way and here is what you do:

First select all tracks, Right-click then Properties>Tools>Auto track number and click OK.

Now we have tagged all tracks with each track number, now we need to rename the files.

To do so, Right-click then Proporties>Tools>Automatically fill values...

Under Source select Other…

In Other's field, it should say %filename% - %tracknumber%

And in Pattern field, it should say %title%

What we did here is that we changed the filename to filename – tracknumber as title for the tracks.

Now we’re ready to convert these files so we can edit them, my convert settings may not be optimal but they work.

Select all files you want to convert, then Right-click>Convert>…

Inside the Converter Setup you can change which output settings you want for your tracks, in my case I’m gonna convert all files to 8-bit .wav* with Hard -6db limiter.

To change bit-depth on .wav*, select .wav as output and you’ll see Output bit-depth, change auto to the depth you prefer. 8-bit will work since we're converting NES, if it were SNES instead, you should use 16-bit depth etc.

I also use the Hard -6db limiter because often when I edit with audioeditor the volume of the tracks are way too high and will cause distortion, this solves just that.

Now we need a audioeditor software, I’m using Audacity its free

To get started, just drag and drop the track and start editing :D

If you're gonna make a ringtone, try keep it shorter than 25-30 sec, longer than that is waste of space.

The only setting you have to change when you’re gonna export the .wav* track to different file format is to change the quality settings.

I use .ogg* format since Android have support for it. I noticed a difference between quality 0 vs quality 10, higher setting will increase the filesize however. I use 10 just to be sure, because I don’t want to redo any of my work.

Where do you store your ringtones on your phone?

Well, you should store them in the Ringtones folder on your phone, if you still can’t find them after you checked, put the files directly in to the Ringtones folder instead of putting a folder in a folder. (I noticed this when I change firmware.)

Where do you store the notifications on your phone?

Same location as the Ringtones folder, if you can’t find the Notifications folder, create one and store them there.

Here are a few that I made (NES)​

Adventures of Lolo

Air Fortress

Aladdin

Asterix

Back to the Future

Balloon Fight

Batman

Battletoads

Beetlejuice

Bionic Commando

Blaster Master

Bomberman

Bubble Bobble

Bump 'n' Jump (Buggy Popper)

BurgerTime

Castlevania

Chip 'n Dale - Rescue Rangers

Circus Charlie

Contra

Darkwing Duck

Donkey Kong

Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest)

Duck Hunt

Duck Tales

Excitebike

Final Fantasy

Gauntlet

Ghostbusters

Ghosts 'n Goblins

Gradius

Ice Climber

Jackal

Jurassic Park

Kid Icarus

Kirby's Adventure

Little Nemo - The Dream Master

Mega Man

Mega Man 2

Metal Gear

Metroid

Micro Machines

Might and Magic - Secret of the Inner Sanctum

Mike Tyson's Punch-Out

Ninja Gaiden (Shadow Warriors)

Ninja Gaiden II - The Dark Sword of Chaos

Ninja Gaiden III - The Ancient Ship of Doom

Prince of Persia

R.C. Pro-Am

Rambo

River City Ransom (Street Gangs)

Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves

Spy Hunter

Spy vs. Spy

Star Force

Star Wars

Super Mario Bros

Super Mario Bros. 2

Super Mario Bros. 3

Tank 1990 (Battle City)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Tetris (Bullet-Proof Software)

The Addams Family

The Bard's Tale - Tales of the Unknown

The Flintstones - The Rescue of Dino & Hoppy

The Guardian Legend

The Jetsons - Cogswell's Caper

The Legend of Zelda

The Terminator

Tiger-Heli

Transformers - Mystery of Convoy

Wild Gunman
​

Let me know what you think and don’t forget to give a :good: