Hack85.Remix Your Retro Sounds

Hack 85. Remix Your Retro Sounds

Capture audio from your favorite game, and tap your inner DJ, musician, or just be that guy with the annoying ringtone .

As simple as the sounds are, audio has always been a critical component of retro gaming. If you've played MAME without the necessary samples [Hack #28] , you knew something was missing. To make the experience perfect, the sound needs to be there.

If you ever wanted to bottle up the arcade experience and take it with you, audio is your opportunity. With some clever software that "hijacks" the output of your sound card, you can turn the audio from any game into an MP3 file. Then, what you do with it is limited by your imagination , and probably the court decision du jour about music sampling.

9.6.1. Capturing Retro Audio

One of the problems with capturing the audio from your games is that the sound is coming out of your audio hardware, not into it. The way around this is to pick up a piece of software that takes the sound as it goes to your speakers and makes a parallel recording of it in an audio file.

On the Mac, the top choice is Rogue Ameoba's Audio Hijack (http://rogueamoeba.com/audiohijack/), a $16 shareware application that's simple to use. On the PC, I suggest Total Recorder (http://www.highcriteria.com/), which is $12. Both Audio Hijack and Total Recorder have evaluation versions available so you can try before you buy.

With Audio Hijack, you need to drag the application you want to record to the Audio Hijack main window. Click the Hijack button to launch the application, click Record in the Audio Hijack window and start playing the game. Figure 9-25 shows an Audio Hijack session with MacMAME.

Figure 9-25. Recording the sounds of Missile Command

When you're done, click Record again to stop recording, and use the release button to stop Hijacking the audio. Audio Hijack will save the sound to your desktop, using a name such as MacMAME Session 20050628 2112.aiff .

It's a bit simpler on Windows with Total Recorder: start recording and play your game. Total Recorder will capture all audio that comes out of your PC. When you're done, you can save the audio in MP3 or WAV format.

The reason it's easier is that Total Recorder replaces your sound driver with its own, and redirects the sound to the real card at the same time it's recording. You shouldn't even notice this, but if you go to your Sounds and Audio control panel, you'll see that "Playback through TotalRecorder" is specified as your output device. Total Recorder lets you change its settings so that the Total Recorder audio device is only active while you are using Total Recorder, but you'll need to launch Total Recorder before you launch the programs you want to record if you use this option.

9.6.2. Edit Your Audio

After you've saved your sound into an MP3 or WAV, you'll no doubt have some sound at the beginning and end that you don't want. The top- notch (and free) Audacity (http://audacity. sourceforge .net/) comes to the rescue, whether you are on Mac OS X, Windows, or even Linux and Unix. You can open a file in Audacity, and select the segment of sound you're interested in, as shown in Figure 9-26.

Figure 9-26. Selecting the bit of sound you want

Once you've isolated the bit of sound you want, choose File Export Selection as MP3. The first time you export to MP3, youll get some instructions for finding the add-on library you need to create MP3s. Follow the instructions, and you'll be on your way.

The fun with Audacity doesn't end here: it's a full featured audio editing application. Want to add echo, compression, or even a wahwah sound? Select the segment of sound you want to modify and choose an effect from the Effect menu. Be sure to try the GVerb effect, which lets you specify a room size , reverb time, and more. There are more plugins available at the Audacity home page.

9.6.3. Do Something Cool with It

Now that you've got MP3s of your retro sound effects, you can do what you want with them. Pull them into GarageBand and lay down some rad tracks. Weave them into the background of your mixes so they are barely perceptible, but leave your audience with a longing for the old arcade.

I'm no musician, and I'm no DJ; I'm but a man of simple needs. So I'm going to beam that sound over to my cell phone and set it as a ringtone. Since my cell phone (a Nokia 3650) doesn't support MP3 files, I had to use File Export Selection as WAV to create a file that it would use.

Some phones use even more exotic audio formats. One of the easiest ways to convert your MP3s or WAVs to the right file type is to use Mobile PhoneTools (http://www.bvrp.com/eng/products/mobilephonetools), a $40 application that can create ringtones (among its many other talents) for a wide variety of cell phones.


After I had my missile_command.wav file, I beamed it over to my cell phone using Bluetooth, and it appeared on my phone as a message and opened up in a sound player. On my phone, I saved the sound (by selecting Options Save), and exited the sound player (so the sound file wouldnt be in use when my phone rang). Finally, I went into the Profiles utility, and set missile_command.wav as my ringtone. When you hear me coming, reach for your trackball !

Brian Jepson



Retro Gaming Hacks
Retro Gaming Hacks: Tips & Tools for Playing the Classics
ISBN: 0596009178
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 150
Authors: Chris Kohler

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