4. Making a Victory Theme (#victory)
Victory themes are the songs that play after a brawl, at the results screen. They do not loop.
-- Mono (#vmono)
Step 1: Editing Your Song
Open your mp3 or wma or wav or whatever in Goldwave. Edit the song however you like. You may want to do things like cutting out extraneous silence at the beginning or end.
Once you're done editing your song, click File > Save As. Change the File Type to .wav, and change the attributes to "PCM signed 16-bit mono." Save your song with whatever name and in whatever location you please.
Step 2: Using the Tool
Get to the folder on your hard drive where you extracted the brstm tool. Double-click Start.bat. Enter C for mono, then enter the name of the brstm in OriginalSongs. It will then tell you to "read the inclosed instruction booklet." Refer to the following paragraphs instead.
In Goldwave, open the wav version of the song you edited before (you can close the original if you want). Click Open again and navigate to your music tool folder. In the root of the tool (where Start.bat and the other folders are) will be a wav file. If you're using the brstm I provided above as your base, then the file will be named A01.wav. Open this.
Now press Delete to clear A01.wav, leaving you with empty space in that file. Go back to your song, press Ctrl+A to select the whole thing, then press Ctrl+C to copy it. Go back to A01.wav (which is now empty) and press Ctrl+V to paste your song into it. (Note that you may need to go to Effect > Volume > Change Volume and add a decibel or two to the song in order to make it loud enough to be heard in the game; brstms tend to be quieter than their source.) Save and close A01.wav (which now contains your song).
Go back to the tool and press Enter. When asked to give a name to the final brstm, you cannot use spaces (though you can rename it with spaces afterward).
And that's it! If you want to check your brstm to make sure it came out properly, skip to the "Testing Your Song in WinAMP" (#test) section. If you want to get right to inserting it into your game, see the "Adding Your Song to Brawl" (#brawl) section.
-- Stereo (#vstereo)
Open your mp3 or wma or wav or whatever in Goldwave. Edit the song however you like. You may want to do things like cutting out extraneous silence at the beginning or end.
Save a copy of your edited song if you want, in case anything goes wrong. Do not change the file type or attributes.
Step 2: Using the Tool
Get to the folder on your hard drive where you extracted the brstm tool. Double-click Start.bat. Enter D for stereo, then enter the name of the brstm in OriginalSongs. It will then tell you to "read the inclosed instruction booklet." Refer to the following paragraphs instead.
Your edited song should still be open in Goldwave. Click Open again and navigate to your music tool folder. In the root of the tool (where Start.bat and the other folders are) will be two wav files. If you're using the brstm I provided above as your base, then the files will be named A01L.wav and A01R.wav. Open A01L.
Now press Delete to clear A01L.wav, leaving you with empty space in that file. Go back to your song, press Ctrl+A to select the whole thing, then press Ctrl+Shift+L to select only the left (green) channel. Press Ctrl+C to copy it. Go back to A01L (which is now empty) and press Ctrl+V to paste your song into it. (Note that you may need to go to Effect > Volume > Change Volume and add a decibel or two to the song in order to make it loud enough to be heard in the game; brstms tend to be quieter than their source.) Save and close this, then open A01R.wav.
Press Delete, then go back to your song. Press Ctrl+Shift+R to select only the right (red) channel, then copy and paste it into A01R. It will be green now; that's fine. Apply the same volume change you applied to A01L. Save and close A01R when you're done.
Go back to the tool and press Enter. When asked to give a name to the final brstm, you cannot use spaces (though you can rename it with spaces afterward).
And that's it! If you want to check your brstm to make sure it came out properly, skip to the "Testing Your Song in WinAMP" (#test) section. If you want to get right to inserting it into your game, see the "Adding Your Song to Brawl" (#brawl) section.
5. Testing Your Song in WinAMP (#test)
Now that you've made a brstm (or downloaded one from someone else), you probably want to see if it sounds good before you put it in your game. That's what this section is for!
-- Setting Up vgmstream (#vgmstr)
You'll notice that the brstm tool included a folder named "WinAMP Plug-in." Once you've downloaded and installed WinAMP, open this folder and follow the enclosed instructions. The main WinAMP folder is in C:Program FilesWinamp (or wherever you installed it), and the Plugins folder is inside the main folder.
-- Playing a Song (#play)
Do NOT try to run WinAMP on its own and then open a brstm within it. Due to the added plugin, WinAMP will crash upon startup.
Instead, you must create a file association that makes Windows open WinAMP and play your brstm just by double-clicking the brstm. If you don't know how to do that, follow these instructions:
Pick any brstm. Right-click it and click on Open With. Click Browse in the window that opens. You will then be taken to your Program Files folder. Scroll until you get to the Winamp folder. Double-click it, then double-click Winamp.exe. You will be taken back to the previous window. Click "Always do this for this type of file," then OK. You will be asked to create a name for this file type (I think that's when it asks; I did this a while ago, so I'm mostly going off memory). "brstm" is obviously the best choice.
Once you're done, double-click a brstm to have WinAMP automatically open and play it. By default, it plays the loop once (meaning you'll hear the song twice, and the total length at the top will be twice -- or less if you have a custom loop point -- what the song's actual length is).
6. Adding Your Song to Brawl (#brawl)
Ready to hear your custom song in action? We're almost ready to play!
The code loads the following, just like the previous versions... except we can use MUSIC!!
Music
X:/Private/Wii/App/RSBE/pf/sound/strm/
X##.brstm (Backslashes wouldn't show up on this forum :/)
WARNING
[from PhantomWings] There is a popular rumor (should I say theory?) that repetitively reading from the SD card (which is what this code does for music) can harm the SD card. I am unsure of weather this is the truth or not, so just be aware of the possibility.
You have been warned. Neither KittyCorp nor PhantomWings will be held responsible for any damaged SD cards.
7. Changing Music Titles (#titles)
(Phantom's code allows this method... but I also made codes which are in progress for music titles just using codes)
So you've added a bunch of your own music to the game, but you want it to feel more authentic? Look no further! In this section, you'll learn how to change the names of the songs in the game and the My Music menu.
Download and extract the tool provided in #tools. Open the enclosed readme and follow the instructions. The pac files are in Data>menu2 and Data>info2, respectively. Make sure you have NTCompress!
When you have the pac open in your hex editor (I'll use HxD as an example, because that's what I use), use Ctrl+F and search for the first song title you want to change. Make sure you have the Datatype set to Text-string. If you get a "Not found" message," change the direction of the search. Search for the song title exactly as it appears in Brawl. Note that titles with the word "Pokémon" in them have the accent on the e, so you can either include this symbol when you search or just leave it out of your search terms.
When you've found the title, you need to change it. Write out the title you want to use in Notepad, then copy and paste it over the title in your hex editor. But be careful!
You can't change the size of the original file. That means that the number of characters in your new title must exactly match the number of characters in the original title. Consider, for example, changing "Final Destination" to "One-Winged Angel."
Final Destination
One-Winged Angel
The original title has 17 characters. The new one has 16. If you just copy and paste the new title over the original, you'll shorten the file by one character. To fix this, just add a space at the end of the new title, bringing it to 17 characters.
Another situation would be one in which the new title is longer than the original. Consider replacing "Battlefield" with "One-Winged Angel."
Battlefield
One-Winged Angel
Eleven characters vs. sixteen. There are two ways around this. One way is to choose your replacements such that the original title is long enough to accommodate the new one, though that might get more difficult as you add more and more songs. The second way is to abbreviate or be creative with the new title to make it fit. In our example, you could just title it "OWA," though I don't really like that. For this case, I would call it "Sephiroth" (9 characters, so you'd have to add two spaces at the end), since it's his theme.
When you're done, save and close the file and work on the other one. Once you've finished with both, continue following the instructions in the readme.
If you've done everything correctly, you will have a fully customized music selection. Enjoy your game!