Chiptune formats for retro videogame music can be very efficient. Just picking two with particularly good music, I have a 21 KB (0.02 MB) file storing 28:30 of music and 4.72 MB of files storing 1:54:48 of music, both at source quality.
The catch is that they are designed exclusively to rip chiptunes from retro videogames as close as the format designers and player coders could manage to the original. So even the oversized ones like the 4.72 MB of files extracted from a 3 MB game are going to be far smaller than a general use format like opus. But you can’t encode your own music in the format without going to massive effort to code it like you would an authentic chiptune, and you’re unlikely to like the results.
Those are SPC files, and that particular example was one rip of Final Fantasy VI (III)'s soundtrack.
Unfortunately, it only handles music embedded in Super Famicom/Super Nintendo games. To convert your own music to SPC, you’d have to rewrite it for the SNES sound chip.
Everything filed under “Chiptune”, excluding the AT3 and MAB files which are effectively general purpose music formats, comes to 1.14 GB for 4211 items totaling 158:50:29. There are a lot of duplicates in there, because for a lot of these items it’s more trouble to hunt down a replacement copy than it is to store a backup.
The catch, of course, is that it’s all retro videogame music from bleep to bloop.
I mostly use mpv to play local music nowadays. (Most of the music I play is streamed using a Navidrome server with Feishin as the frontend.) Back when I did use a proper audio player on Linux, Harmonoid was my go-to.
Unsurprising given that their repo’s license was a contradictory mess
Anyways I’d recommend using Strawberry instead
It’s an actual Free and Open Source music player:
…That site’s UI looks like someone saw the marketing literature for the Frigidaire produce preserver and said, “Yeah, that’ll do.”
lmao😆
btw did you mean the background?
UI typically refers to the user interactable elements
The whole look n’ feel. Not UI, then, maybe just call it overall design.
But it was the first thing I thought of as soon as I saw it. Even the cursive font, in pink…
ohhh yeah now that you mention it I can totally see it
The wavey font got me!
Especially the pink cursive font.
Lovely that it is open source, but dear lord that UI is a blast from the past 😂😂 👴👵🏚️
It’s an Amarok fork, so yes
Oh that makes sense. I think I last used Amarok 20 years ago.
So that’s why I thought: finally a viable Amarok replacement.
Most players out there seem to be built for like 40 songs?
It’s ugly af. Hope some designer can volunteer to set them straight.
Strawberry doesn’t support about a dozen audio formats I use, so until it’s got wider support I have to pass.
You have support for .wav .flac .mp3 .opus, why would you use anything else?
Because hard drives aren’t getting any bigger lately and I don’t want to multiply the size of my videogame music collection by ten?
You are saving your music in a format more efficient than opus or aac? What format is that?
Chiptune formats for retro videogame music can be very efficient. Just picking two with particularly good music, I have a 21 KB (0.02 MB) file storing 28:30 of music and 4.72 MB of files storing 1:54:48 of music, both at source quality.
The catch is that they are designed exclusively to rip chiptunes from retro videogames as close as the format designers and player coders could manage to the original. So even the oversized ones like the 4.72 MB of files extracted from a 3 MB game are going to be far smaller than a general use format like opus. But you can’t encode your own music in the format without going to massive effort to code it like you would an authentic chiptune, and you’re unlikely to like the results.
Can you name the format you’re using to store 1:54:48 of music in 4.72 MB?
Those are SPC files, and that particular example was one rip of Final Fantasy VI (III)'s soundtrack.
Unfortunately, it only handles music embedded in Super Famicom/Super Nintendo games. To convert your own music to SPC, you’d have to rewrite it for the SNES sound chip.
Also, it might be worth noting that Strawberry does support SPC AND VGM files since 2022.
Makes sense. Thanks!
Damn, may I ask how big your entire library is? At those sizes, you can store more music than I’ll ever need in a couple of gbs.
Everything filed under “Chiptune”, excluding the AT3 and MAB files which are effectively general purpose music formats, comes to 1.14 GB for 4211 items totaling 158:50:29. There are a lot of duplicates in there, because for a lot of these items it’s more trouble to hunt down a replacement copy than it is to store a backup.
The catch, of course, is that it’s all retro videogame music from bleep to bloop.
If it doesn’t play Amiga era .mod files, is it really even a music player?
Funny enough, it does. Here’s the full list of supported formats. Line 54:
Although like .spc, it doesn’t support seeking, you have to listen to the whole file in order or restart for the beginning.
What formats?
Ten chiptune formats, two other videogame music formats (.at3 and .mab), WMA, IT, AAC, MP2, and MIDI.
.xcf
Where do you even get an audio file with a .xcf format?
save from gimp!
You get your music from GIMP?
We used to pipe all sorts of 💩 to
/dev/dspjust to know how it would sound 🤓is joke.
you downvoted me?
Idk but I imagine that guy did find it somewhere.
Will strawberry let me play a folder as a playlist from the DE’s context menus? Like right click > play in strawberry.
Strawberry doesn’t appear to include a visualizer?
it looks like there’s a light-blue-on-white strip visualizer over the timeline at the bottom.
That will not suffice
Nice profile picture!
Thanks!
most people don’t notice🤗
I mostly use mpv to play local music nowadays. (Most of the music I play is streamed using a Navidrome server with Feishin as the frontend.) Back when I did use a proper audio player on Linux, Harmonoid was my go-to.