Custom MvC2 - Convert Your Song Files

Renaming and Converting Song Files

This process is Dreamcast/Playstation only and does not work for any other version. You cannot modify the NAOMI/Arcade ROM with these steps.

Steps:

Get Ready
Filenames
Convert your songs to WAV
Convert WAV to ADX using ADXENCD
Finish

Get Ready

First, download all your song files that you want to be in your mix. (If a song you like is on somebody else's mix, you can always get a copy of that mix, extract it, and copy that ADX file onto your own mix.)

Both the Dreamcast and PS2/PS3 versions of MvC2 use ADX files for the songs. So we need a tool to convert your songs to ADX files. There's a lot of ADX tools, but we need ones that support looping. We want looping because if you're on a stage for too long, the music will cut out if the song doesn't loop.

Don't use long file names for your audio files. This screws up some of these old converters.

WARNING: if you use really hot songs on your mix YouTube or Twitch may mute or block your videos entirely. This keeps happening. Please don't accidentally screw up somebody's tournament or cause us to lose history.

Filenames

Here is the list of the songs you can replace for your Custom MVC2:

Name	Where it's used
ADX_SELC	Select screen
ADX_S000	The Pirate Ship Stage
ADX_S010	Desert
ADX_S020	Inside the factory
ADX_S030	Carnival Stage
ADX_S040	Bridge stage
ADX_S050	Blue Underground Cave
ADX_S060	Clock Tower
ADX_S070	Ice Boat Stage
ADX_S080	Abyss 1
ADX_S090	Abyss 2
ADX_S0A0	Abyss 3
ADX_S0B0	Training
ADX_CAPL	Capcom logo during boot
ADX_CONT	Continue music
ADX_HERE	Here comes a new challenger
ADX_MENU	Menu
ADX_NETW	Networking (Japan PS2 only, unused for Japan Dreamcast)
ADX_OPEN	Intro music to the Characters
ADX_OVER	Game Over
ADX_RANK	Ranking screen
ADX_STAF	Credits Screen
ADX_MENU	Menu Screen
ADX_WINS	Music after you beat a stage

Customizing the following is Dreamcast-only and requires Jed's updated 1st_read.bin:

ADX_NSHP	The Pirate Ship Stage (Alternate version)
ADX_NDST	Desert (Alternate version)
ADX_NCRN	Carnival Stage (Alternate version)
ADX_NCAV	Blue Underground Cave (Alternate version)
ADX_NCLK	Clock Tower (Alternate version)
ADX_NRFT	Ice Boat Stage (Alternate version)
ADX_NSWP	Bridge stage (Alternate version)

Convert your songs to WAV

First, we need to convert to WAV. There are a ton of options in this space.

An online way requiring no downloads is CloudConvert: it will convert your MP3/WMA to WAV. (You can use any MP3 to WAV converter, CloudConvert is just a simple easy option.)

Probably the best downloadable conversion software is Audacity, an up-to-date open source music editor that imports most popular music formats. Once you've imported your music file, you can export it to WAV using File : : Export As WAV. BUT! You can make your life easier and your mix better by using Effect : : Loudness Normalization first. Set the "perceived loudness" variable to about -13.0 LUFS.

Rename your WAV files

Once you have converted all your songs to .wav, rename all your song files to the file names that the game expects. Those are all named something like "ADX_S***" as shown in the Filenames section. View

Normalize the audio

When you convert these WAV files to ADX, the volume will decrease a lot (unless you already normalized the audio using Audacity). Usually they're a little too quiet, so people make them louder. This is how to increase the volume of your .wav files:

Open the old version of Windows Sound Recorder from the selfboot.ZIP. (Current versions of Sound Recorder are missing functionality, so we want this old version.)
Once that program is loaded, open your .wav song file. Once you have done that click on "effects" - "Increase volume (by 25%) View
Do that to each song about 3 or 4 times. You can keep doing it if you want it louder. When you're done, go to "File" - "Save As", and overwrite the current WAV file that you are making louder.

Or just open up the file in Audacity and set Effect : : Loudness Normalization to about -13.0 LUFS and then save.

If you just want a silent mix, you can use the empty silent.adx included in the selfboot.ZIP as your ADX file. (Or you can download it by right-clicking here and choosing Save Link As.)

Convert to ADX using ADXENCD

Once you have renamed your song files to their "ADX_????.wav" names and tweaked their volume if necessary, move them into your "adxencd" folder within your "selfboot" directory. Do not use long filenames: adxencd is old and doesn't support them.

Converting to looped ADX

We'll now use ADXENCD to convert your .wav files into .ADX files so that they will play on your Dreamcast.

Go into the adxencd folder you put your WAV files in. Now, instead of typing in all that line of code for converting each song, wouldn't you like to just have it do it all by it self? Of course you would. There is a file in your "adxencd" folder called "ConvertAll.bat". This contains a list of each song that you can change in MVC2. Make sure you have renamed your songs correctly per the above list or else this won't work. Double click on the "ConvertAll.bat" file and it will automatically convert and loop all your songs for you.

You might get an error that says, "input sound data file: 'ADX_S***' or "cannot find the file "ADX_S***.wav". If this happens you probably just have a bad song file. Just re-download the song and convert it to .wav and try again. View

Verifying ADX playback

You can test your ADX files by using DkZ Studio. There's some other applications that can play ADX files as well, but DkZ Studio understands looped files so we want it.
If your audio files are silent - did you use long filenames? Some conversion tools quietly break when you use long filenames. Use short names and you should be fine.

Finishing Up

Copy your custom ADXs to your mix

Dreamcast only: First, make sure file extensions are visible in Windows Explorer so that you can see the actual file extension for these files and all other files. In Windows 10 that's under the View options as the "File name extensions" checkbox. That lets you see what file extension the files are. The Dreamcast is expecting your ADX files to have the file extension .bin, not .adx. So please change their file extension to .bin so that the Dreamcast can read them. (This step is not necessary for PS2/PS3.)

Now just copy and paste your ".bin" song files into your data directory and you're done with this step!

NOTE: You can also use "rADX" to convert your WAV to ADX. adxencd is just the classic option. There's also VGAudio / VGAudioCli.