Foobar is a program that helps split a variety of older console songs with the help of a plugin called Game Emu Player.
It is incredibly helpful to anyone who likes to arrange these older songs as it splits the tracks into each distinct channel.
Set up:First, download
Foobar2000 and get it installed.
Next, download the
Game Emu Player ComponentIn Foobar2000, go to the Library tab and click Configure. Mosey on over to the Components preference tree, and hit “Install…”
Find wherever you downloaded the Game Emu Player to and simply select it and hit “Open”, then “OK”.
Congratz! You now have a working retro song splitter.
Image for Configuring Popup
From here, it is quite simple to use. Download the original music files (I personally use
Zophar’s Domain) and do “File” then “Open” in Foobar2000. Make sure you select the game files and not the other file formats that may come with it.
After you have your song, you can go to “View” then “GEP control”. You should see a box like this:
This is the controller for which channels are playing or not. Each system has its own setup and naming convention. This is the SNES controller usually seen, but other times you may see Squares, Waves, DMC, and the like depending on what file you use, for example nsf files (NES) usually have two squares, a triangle, noise, and DMC file.
You may have to check “Enable playback override” for it to allow the settings to be able to be changed. From here, you can slow down or speed up your song, and mute channels to listen to the one instrument you may need to be able to hear.
If there are any questions, please reply back to this thread and I can clarify in this main post if need be!
Some Notes:- For NES and GB songs, I’ve found you sometimes have to go to each individual song as they are not labeled to find the song you want.
- The length of the song stays the same if you slow it down. This means if you have a song going at 50% speed and the original song length was 3 minutes, it will only go for 3 minutes at 50% speed which sometimes does not allow you to get the full song and may have to jump around a bit.
- If you slow down in the middle of a song (or speed up) and you want to relisten to a certain part, Foobar will set the rest of the song at the speed you are currently at which will change where the song was before you slowed down (or sped up).
- Sound Channels take a few seconds to mute or to have sound after clicking the checkbox.
- Tempo does not affect pitch. Pitch affects pitch.
General Information:List of File TypesNES: NSF/NSFE
SNES: SPC
GB: GBS
Sega Game Gear: SGC
Sega Genesis/Mega Drive/Master System: VGM, GYM (Replaced by VGM)
TurboGrafx-16: HES
ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC: AY
MSX: KSS
Atari: SAP
