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PCM File


Cyrem
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PCM FILE INFORMATION

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Notes: *.PCM is known as a sound file format. However these file do not load on programs that play PCM files. The file header begins with "ALP". "ALP" files are "Ableton Live Pack" which is also an audio file. Only Ableton Live can open these files, however it is commercial software but is available as a trial (about 1GB is the smallest download). I have not downloaded this program to find out if they will load in it yet.

The files also contain "ADPCM" in the header. This stands for "Adaptive differential pulse-code modulation". The definition of that is:

"a technique for converting sound or analog information to binary information (a string of 0's and 1's) by taking frequent samples of the sound and expressing the value of the sampled sound modulation in binary terms. ADPCM is used to send sound on fiber-optic long-distance lines as well as to store sound along with text, images, and code on a CD-ROM. "

Apparently there are players that will play "ADPCM" encoded music files, I am yet to find and test anything.

Also the *.TUN files are the same format.

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Hmmm...

Linux has an audio lib-set that claims to be capable of playing ADPCM headered files, and Header-less PCM files.

Hmm...LR1, I think?

I will check to see if I can get these working. Will get back.

UPDATE: I assume these are on the CD-ROM? >_>

UPDATE2: Wow, I make myself out to be an idiot sometimes. DL'ing the extractor now.

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I'm a little confused. These are the *.TUN files? O_O They can be opened?!

Yep, and inside the data file they are *.PCM . However both are the same format. They just renamed the extension.

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I'm a little confused. These are the *.TUN files? O_O They can be opened?!

Yep, and inside the data file they are *.PCM . However both are the same format. They just renamed the extension.

.PCM files are the most basic type of audio files that exist. We are dealing with the game music files here.

I think the PCM files in the LEGO.JAM file are the sounds for clicking, scrolling, etc.

I'll see if I can manage to convert these files to WAV format with audiacity :)

edit: I could import it in audicaity. Click project, then on import RAW data.

I could hear some kind of tones in it, and it all sounded as if it was played very fast. It also had a lot of noise in it.

Does anyone else get better results?

EDIT2: YES!!! I imported the ice.tun file, and if I'd listen carefully, I could HEAR THE MUSIC from the race being played in a reall fast tempo

YAY!!

Ok. Time for proof :P

WARNING: put your speakers on a low volume before you open that file. It might be a little loud.

At least this is the result of ice.tun

Which is one of the ice race levels. I hope it is enough to show that these TUN files are audio files.

I wonder what the noise comes from, though. I guess it is metadata of some kind, but I cant seem to place it.

Suggestions are welcome!

ANOTHER EDIT:

circuit1 - circuit6 are the small bits of music played when you start a circuit race (and see the driver you are challenging saying some intruiging words)

I am also sure that the music is recorded in 8-bit. Any higher values make the music go too fast.

About the PCM filetype:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse-code_modulation

although I think that the LEGO racers files are of this type: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_DPCM

<file removed>

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Good work bartvbl, you've got something!

Now just trying to figure out how to turn it into it's original sound.

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Ok. I found the right way to import the RAW data now:

1. Open Audacity, and clock project > import raw data

2. Select VOX ADPCM

3. You can play a bit with the endian options, but they don't seem to do much

4. Click import

Now the only problem is that the music is too loud for audacity, making it still sound a bit strange. How I know that?

I found a small part in 1st.tun which was not so loud, and actually sounded as the music should sound.

Is there anyone that knows how to let audacity de-amplify it correctly (normal de-amplification doesnt work)

EDIT: to show it, I uploaded the 3rd.tun file in wav format. You can hear the the soft parts sound pretty good, but the loud parts give the noise.

<file removed>

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===PCM FILE DETAILS===

File type: VOX ADPCM

Extension: *.vox

Purpose: raw music/sound file

Conversion tool: [insert a decent one here. At least audacity doesn't work: the music files from lego racers are too loud, and it gets clipped when imported into audacity :(]

Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogic_ADPCM

Dialogic ADPCM or VOX is an audio file format, optimized for storing digitized voice data at a low sampling rate. VOX files are most commonly found in telephony applications, as well as an occasional arcade redemption game.

Similar to other ADPCM (Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation) formats, Dialogic ADPCM compresses audio data into a series of 4-bit samples. Dialogic ADPCM files can have a sampling rate of 6000 or 8000 samples per second, but 8000 samples per second (8000Hz) is more common. Unlike a WAV file, a VOX file does not contain a header to specify the encoding format or the sampling rate, so this information must be known in order to play the file. If not known, it is normally assumed that a VOX file is encoded with Dialogic ADPCM at a sampling rate of 8000Hz. It is possible that a VOX file may be encoded in a format other than Dialogic ADPCM, but this is not common.

Dialogic ADPCM is an open file format.

except from finding a decent conversion program (I saw some linux ones. Anyone wants to try?), I declare this file to be solved :)

I have a program called MP3Gain that can "normalize" the volume in MP3 files, if it helps...

Tbanks for the offer, but this file is not related to MP3 in any way. This file contains "rough data" of the recorded waves (you could say it is digitised analogue audio). MP3 is a compressed encoding, and differs therefore a lot from the PCM (/vox) files.

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JrMasterModelBuilder

===PCM FILE DETAILS===

File type: VOX ADPCM

Extension: *.vox

Purpose: raw music/sound file

Conversion tool: [insert a decent one here. At least audacity doesn't work: the music files from lego racers are too loud, and it gets clipped when imported into audacity :(]

Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogic_ADPCM

Dialogic ADPCM or VOX is an audio file format, optimized for storing digitized voice data at a low sampling rate. VOX files are most commonly found in telephony applications, as well as an occasional arcade redemption game.

Similar to other ADPCM (Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation) formats, Dialogic ADPCM compresses audio data into a series of 4-bit samples. Dialogic ADPCM files can have a sampling rate of 6000 or 8000 samples per second, but 8000 samples per second (8000Hz) is more common. Unlike a WAV file, a VOX file does not contain a header to specify the encoding format or the sampling rate, so this information must be known in order to play the file. If not known, it is normally assumed that a VOX file is encoded with Dialogic ADPCM at a sampling rate of 8000Hz. It is possible that a VOX file may be encoded in a format other than Dialogic ADPCM, but this is not common.

Dialogic ADPCM is an open file format.

except from finding a decent conversion program (I saw some linux ones. Anyone wants to try?), I declare this file to be solved :)

Agreed. Solved. start.tun comes out quite clear this way. The hertz seems to be Audacity's default, 44100

You might give this a try: http://download.cnet.com/Expstudio-Audio-Editor-Free/3000-2170_4-10444774.html?tag=mncol

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it opened the file, and played foer 2 seconds.

Then it crashed :(

It opened the file in pretty much the same quality as audacity did, though

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Ok. I have had some conversations with a guy at the audacity forums, and he now thinks that it might not actually be .VOX, but actually some other kind of ADPCM. Of course I have never worked with ound before, and this is all new to me, so I didn't know there were more than one single kind of ADPCM. Anyway.

He recommended me this sound cenversion tool. I must say it has a nice list of file types it supports:

http://sox.sourceforge.net/

The only problem is that it is a command line tool.

Ill try to figure it out somewhere this evening, since I am too tired to do anything else.

Ill report back when I got something (hopefully better sound quality)!

EDIT:

well, here are at least some ADPCM types. Not sure if this is all, though:

http://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=Category:ADPCM_Audio_Codecs

Since the VOX ADPCM comes quite close to the original/correct sound, the correct file type must be pretty much the same as the VOX one.

On the wiki, the VOX ADPCM is listed as "IMA ADPCM". This already filters out some of the alternatives, since I suspect I got to search in the direction of the IMA types.

No sign of that ALP though. I could be that the ALP is just one of the more common ADPCM types, but then again, it could just as well be some unknown/depreceated type which is not supported by anything except the built-in player in lego racers 1.

Ill keep looking

EDIT2:

So far the following file types could be crossed out from the list of possible ADPCM types:

- 4X IMA ADPCM

- Duck DK3/4 IMA ADPCM

EDIT3:

IMA ADPCM appears to be the regular kind of wav file. The .vox file is nothing more than IMA ADPCM optimised for uses like phones and other devices that dont require very high quality audio. I am starting to suspect that the TUN file must be some kind of IMA ADPCM now. The question is which, and how to get it to wav (i.e. it needs a header file. renaming doesnt work)

EDIT4:

I am pretty sure this is the correct file type:

http://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=Microsoft_IMA_ADPCM

Because everything else was NOT at all like the tun files

Now it is just a matter to find out whether this is true, and where to convert/play the file

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JrMasterModelBuilder

Any idea how to set the sample rate parameter? I've been entering "sox start.vox -r 8 start.wav" and it tells me it's not set. :(

What extension should that format you think it is, have?

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try something like "-r 48k". They used it that way in the manual.

I suspect that the file is a .wav file without a header. This could have been done to save harddisk space, which was something quite precious at the time the game was launched.

Note that I have no idea if anything of what I say is actually true, since I oly know the codec by name, and I am not even sure it is the right one in the first place:

the ALP at the start of the file could mean it is some totally different codec.

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  • 1 year later...

Yea. I know this is a old topic, but I think I need to add to this. These PCM files are indeed VOX files. They are the same as the music files. Bartvbl, you are correct. SoX is what is needed to be used to convert to these files. The music has the file extension ".TUN", while the sound effects have the extension ".PCM". But they are both the same file type. I have changed the sound effects with success, and I have some videos, but I recorded them for some tests I was doing, and my videos are faulty. So I have not uploaded them. As for the sample rate of the music, it's 44100. But to convert to VOX, the sample rate needs to be 22050. Very weird, but that's how it works. I do not remember the sample rate of the sound effects, but I'm sure it's one of those.

So, as a note to everyone who are trying to figure out all the formats LR1 uses, this file is completely solved. It's the same as the .TUN files, which are really VOX files. Check out my tutorial on how to convert to the VOX format here:

http://www.rockraidersunited.org/topic/3095-tutorial-how-to-create-custom-music-in-lego-racers-1

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Update: I found my video showing the modded sound effects. It seems I had already compressed the video for uploading but I never uploaded it. Anyway, I just uploaded it, and here it is.

Yes, it's short and sweet, but it's to the point.

As for what sound effects I used in that video, I have no idea. That was recorded in October. They were not at all perfect. It seems I had to amplify those quite a bit to make them to be heard. Hence all the distortion. But, it does prove that the .PCM files in the LEGO.JAM file are indeed VOX files; the exact same thing as the .TUN files.

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I Am Not Here

As for what sound effects I used in that video, I have no idea. That was recorded in October. They were not at all perfect. It seems I had to amplify those quite a bit to make them to be heard. Hence all the distortion. But, it does prove that the .PCM files in the LEGO.JAM file are indeed VOX files; the exact same thing as the .TUN files.

This Means we can edit the character voices too? Nice :D

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I Am Not Here

As for what sound effects I used in that video, I have no idea. That was recorded in October. They were not at all perfect. It seems I had to amplify those quite a bit to make them to be heard. Hence all the distortion. But, it does prove that the .PCM files in the LEGO.JAM file are indeed VOX files; the exact same thing as the .TUN files.

This Means we can edit the character voices too? Nice :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCWmv7Yv3LU

MY THEORY IS TRUE :af:

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MY THEORY IS TRUE :af:

Yes, it's true. I was going to say that, but I haven't logged in to say that yet.

All the audio files in LR1 are the same format. They just have different file extensions. A complete audio mod could be created if someone had the time (and will power) to it.

In short, my tutorial works, and the audio has been modded in music, sfx, and voices (AKA everywhere) using it. The audio files of LR1 have been solved at last.

Now we just need to get the music working to where it doesn't flux in volume...

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  • 2 years later...

Sorry for bumping this very old thread.

 

I noticed that in the MENUDATA/SOUNDS folder, the PCM files are VOX ADPCM with 11025Hz.

I noticed that while testing to import TESTDRIVE.PCM. It played really fast, so I started playing with the Hz.

 

So I apparently the formats are a little bit different, looking at the Hz of the audio.

 

EDIT

I also found that if I use the HvsIntro.tun's noise without music and use it to remove noise on the other .tun files, It will become a little more. Still a bit of noise, but the music is a lot better now.

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