Help migrating from DDRUK builds.

Good news, guys. Found the link to a MUCH better sounding rip of Ultramix and the mp3's are in VBR. Tracks just need to be trimmed here and there to make the conversions. Best comparison of the improvement in quality is Do That Thang or Ready Steady Go. Also, if you go to the parent directory, you can find rips of other DDR games, including all other Ultramix games.

http://www.protoman.com/Music/Music/Dance%20Dance%20Revolution%20Ultramix%20(Xbox%20Direct%20Extraction)/

EDIT: Just for kicks, I trimmed the silence at the beginning of Ready Steady Go to match the already existing stepfile. The original started with .555 seconds of silence, so I did the same for the one downloaded from protoman.com. Here's the link for you guys, just replace the old Ready Steady Go mp3 in your Ultramix folder. http://www.mediafire.com/?3z43seedampk7t2

EDIT #2: This one was a pain in the ass, but I just synced up the Do That Thang mp3 to match the sm file. Had to add silence at the beginning of the song but it had to be done in tiny increments until the waveforms were identical, which was a little tough considering the bad quality the original mp3 was in. It's absolutely perfect now, so here's the link to the higher quality Do That Thang. http://www.mediafire.com/?nz3i66cx3xr2xc1

EDIT #3: Ok, one last one for tonight. Just replaced Castles In The Sky but I need someone to test it out, as I never actually played the song before. I gave it a shot and while the beat is totally in sync all the way through to the end, it just feels a little odd to me? Or was the stepchart always like that? lol Someone confirm this for me. The mp3 found over at protoman.com had a bpm of 140.01 as opposed to the original's 139.97, so I changed it accordingly, hence why I uploaded the zip file containing the dwi file with the updated bpm. http://www.mediafire.com/?6z00xu33padac2r

Wouldn't it be easier to post updated offsets instead of having to re-tool the MP3s? Nice find... they sound pretty damn good for their file size.

"MAX 300 [Resistance].mp3"

You're probably right about changing the offsets, it didn't occur to me. lol I'm too used to fiddling with Adobe Audition though, I rip music from games via line-in all the time, so I enjoy the whole process of matching waveforms, as it feels more precise.

Good to see TPH is still alive. (Nearly all of the currently-hosted rips there are mine, btw. It didn't use to be that way but Capcom demanded takedowns of Capcom stuff so =\)

When you say you "added silence" and "trimmed" those mp3s, I hope you didn't transcode them.. that defeats much of the purpose of trying to achieve higher quality since you lose it.

ps: I don't recommend using VBR mp3s in StepMania because it screws with the samplestarts, unless it got fixed within the past couple years when everyone who really cared about audio quality in SM and didn't care about DWI switched to Vorbis.

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Nope, when I fiddled with the files, I saved it in it's original state. Ready Steady Go started at 140kbps (average) and remains 140kbps after editing, just download the two and compare in a waveform viewer if you're skeptical. I didn't notice any difference on my end when playing the VBR tracks...maybe it's a good idea to just CBR it at 128kbps, the quality would still remain much better than the old files.

128 kbps is a world of pain and misery where the children get their lollies stolen from them.

Adobe Audition does not support MP3 trimming at the block level, and in actuality, the MP3 encode is lost once you open the file in the program. Thus, any save to MP3 in Audition, regardless of whether or not any edits were performed, will be transcoded.


The only tool that I'm aware of that can trim MP3s on the block level is mp3DirectCut. The problem with mp3DirectCut, besides its difficult to use interface, is that it, in fact, trims MP3s on the block level; so if you're looking to be able to trim an MP3 and get sample-for-sample sync with another file, chances are you're not going to get it. But some people aren't as anal about syncing to the sample as I am, so this just might work for you. But be warned: the interface is painful.

Syncing edits should be done with the uncompressed source whenever possible.

And this is ULTRAMIX we're talking about here, the original audio files are in a special version of Windows Media Audio. Yay.

I have the song packs, if I can find something to rip the audio I'll see about getting the games again... Then we'll have original files to play with.

What's special about them?

They are only suppose to play on Xbox systems.

Well hell, if Microsoft's involved, it's bound to be crackable. Just a matter of time and the right people hacking away at it.

Unless it's truly encrypted, it should hopefully only be a matter of time.

I've never found a plug-in that can play XM* media outside of an Xbox, or any program that can convert the files for normal use. Microsoft didn't slouch when they built the security for their consoles. The original Xbox is nine years old and there are still things that people have not cracked.

uh clearly the original xbox used adpcm waves, and they were not encrypted, as they were easily converted.

I'd upload stepmania friendly files right now but I don't have access to the original files right now.

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There were a lot of different audio formats used actually, and you're right most are easily converted. What I was focusing on was the video files. Specifically the ones used in ULTRAMIX which are playable through a hacked console but I've never ever seen a working converter for them to be used elsewhere.

I've found a converter for the music files in ULTRAMIX in the mean time. As I typed above I wasn't remembering what format they were in.