Setting up flash drives for ITG2

So I'm going to Canada on Wednesday (the day AFTER my birthday which is the fifth) and if there's even a remote chance in Hell that I can find an ITG2 machine over there, I'd like to be prepared.

As far as I see it, I only need an .sm and an.ogg shorter than 2 minutes to play the songs I want right?

Is there anything I need to know about before I go converting MP3's for my flash drive?

Thanks in advance.

---

Well, the exact directory structure for the placement of the song files should be, "In The Groove 2/Songs", with the spaces and cap letters.
As for converting the mp3s, make sure the song is still synced after the conversion. Jupiter got sped up and lost 9 seconds off its length when I tried to convert it.
Unless he's changed them, the files in GSB's r21 gallery are a good example. No banner, no bg, and the entries for those cleared in the sm.
And make sure you change the sm to point to the ogg, not the mp3.

---

If your going to Niagara Falls, you will find a few ITG2 Cabs, I also found Pump NX, and a Extreme.

If you're traveling to winnipeg... Good luck.

---

You can always use the ogg length patcher to play >2min songs.

---

I'm going to a suburb just outside Toronto.

...

I don't think I should get my hopes up.

I'll have to thank GSB for the Pluto and PR files. That saves me some time right there.

Do I have to get rid of the extraneous info in the .sm to make it work or can it be left alone?

---

You mean the artist tags and such? You might wanna leave those alone, as it makes finding your song a bit easier. All you need to do is have the .sm point to the .ogg file and (if needed) correct the offset, but for the simfiles I've converted over so far I didn't have to correct the offset.

EDIT: The OGG length patch jhongerkong mentioned only works on ITG2's with the r21 patch (it's on the title screen, bottom center). If it's an r23 machine, the patch won't work and you won't be able to play the song.

I have a question about USB drive.
Our ITG2 machine has a little bit earlier timing I think.
So I want to change that, but some friends say that they want to play it as it is.
If we could change global off-set personaly, that would be very fine for me
Would it be possible ?

---

And I have a question as well.

What should you do if you want to convert a .mp3 file into an .ogg file?

---

I'm pretty sure it's impossible to change the global offset for each person. That would give people a bit too much power. I remember a topic on groovestats, where they talked about whether it was valid to submit scores for songs where they had used the R21 features to play it with better syncing than it originally had. The consensus was that it wasn't valid, because it's an unfair advantage. If each person were allowed to set their own global offset, they wouldn't have had that discussion. So just figure out a compromise with your friends on how it should be synced.
Also, make sure you're at patch R21, not R23 (which cuts long custom songs short), unless you're going to hack the songs directly onto the machine anyway.

Get some sort of crossconverter program.
What I do:
mpg321 -d wav -f foo.wav foo.mp3
oggenc -q 4 foo.wav

Which just tells the mp3 playing program to put out a wav file instead of actually playing it, then tells the ogg encoding program to encode the wav into an ogg, at quality 4. I don't know of a windows program for doing this, though I'm sure there are several out there.
Note that a couple of times I have observed the song being sped up during this process. I don't know why it happened, all I know is that Jupiter got 8 seconds shorter the first time I tried to convert it. So double check your files when you do it.

---

Thank you so much, I will play ITG with default timing.
And I have a sm file synced with my favorite.
I play that

---

Easiest way to convert mp3 files to OGG is to use Audacity. Once you load the file into Audacity, go to File > Export as Ogg Vorbis. Once that's done, change the #MUSIC tag in the .sm file to point to the newly converted OGG file.

example: #MUSIC:Pluto Relinquish.mp3
change to: #MUSIC:Pluto Relinquish.ogg

Keep in mind you might (not likely) have to adjust the offset. The only song whose offset I changed was OUTER LIMITS, because I cut the song below the two-minute limit and I merged the Ultramix HVY and Festival HVY into one simfile (the steps actually end before the two-minute mark, at 1:58).

what site is for download an ITG1+2 simfiles???

I'm From INA

Download from this site. Click Bemani => DDR & DS => Simfiles.

And don't using ??? too much, Okay?

---

do you know the URL?

just use this :
www.ddrhq.com

(register first, IT'S FREE!!)

you'll find most of simfile packs there..... (included ITG 1 + 2)

---

ITG1 simfiles on ZIV
ITG2 simfiles on ZIV
Thread that links to ITG Rebirth simfiles

---

Hate to bump a month thread, but I have a quick question. I got the Ogg patch that lets you to play songs that are longer then 2:00. WHERE do I put the patch? In the ITG2 folder or in the song folder?

---

I also have a question, how do I know if the ogg patch worked, and if I use Audactiy to transfer it into an ogg file, is it the same thing as just re-writing it as ogg, or does it have different effects?

---

Put the ogg patch program in some folder on your computer where you will remember it. Then to patch an ogg file, drag the ogg onto the patch program.

Listen to the ogg with winamp or some such after patching it, and winamp will report the length as 1:45, but will keep playing it until the true end.
I'm not sure what you mean by "re-writing it as ogg", explain the process in more detail.

---