[Suggestion] Include a good range of default instruments

[RowanDDR]

Default instruments or an included instrument pack would be nice. I imagine one of the most frustrating barriers to just "starting" to make a song is realising you first need to find a good range of instruments/samples. Maybe 1st launch or choosing "new song" could prompt the user as to whether or not they would like default instruments to be set. Finding/making BRR samples and tuning instruments is a mildly advanced venture - not something new users should have to learn before they can start making songs... if a goal of SNES Tracker is user-friendliness. OK, this could make people lazy and you'll end up with lots of similar sounding songs being created using the same instruments... but surely that's a better problem to have than the problem of people not even starting to make a song because they find it too difficult.

[RowanDDR]

So, lets start collecting some nice BRRs and instuments (.sti) here in this shared GDrive folder:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ivlG3aUpbK1Z92sMWtZAPlRnbZzhi8Lh?usp=sharing [new link as of 1 July 2020]

Please name them sensibly to include what the sound is (guitar, bell, drum, laserbeam, scream etc), and if applicable, what game it came from, and what SPC in the game. AND the "note" which the sample sounds best played at.

[RowanDDR]

So, would this be a good example filename, that includes all the info we want for submitted BRRs & Instruments? Guitar (UN Squadron) (Note C3) SPC004.brr

I'm assume the SPCs in a rom are numbered (the last part)?

[bazz1tv]

Prepare thyself. I don't aim to assemble a master collection of every instrument or anything like that. Still, using a standard would aid organization skills. For a master repo, I'm proposing the following:

• no spaces in the filename (Cross platform / Unix friendly)
• If your sample or instrument comes from a video game SPC pack, use the following convention: game-song#-DIRslot-title.sti. Each section separated by dash (-)
• if different, use your best judgement to match the above look and feel

game name is of the standard shorthand list as used in SNES Music. Example: Super Mario Kart = smk. We could benefit from a simple table linking the shorthand to the full name, but I cannot find one aside from a one-sided dat file. I'll generate a proper LUT for reference. Here's an example of an STI filename. smk-02-0b-piano.sti

If you don't know the shorthand name for the game, just do your best, it can get renamed later.

As @]RowaN[ pointed out, some samples need a Note Hint. So in that specific case: game-song#-DIRslot-description-A3.sti This would represent an A-3 note hint

Thoughts? Let's standardize sooner than later. It will definitely help manage future rip expeditions

[RowanDDR]

DIRslot? How do you find that?

Description first? I imagine if users are looking for a piano, they may find it easiest to order the files a-z to easily see all the different pianos? Just a suggestion.

[bazz1tv]

DIRslot? How do you find that?

Note that only 64 out of max possible 256 DIR slots are visible at a time. It is possible to scroll through them with Shift + Left-Arrow and Shift + Right-Arrow key shortcuts. However, most samples are likely to be found and used on that first page worth.

Description first? I imagine if users are looking for a piano, they may find it easiest to order the files a-z to easily see all the different pianos? Just a suggestion.

Well, then this relates to deciding to organize by instrument rather than by game.

Idea: In-App STI browser based on Metadata

I definitely want to supply more meta data to STI file format so that eventually an app could organize STIs in whatever way the user wants to, whether that's by Game or by keyword "Piano", etc etc. When that program exists, it won't matter what the file name is!! The user can just point to a global STI directory and it will all get organized automatically!! That's the dream <3

For now, feel free to put description first, but even more importantly, make category folders such as "keyboard" and in there you could have your files for piano, electric piano, organ. Then another folder for "synth". We already have a percussion folder and that could have cymbals (crash, ride), hihats, kick drums, snare, toms, etc.

I think we also need an "Unknown" folder because some sounds are just so other worldly :joy:

Going in that direction feels good, right?

[RowanDDR]

Instruments folder is getting messy:

I propose this structure:

/BRR/
/BRR/PERCUSSION/
/BRR/INSTRUMENTS/
/BRR/SFX/
/BRR/UNSORTED/

/STI/
/STI/PERCUSSION/
/STI/INSTRUMENTS/
/STI/SFX/
/STI/UNSORTED/

Thoughts?