Lotus 3

[asle]

Hi,

While cleaning up AMP, I went up to Patrick Phelan directory and found most Lotus 3 (if not all) wrong, as I remembered those were FLT4. I went to see if Don had ripped those, but he stopped at Lotus 2 . So, I checked UnExotica and it's all M.K. . I went, then, to get the disks and ran the game. It's all FLT4 in there. So, I figured I would have to rip the lot. But .. hum .. well, it's not easy. Has anyone decyphered the storing/packing method of both disks ? It's apparently SF data, but either it's crypted (XOR or something) or unknown cruncher data (from me at least).
Ok, any help would be appreciated.

Cya
Sylvain

[XtC]

Ey up!

I did the original rip of this soundtrack for 'Hacked Amiga Music', before UnExoticA existed. I remember it being a real pain to rip and combine since the sample data was broken down into individual instruments.

Since it was a disk rip, I'm not sure why you would see FLT4 when I found M.K. - but my rip is approaching 10 years old now, so I can't remember all the details. I'd be curious to see what you can find...

[asle]

hum, here's what I can find. First SF data on disk 2 (didn't look at the disk 1 yet), located at $28184h is MOD.l3_intro, and it's FLT4.
I'm going to try another set of disks, to be on the safe side .

Sylvain

[asle]

Ok, I went through it all and here's what I have found :
23 headers tagged FLT4, on disk 1. 1 on disk 2, which is a copy of l3_intro already on disk1.
96 sample files on disk 1. Don't know if they are all useful for the music. Some more on disk 2 but it's all noises/sounds for the game.

I checked two other sets of disks and it's all FLT4.

So, it's strange. Was there another version of Lotus 3 ? Ah anyway ...

On a side note, I think the Lotus 3 page on UnExotica should mention that the 8svx.wagner was converted into IFF for easy listening. It's pure raw data on disk.

Sylvain
PS: Thanks to Don Adan for this _VERY_ useful Magnetic Fields Cruncher xfd slave !

[Don_Adan]

Hi,

While cleaning up AMP, I went up to Patrick Phelan directory and found most Lotus 3 (if not all) wrong, as I remembered those were FLT4. I went to see if Don had ripped those, but he stopped at Lotus 2 . So, I checked UnExotica and it's all M.K. . I went, then, to get the disks and ran the game. It's all FLT4 in there. So, I figured I would have to rip the lot. But .. hum .. well, it's not easy. Has anyone decyphered the storing/packing method of both disks ? It's apparently SF data, but either it's crypted (XOR or something) or unknown cruncher data (from me at least).
Ok, any help would be appreciated.

Cya
Sylvain

If I remember right, HAM uses my rip of Lotus 3, I changed FLT4 string to M.K., because this is pseudoprotection, most of players will be called Startracker replay and plays Lotus 3 music wrong, but those are Protracker mods. Different rip can be good, maybe I joined some samples wrong.

[XtC]

Ey up!

If I remember right, HAM uses my rip of Lotus 3, I changed FLT4 string to M.K., because this is pseudoprotection, most of players will be called Startracker replay and plays Lotus 3 music wrong, but those are Protracker mods. Different rip can be good, maybe I joined some samples wrong.

Don, I'm responsible for this mess I'm afraid. Check the archived update logs for HAM for 'when' and the original (over 10 years ago) rip details can be found here for 'how'.

If the rip I submitted to HAM is the same rip I uploaded to UnExoticA (and I'm quite sure it is), then it doesn't conform to our standards and will need to be re-ripped since it has been saved out by EaglePlayer and would possibly explain why it has been converted from FLT4 to M.K. Since then, I've been combining split tracker files by hand.

Arse!

Don, you don't currently have a rip of this on the Wanted Team website...

[asle]

I'm sorry I brought this up and having bothered the both of you with that. But I not sorry to finally understand the differences I detected .
I'm glad this is cleared up and will go forward with reconstructing the songs.
About this "pseudoprotection", should I force M.K. or keep FLT4 ? I'm afraid I cant differentiate the difference in replay by ear ... or can I .. I'll try.

Last, the reconstruction is rather easy, for the most part. However, some samples are wrongly sized in some header. Also, some samples have the same size, etc. So, for a few of them, it's tricky, and the order of each sample crunched data on disk helps more than quite a bit.
For the samples that are too long in the header, I've padded some 00h at the end, to keep the header as is. I did likewise when the header length was too short, I cut the sample accordingly.

Cya
Sylvain

[Don_Adan]

Perhaps I have sclerosis, too old time. Lotus 3 rip added on the WT page. This is perhaps my second rip of this music, if I remember right.