Soul Calibur (Dreamcast) - ROM documentation project.

That's great news.

I'm not sure if it'll help, but I was talking about this with someone at VGMC, and they gave me their entire Soul Calibur II hacking folder, saying the community was pretty far along at sound ripping and replacement (along with graphic editing, model editing, etc.) before they had to pack it up from a C&D. Perhaps there are some utilities in there that can help. I'll take a look soon.

Wow, that would be great. I found something a while back called "OLK Explorer" for SC2 that worked to some extent with SC1 files, specifically the 'olnk' pack files. Any additional tools/information would be great -- especially something related to mesh data 

Regarding the sound ripping -- I found a reference to 'manatee.drv' somewhere, I think in 1ST_READ.BIN. I Googled that filename and found that it is a "low-level audio driver" released with the DC-SDK. That might offer some assistance in extracting the sound without the popping and clicking once we figure out how to properly unpack those SOSP containers.

Barely had time to experiment with anything, but I'm going to 7zip that giant hacking folder, as well as the smaller Utilities folder, and put them permanently on Chronofan.

Once I get some advice on the legal status of the giant hacking folder (which was a work-in-progress SCII mod that may have gotten a C&D), I'll make a new thread for Soulcalibur II to headquarter it.

Nice job on that spreadsheet, by the way. I went through tonight and finished getting all those JPGs.

Edit: I just finished ripping some PS/PS2 music with a utility called MFAudiov11.zip. It has options for interleaving / offsets that were necessary for ripping the music. I tried some of our 04 tracks with it, but I don't think one can get the right settings with it (it's stuck at 16 bits, for example; can't change it to . Still, perhaps those interleaving / offset options lead to some variables that can be played with to get the right sound.

I am very interested in this project too. I am an old school programmer and would be happy to help in any way I can.

I am going to look in to Dreamcast audio formats, because most likely the voice data is compressed in some format suited to the hardware. I think finding an unmodified disc image of the game will be helpful too as it is possible the re-packed one has had the audio compressed somehow. Unlikely since the music seems to have been done which should have saved enough space, but worth checking.

I am very interested in this project too. I am an old school programmer and would be happy to help in any way I can.

Hello mojo. Thank you for offering to help!

I am going to look in to Dreamcast audio formats, because most likely the voice data is compressed in some format suited to the hardware. I think finding an unmodified disc image of the game will be helpful too as it is possible the re-packed one has had the audio compressed somehow. Unlikely since the music seems to have been done which should have saved enough space, but worth checking.

See earlier posts; it seems to ADPCM at various bitrates.

Let me know if I can help you in any way.

I don't think it is simple ADPCM. Maybe DPCM or something.

Even if it is ADPCM it is being processed by a fast ARM7 CPU so is likely mangled in other ways. It could be using some kind of secondary compression.

It's a shame there is no sound test mode in SC, and no emulator supports recording different channels independently.