DSHack

Archive Generated December 23rd, 2018
(Tutorial) How to make custom instruments in MKDS
Author Posted on 2017/02/04
#2928
Rover Alrighty. So this is my first tutorial and I'm glad to help the DShack community! But I wanna note something. This tutorial is pretty similar to Yawshi's how to make custom sounds in MKDS. Anyway.
Here's what you need.
A Mario Kart DS ROM (duh~)
MKDS Course Modifier
NDS Editor (AKA kiwi.ds)
Audacity
wav2swav
Swav2Swar
(Links will be provided later)

So heres the first step.
Go to MKDS Course Modifier. Click open file 1. Click your MKDS ROM and open it. Now. Click data. Sound. And export the sound_data.sdat to whatever you like to export. But don't close MKDSCM yet. We aren't done with that program yet.

Step 2.
Now open kiwi.ds. Click on file. Open. And then. Open the newly created sound_data.sdat. Then. Double click the sound_data.sdat. And this will open a new window. Now. Click on the small box beside the little disc with the music note. Now click on the paper that has lines on it. This will make the sound_data.sdat into a folder containing all the sounds. And now you should get an error (Don't worry it's not an error) that should say. "286 files extracted" Again. Don't close kiwi.ds yet. We are not done with that program yet.

Step 3.
Now. Go back to MKDSCM and click on "open file 1" and select the newly created sound data folder. And you have 4 folders that should say "Bank" "Sequence" "Sequence Archive" and lastly "Wave Archive" Select Wave Archive. And select any WAVE.swar that has music instruments in it you would like to use. In this tutorial. I'll use Luigi's Mansion soundfont. Now. You want to extract all SWAVs but using the black floppy disk. And now they should be SWAV #.wav now. You can extract them anyway you'd like.

Step 4.
So this is my favorite part. Anyway. Open up audacity. Drag the newly made SWAV # in audacity. And you should see the sound wave. Now you can either make some noise by using your microphone on your computer like I did. Or use anyway sound you like. But it has to be .wav. Drag the newly made .wav you made in audacity. Now here comes the part where some people will forget. Close the original music instrument by pushing the "X" and click on SWAV # (The button that has a black arrow on the right) And click on Mono. And now it's in mono. Click on file. Export Audio and replace it with the old SWAV # one. Repeat the process with the other SWAV # you have. Also you can now close audacity.

Step 5.
Now if you followed step 5 correctly. This one should work fine. Now drag all the SWAV # files to wav2swav. Then it should make "SWAV #.swav" If not. Simply open back audacity. Drag the non-working file to audacity. And click on the SWAV # (Again the button with the black arrow) and click on Mono. Now it should work. Anyway. Now open Swav2Swar. Click on add. Now drag all the SWAV #.swar and open them. Then. Click on Create SWAR. And replace the old .swar. And presto! Now you have a new music instrument to listen to!

Step 6.
Go back to kiwi.ds. Click on tools and click "Make sdat file" On "Source Files Folder" Click on the "..." Button. And select the sound_data.sdat folder. Don't worry about the other folders except the Output folder. Just click any location you'd like to put the newborn sdat.VERY IMPORTANT!! Make sure you uncheck Include SYMB block. It's very important to do that or else the sdat will go crazy. We don't want that.

Step 7.
We're almost done! Yay! Go to MKDSCM and open the MKDS ROM and go to data and then sound and you should see the sound_data.sdat. And right click sound_data.sdat. and press replace. Open the newly made sound_data.sdat and replace it. Boom you are done!

It took me like 2 hours to make this tutorial. But. Please mods. If you find any mistakes. Just PM me. Anyway. I hope this tutorial isn't too similar to Yawshi's tutorial. But anyway. Peace~ (Tutorial will be updated when I know how to loop an instrument.)