Music Sega Master System / Mark III / Game Gear SG-1000 / SC-3000 / SF-7000 / OMV / AI

Home - Forums - Games - Scans - Maps - Cheats - Credits Music - Videos - Development - Hacks - Translations - Homebrew Music only Login Report an error Print

How To Make VGMs - Tagging

---

What you'll need

• VGMTool 2

Tagging basics

Load the VGM in VGMTool by dragging and dropping the file onto it. Any existing GD3 tag will be read and displayed on the GD3 tag tab; if the file does not have one, existing entries in this section will remain.

Enter the relevant text in the fields shown. Then click on Update GD3 to write it to the file. If all the fields are blank, a blank tag will be written, which is obviously not very useful.

Click on Clear to clear all the GD3 fields; you might want to do this when tagging two unrelated files as when you load the second, the first's tag remains. It doesn't write to the file, it just clears the GUI.

Remove GD3 is not something you'd normally do.

Tagging rules

General rules for multiple items

• Separate multiple people's names with a semicolon and a space, for example "Masato Nakamura; Yuzo Koshiro"
• Separate multiple game titles with commas, for example "Ashura, Rambo, Secret Commando"

General rules for Game Name and Track Title

• The tags must be in "Title Case", not "lower case" or "UPPER CASE".
• The tags may contain any (sensible) character.
  • However, in general convert "~" to "-" - "~" is commonly used in Japanese but is equivalent to a regular dash. In general a hyphen "-" is preferred to a typographical dash "–". Remove any trailing "~". For example: "Song Title ~Subtitle~" -> "Song Title - Subtitle".

Japanese tags

• Don't put ANYTHING in the Japanese tags unless you are writing in Japanese characters, or you can prove that what you're writing in Roman characters is how that item was known in Japan. You can look in the scans section to find some Japanese game titles.

Game Name

• Game name must be filled considering its name(s) in the regions it was released.
• If the name was different in different regions, but the music was the same, then enter the non-Japanese titles in the English side and the Japanese title in the Japanese side
• If the name was different in different regions, but the music was different, then enter all names in both sides
• Japanese titles ought to be in Japanese characters, even if the title is just phonetic.
• Use the game box information as reference. You may find scans on SMS Power!. Otherwise use what Meka calls it.
• If the game has a sub-title, consider whether it is necessary or not, eg. "Castle of Illusion: starring Mickey Mouse" is a bit too much, but "Ys: The Vanished Omens" is good.

Track Title

• You might find the title from:
  • an "OST" album track listing
  • the game credits (eg. Wonder Boy III)
  • the sound test (eg. Out Run 3D)
  • the manual
  • different versions of the same game on other systems
  • if the song is an arrangement of existing music then use the title of the original music (and credit the composer of that music as well as the arranger)
• If there is no official track title, try naming it after:
  • the level name. Some games (eg. Psycho Fox) have stuff named in the manual but not in-game.
  • the game character to which it refers (check the manual again)
  • the event which prompts it (eg. "Game Over")
• Any information regarding the use of the song (level, event, ...) must be avoided except when it's needed to differentiate the song from others. If it's necessary, put it into parentheses. For example:
  • Sagaia's official soundtrack refers to "MUSE VALLEY ~Mercury Scene~". Only "Muse Valley" is needed to name the song, because "~Mercury Scene~" refers to the level where it's used, and there is no other song named "Muse Valley".
  • Wonder Boy III has two versions of the track "The Dragon's Trap": The full version played over the ending credits and a shorter version used in shops. They are named "The Dragon's Trap" and "The Dragon's Trap (Shop)" respectively.

System

• These are the recommended system names. Please copy and paste, or use the dropdown list in VGMTool, to be sure you get them right. Note that some of these systems don't have emulators which produce VGMs yet, or VGM players supporting their chips.
  • Sega SG-1000
  • Sega SC-3000
  • Sega Master System
  • Sega Game Gear
  • Sega Mega Drive
  • Sega 32X
  • Sega System 16
  • Capcom Play System 1
  • ColecoVision
  • BBC Micro

Release Date

• The format is yyyy/mm/dd, or just yyyy/mm or yyyy if month and/or day is unknown.
  • If you don't even know the year, look at the game's title screen.
  • A good resource for release dates is Sega's "segahard" listings.

Track Author

• The names of the people who created the music, or who are at least credited with "sound". This should include composers, arrangers and music engine writers. If there is more than one name, separate them with a semicolon and a space "; ". Real names are preferred over nicknames used in credits, but if not available, use the nicknames. Check:
  • the game credits (eg. Sonic the Hedgehog)
  • the manual (eg. Cosmic Spacehead)
  • other people's brains (eg. ask some people who might know)
  • the original version of the game (if it's a port and the music is the same)
  • any OST albums
  • the original composers if it is an arranged version, e.g. of a film soundtrack
  • the internet - reputable sources are MobyGames, GMCL and VGMdb
  • if it's arranged - research the composer(s) of the original music
  • If authors are unknown, leave the tag blank

File Creator

• Put the names of everyone involved in making the VGM file. If there's more than one, separate them with a semicolon and space ("; "). This includes the logger, trimmer and tagger.
  • Never remove anybody's name
  • If you are only making minor modifications to the tags (e.g. taking less than 1 hour) then please consider not adding your name
  • Of course, if you don't want to put your name then you don't have to

Notes

• Put anything you like here. However, don't put anything unnecessary, like your website, favourite colour, or whatever. Only put what's really relevant to the song. Examples:
  • What parts of the game the music corresponds to, if it is not obvious from the title.
  • If it's an arrangement of another piece of music, but the composer credit doesn't make that obvious - for example, maybe the name of the singer/band who made the song famous (but didn't compose it)

Tag standards

Check the VGM Pack Standards section for details about what you should put in the tags.

---

< Trimming | How To Make VGMs | Optimising >