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Magnius Guide to Pokemon Music Hacking

Lord Varion

Guess who's back?
2,642
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15
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  • Age 29
  • Seen Jan 6, 2015
When I try to open up Sappy, I get this error:

Run-time error '339':

Component 'vbalCbEx6.ocx' or one of it's dependencies not correctly registered: a file is mossing or invalid.

I'm using Windows 7 Ultimate.
Any help?

Go onto google and search for 'vbalCbEx6.ocx free download' once downloaded place it in your sappy folder.

I'm not 100% sure if it would work. Because with me sappy does not work on windows 7 starter and up.
 

RichterSnipes

Not even a nibble...
513
Posts
12
Years
  • Age 30
  • USA
  • Seen Dec 1, 2023
Go onto google and search for 'vbalCbEx6.ocx free download' once downloaded place it in your sappy folder.

I'm not 100% sure if it would work. Because with me sappy does not work on windows 7 starter and up.

Actually, the Fire Emblem Community released a great Sappy mod that is actually fully functional on Windows Vista/7 computers. It also comes with a voice table editor to boot, which is coming to great use in what I'm trying to achieve in my (currently) personal hack.

The link and instructions are in DavidJCobb's music inserting tutorial on this same forum; it should be near the top. Install it on top of a regular Sappy install to get it working flawlessly.
 

DrerAhv

She That Derps in the Night
9
Posts
13
Years
I've got an issue of my own.
I am trying to import the Myst theme as the title screen theme for Pokemon Ruby. I acquired the midi from the midimole website (I would post urls to show you exactly what I'm talking about, but it appears I'm not authorized to do so.)
I can manage to get the file into .s format easily, but when I try to Assemble the song Sappy freezes.

I've changed the instruments in the song numerous times, and the current setup is Pizzicato Strings, Timpani, Synth Bass 1, and Acoustic Grand Piano. I've tried various different programs and methods to insert this song into the game and so far nothing has worked. Please help.
 

ipatix

Sound Expert
145
Posts
15
Years
Well make sure when converting the MIDI that the file only use these characters:
- "A-Z"
- "a-z"
- "0-9"
- "." , "_"

That should prevent Sappy form crashing.
For the second problem:
On this sound-engine you are limited to 128 MIDI programs and the MIDI percussion-MIDI-channel won't change anything and so program "0 - Acoustic Grand Piano" is usually used as a percussion kit.
When you want to use the piano use the program "1 - Bright Acoustic Piano" , but make sure your voicegroup contains all these instruments.

Hope you understood my English ;-)
 

DrerAhv

She That Derps in the Night
9
Posts
13
Years
Well make sure when converting the MIDI that the file only use these characters:
- "A-Z"
- "a-z"
- "0-9"
- "." , "_"

That should prevent Sappy form crashing.
For the second problem:
On this sound-engine you are limited to 128 MIDI programs and the MIDI percussion-MIDI-channel won't change anything and so program "0 - Acoustic Grand Piano" is usually used as a percussion kit.
When you want to use the piano use the program "1 - Bright Acoustic Piano" , but make sure your voicegroup contains all these instruments.

Hope you understood my English ;-)
Alright, I've tried that.
I'm using the voicegroup offset of 0x43B8A0, which is;
Code:
0x43B8A0

01 - Bright Acoustic
09 - Glockenspiel
35 - Fretless Bass
45 - Pizzicato Strings
46 - Harp
47 - Timpani
48 - Strings
60 - French Horn
73 - Flute
My instrument setup, after some fiddling, contains only Pizzicato Strings, Flute, Timpani, and Fretless Bass.
I'm using an empty offset as the Base Destination.
When I press "Assemble that Ugly Thing", I get an error message that reads:

"Run-time error '13':
type mismatch"

once I hit either OK or X on that message, Sappy closes and a new error message appears that reads:

"Run-time error '-2147418105 (80010007)':
Automation error
The callee (server [not server aplication]) is not available and disappeared; all connections are invalid. The call may have executed."

Upon hitting OK/X for that message it closes and nothing else appears.
What do I do to avoid this?
 

Alexander Nicholi

what do you know about computing?
5,500
Posts
14
Years
        If I had the source code I might be able to pinpoint the problem… I know a little Visual Basic 2008/2010, and I think it might just be poor programming that's easily fixable, like a typo in the code that the VB dictionary didn't pick up because the typo meant something else… You know. :P

        I think that Sappy is, to put it simply, a really sappy program all around. Sappy doesn't work on Vista (which was released in 2006) saying that you need some VB libraries. If you install those libraries, you get another crash, even if you're running XP. So my conclusion of all of this is that improper programming etc. caused the conflict between certain VB libraries (pre-included in some version of the .NET framework) and Sappy that the program can't handle. I also don't think that Sappy is designed to handle plug-in DLLs, so there's no solution there either.

        My answer to all of this is to do a complete re-write of the entire program from scratch, and distribute it as Sappy x.x.x Mark 2 or some such, or at least do a beta for the new release. Other than that, I honestly don't know what to tell people who experience crashes; My Sappy 2005 and 2006 both crash on their own (they'll recognise an unsupported ROM like Red Rescue Team, but still crash when loading Ruby for instance).
 

Shiny Quagsire

I'm Still Alive, Elsewhere
697
Posts
14
Years
        If I had the source code I might be able to pinpoint the problem… I know a little Visual Basic 2008/2010, and I think it might just be poor programming that's easily fixable, like a typo in the code that the VB dictionary didn't pick up because the typo meant something else… You know. :P

        I think that Sappy is, to put it simply, a really sappy program all around. Sappy doesn't work on Vista (which was released in 2006) saying that you need some VB libraries. If you install those libraries, you get another crash, even if you're running XP. So my conclusion of all of this is that improper programming etc. caused the conflict between certain VB libraries (pre-included in some version of the .NET framework) and Sappy that the program can't handle. I also don't think that Sappy is designed to handle plug-in DLLs, so there's no solution there either.

        My answer to all of this is to do a complete re-write of the entire program from scratch, and distribute it as Sappy x.x.x Mark 2 or some such, or at least do a beta for the new release. Other than that, I honestly don't know what to tell people who experience crashes; My Sappy 2005 and 2006 both crash on their own (they'll recognise an unsupported ROM like Red Rescue Team, but still crash when loading Ruby for instance).

Most crashes are because of dependencies and other issues, Some people from the Fire Emblem hacking society have come up with this

It's been modified, and works perfectly in Vista, and has some new features. :)
 

hinkage

Everyone currently in an argument with this member
382
Posts
13
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  • Age 28
  • Seen Mar 24, 2024
I too have the "Can't find file MPlayDef.s for inclusion" error.

>I have MPlayDef.s in the same folder as my .s file to be assembled
>I have the newest version of sappy (that supposedly fixed this problem)

Can anyone help? Thanks
 
57
Posts
13
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  • Seen Aug 30, 2016
I can hear music hacking into hacking into the music but I can not cycle to how to make it cycle?
 

Candra Software

PKHeX User
85
Posts
12
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  • Age 30
  • Seen Jan 29, 2017
Even though I copied the three ocx files to C:\Windows\System32, I get the runtime errors regardless.

EDIT: Oops never mind... I forgot to download and install Sappy 12 first.
 
Last edited:

ipatix

Sound Expert
145
Posts
15
Years
Just for information: Just copying the files doesn't work because the files have to be registered in your Registry and the Sappy installer does this for you ;-)
 

supershadow64ds

Confused Noob Programmer
25
Posts
12
Years
  • Seen Nov 14, 2023
Unfortunately, no versions of Sappy (That I can acquire) are compatible with Windows 7. I instead use Song Inserter, but I have no clue how to use it. I have a voice group offset I want to use (0x43B8A0) but I do not know the 4 byte header for the Wild/Trainer battle music. Does anyone know these?
 
7
Posts
12
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  • Seen Jul 24, 2012
I tried converting the .midi file to the .s file, butwhenever I do, the .s file doesn't show up. Help me out here?
 

ADLFM14

Legendary Spriter
42
Posts
11
Years
Really nice tutorial Magnius but i have a problem when i put my midi file in Mid2Agb folder i open Mid2Agb folder i found no.s file for my midi plz any help and sorry for bad english
 

Magnius

Pokemon Music Hacking Guru
295
Posts
18
Years
  • Seen Feb 17, 2014
If you're having problems with the VBAL error or just couldn't run Sappy on Windows 7, I've added a link at the bottom of the first post, that will fix that.

Also, the "Rom Tools" link with Sappy and Mid2Agb has been removed. You can now get Sappy and Mid2agb here.
 
3
Posts
12
Years
  • Seen Jul 13, 2016
hi Magnus
I found a technique for hacking gba music

it's simple with anvil studio without Hexad so I want your opinion on my youtube channel: TheFredWTF
Sorry for my English :)
 

The_Show

Banned
43
Posts
12
Years
For those having trouble with syntax error #1002, that just means you are typing the wrong offset in the SECOND BOX when assembling the song. You should type an offset with a lot of free space, as long as it isn't higher than 0x900000. anything higher than 0x800000 should work.
 

PokeBunny

Pokemon Game Maker
34
Posts
11
Years
I get a strange error. Sappy 2005 will do everything--compile, play, but it compiles bad. Once it is bad it crashes when it plays and doesn't show the header and stuff. There is no apparent way around this! Please help.

Oh wait, not higher than 0x900000...
 
Last edited:
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