How do you make Hoot work?

[Agent of the BSoD]

I downloaded it about 2 days ago and tried it with touhou 1's music on their site but only a few notes play and it sounds pathetic. I can't get it to read the drum samples either. (running it on Windows 7 btw, not XP like it says under my avi)
I tried making it work with the guide on their site but that wasn't effective. Can anyone help me?

[Ghaleon]

Sorry but what is hoot?

[Agent of the BSoD]

http://snesmusic.org/hoot/v2/

Hoot is a multisound emulator, and can emulate the music from the PC98 games, and many other stuff. (touhou wiki has it listed in the first five games at the bottom of the page too)

[Momiji]

Make sure you get the latest driver updates (the hoot-ini.zip on snesmusic.org).  If you do, you should have a "doujin.xml" file under the xml folder.  As for the rest, just put the thxx.zip files in the pc98 folder, and the YM2608 drum samples in the main hoot folder.  If it's all working okay, when you open hoot, it'll scan through everything and show the Touhou music under a "doujin" category. 

One thing you have to remember, the PC98 came with two different "official" soundcards, the "26k" with a YM2203 soundchip, and the "Speakboard" with a YM2608 soundchip.  The YM2203 (a.k.a. OPN) has just 3 FM and 3 PSG channels, while the YM2608 (a.k.a. OPNA) has 6 FM, 3 PSG, 1 general-use ADPCM, and 6 "RSG" percussion channels (the drum samples).  The earlier PC98 Touhou games were written only with the 26k soundcard in mind, so they'll only support the YM2203.  Mystic Square supports both soundcards, and includes YM2203 and YM2608 remixes of the music from the previous games.  So you'll see different versions of the same game available in hoot, each will sound different.  For example, HRtP should have "Original Version", the original HRtP music for the YM2203; "TH05 Version (OPN)", the Mystic Square remix for the YM2203; and "TH05 Version (OPNA)", the same remix for the YM2608.

Hope that helps.  =]

[Agent of the BSoD]

That's exactly what I did the first time. :V I went and deleted it and reinstalled it just now, and followed what you posted and the th01.zip still sounds like it's missing everything. When I listen to it, the part where the drums start to come in on the first track "A Sacred Lot", the drums never play (I did download the drum samples) and only 3 of the 6 keyboards play.

I could make a video on youtube of what I did if that would help. (just don't trust the sound since hypercam doesn't detect my sound card like fraps does)

EDIT: Ok, it seems only the 'Original Version' of touhou 1 is lacking the instruments. The th05 one has everything running (including the drums, and it's the OPNA version)

EDIT: After rereading what you wrote, it makes sense, somewhat. If the early games (i.e. Touhou 1) were made for the 2203 version and sound terrible, then how come touhou 1 has more instruments in Next?

[Momiji]

Looks like the other PC98 games might just support a YM2608 as well, but perhaps those versions aren't available in .m files yet.

If you're curious, here's a picture of a real PC-9801-26k, with it's YM2203 at the bottom.  And here's a Speakboard, with the YM2608 right in the middle, and it's DAC chip (YM3016-D) right below.  A lot of soundcards were available for PC98 machines, including the OPN-series cards (using the YM2203 or YM2608), OPL-series cards (like the original Soundblasters up through the SB16), and even early wavetable synth cards.

On that note, you may also see song versions for some of that other sound hardware.  Specifically the Roland SC-55, an external MIDI wavetable synth, so if you have a MIDI synth set up (even the generic software synth in Windows will suffice), hoot can output to that.  Although having an actual SC-55 will give an authentic sound...

[Romantique Tp]

Hoot doesn't treat .mdt (TH01) files correctly, and there's nothing you can do about it I think.

For the other games, FMDMD sounds better than hoot IMO.

As for drum samples for the YM2608 (called rhythm modules in FMDMD), I recommend these: http://www.ylw.mmtr.or.jp/~hosino/ma-net/bins/archive/game_sample/m88/ym2608rl_fmpmd.zip