The MSU-1 chip for the Super Nintendo is one of the more interesting and innovative achievements modders have developed for retro games. In the same way that some cartridges packed in specialized chips, like the Super FX chip or the SA-1 chip, this fake chip enables enhancements for games modded to take advantage of it.
MSU-1 stands for Media Streaming Unit, and its purpose is to act like a CD changer to play high quality music files as game music, rather than use the Super Nintendo's sound chip to generate the music. In a way, it's an answer to the question of what the Super Nintendo may have been like if that CD expansion actually came to market.
It seems like the first MSU-1 hacks of games began appearing around 2011, so it's been around for about 15 years. It was first only used in emulators on PC. Later, the sd2snes flash cart could take advantage of it, and you could play these games on real hardware. And probably around the same time, the Mister FPGA Super Nintendo core was updated to play MSU-1 games, too, which is how I've been playing them.
These days, many many games have been updated to use the MSU-1 chip, and modders, musicians, and arrangers have put together some amazing custom OSTs for games. Almost all of them are catalogued here at Zeldix. I recently played through Jud6ment's 2023 Master Orchestral Set of A Link to the Past, and it felt like a whole new experience. The game really popped with that orchestral high behind it.
F-Zero is one of my favorite Nintendo properties, and recently I had been playing a lot of F-Zero 99 on the Switch. F-Zero 99 is like a remaster of the original game, but focuses on massive multiplayer. It includes all the race tracks from the original Super Nintendo game, and a few others released later.
Since Retro Achievements recently came to Mister FPGA, I wanted to play through F-Zero OG with a new soundtrack, but I didn't really like any of the ones offered on Zeldix's database. F-Zero X really screwed music for the franchise with it's terrible mix of guitars and butt rock.
Honestly, I really just wanted to hear the F-Zero 99 tracks. They are nearly identical to the originals, except cleaned up a bit with a few new flourishes here and there. All of the rough flange and distortion of MIDI has been cleaned up to create music that is how you remember it through rose-tinted glasses.
So, I made my own PCM set for F-Zero using F-Zero 99 music and sounds. I also expanded this collection to other versions of the game with MSU-1 support. You can download these sets from the following links. The rest of this post explains how I put the music together, and explains those extra games.
gdocs/ F-Zero MSU-1 Expanded (F-Zero 99 Arrangements).zip
gdocs/ BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2 (F-Zero 99 Arrangements).zip
gdocs/ F-Zero Deluxe MSU-1 (F-Zero 99 Arrangements).zip
Included in the download are all the files required to get the game working. But, you'll need to provide and patch your own F-Zero rom. Instructions included.
One more note before the explanation, there are two versions of the MSU-1 hack for F-Zero, Normal and Expanded. My set is for the Expanded version, which allows for unique music tracks for all races. The Normal one will just use the same music for tracks like Mute City II, Death Wind II, etc. Here are the list of tracks:
f-zero_msu1-1.pcm | 01 - Start
f-zero_msu1-2.pcm | 02 - Zoom
f-zero_msu1-3.pcm | 03 - Lost Life
f-zero_msu1-4.pcm | 04 - Opening Theme
f-zero_msu1-5.pcm | 05 - Select Time Theme
f-zero_msu1-6.pcm | 06 - Big Blue
f-zero_msu1-7.pcm | 07 - Ending Theme
f-zero_msu1-8.pcm | 08 - Red Canyon
f-zero_msu1-9.pcm | 09 - Fire Field
f-zero_msu1-10.pcm | 0A - Silence
f-zero_msu1-11.pcm | 0B - White Land I
f-zero_msu1-12.pcm | 0C - White Land II
f-zero_msu1-13.pcm | 0D - Port Town I
f-zero_msu1-14.pcm | 0E - Mute City I
f-zero_msu1-15.pcm | 0F - Sand Ocean
f-zero_msu1-16.pcm | 10 - Death Wind I
f-zero_msu1-17.pcm | 11 - Mute City II
f-zero_msu1-18.pcm | 12 - Port Town II
f-zero_msu1-19.pcm | 13 - Mute City III
f-zero_msu1-20.pcm | 14 - Death Wind II
f-zero_msu1-21.pcm | 15 - Red Canyon II
Tracks 17 through 21 are only used and available for the Extended version.
When searching for F-Zero 99 music online, you'll come across this collection. However, as user comments point out, the sound quality is really not that great. You can really hear the difference when using headphones. Mute City sounds muffled with too much sound compression. It's not great.
Luckily, F-Zero 99 received an update in its first year that added a native Music Player to the game. From the main screen just click on Workshop, and the Music Player is available by hitting the X button. All the tracks are available for listening.
To use these tracks for my OST, I recorded them using my streaming set up. I have an AverMedia Live Ultra Gamer connected to my Macbook with OBS running. Owning a capture card is really the only barrier to entry with this entire process. Everything else used throughout this post is free. It is possible to record clips using the Switch's share buttons, but they are limited to 30 seconds. You can't get 3 or 4 minute recordings of a full track. So, something like this is necessary.
OBS is free and pretty easy to use. You can download it on their website. OBS creates an MKV video file. You can then use VLC to strip the audio from the video. I created an MP3 from it. VLC is also free on their website.
While F-Zero 99's Music Player has all of the music, it's missing 3 tracks for the MSU-1 hack, Start, Zoom, and Lost Life. Start is the four pips counting down to the race beginning. Zoom is the initial introduction of the course. And Lost Life is the Wah wahhh that plays after crashing your car.
I was able to run a simple practice race to grab these sounds, but they weren't clean enough. For Zoom and Lost Life, I just used the mp3s from the earlier link. For the Start sound, I could do something else.
On the Internet, I found a resource database that has a bunch of sprites and sounds ripped from Nintendo games. In this list, 00003 - .wav and 00004 - .wav can be combined to create the Start sound.
I used another set's pcm to correctly time it.
With all the music and sounds collected, I used Audacity to put them together, another free application.
Each MSU-1 music track is a PCM file. PCMs are a bistream that is a specific subset of a WAV file. PCMs must be 16-bit sound at a sample rate of 44100 Hz. They are still different file types, though, so you can't just rename a PCM file to WAV and have it work.
While you can't use Audacity to create the PCMs directly, you can use it to listen to them. In Audacity, while in a project, go to Import -> Raw Data. Encoding should be "Signed 16-bit PCM" and byte order should be "Little Endian." Sample rate should be 44100 Hz, but if the track is too slow, try 88200 Hz. I found out about this from these forum posts.
Once you have your audio created in Audacity, and the sound is mastered with the correct volume, go to Export -> Export as WAV. However, before that, double check that your project's sample rate is set to 44100 Hz. When saving the file, be sure the encoding is "Signed 16-bit PCM."
We have one more step, which is converting the WAV files to PCM. That forum thread pointing to a program called wav2pcm, which you can download here. This program only works on Windows, so on a Mac, you gotta use VirtualBox. Maybe there's an application out there that'll run on Mac, but I couldn't find it in my quick searches. There are a few websites that'll allow you to convert files, but not 3 to 4 minute long tracks.
Wav2pcm is simple to use, though. It's a Command Line program. Using the Command Line, you navigate to its directory, and type in wav2cpm [file-name].wav. It'll convert the file and spit out [file-name].pcm. You could easily write a script to run through all the WAV files of a directory, too, but I just did them all by hand.
With all the PCM files, the job is complete!
Once again, here's the result: gdocs/ F-Zero MSU-1 Expanded (F-Zero 99 Arrangements).zip
You'll need to patch the ROM yourself, but just follow the instructions in the zip file. Also, once again, here's the list of music included in the set. I also included which tracks I used for each of the selections.
f-zero_msu1-1.pcm | 01 - Start -- not in music player
f-zero_msu1-2.pcm | 02 - Zoom -- not in music player
f-zero_msu1-3.pcm | 03 - Lost Life -- not in music player
f-zero_msu1-4.pcm | 04 - Opening Theme -- Opening Theme
f-zero_msu1-5.pcm | 05 - Select Time Theme -- Results
f-zero_msu1-6.pcm | 06 - Big Blue -- Big Blue
f-zero_msu1-7.pcm | 07 - Ending Theme -- Ending Theme
f-zero_msu1-8.pcm | 08 - Red Canyon -- Red Canyon
f-zero_msu1-9.pcm | 09 - Fire Field -- Fire Field
f-zero_msu1-10.pcm | 0A - Silence -- Silence
f-zero_msu1-11.pcm | 0B - White Land I -- White Land I
f-zero_msu1-12.pcm | 0C - White Land II -- White Land II
f-zero_msu1-13.pcm | 0D - Port Town I -- Port Town
f-zero_msu1-14.pcm | 0E - Mute City I -- Mute City
f-zero_msu1-15.pcm | 0F - Sand Ocean -- Sand Ocean
f-zero_msu1-16.pcm | 10 - Death Wind I -- Death Wind
f-zero_msu1-17.pcm | 11 - Mute City II -- same as f-zero_msu1-14.pcm
f-zero_msu1-18.pcm | 12 - Port Town II -- Sand Ocean Remix
f-zero_msu1-19.pcm | 13 - Mute City III -- Mute City Remix
f-zero_msu1-20.pcm | 14 - Death Wind II -- same as f-zero_msu1-16.pcm
f-zero_msu1-21.pcm | 15 - Red Canyon II -- Big Blue Remix
For King Cup, I decided to use the Remix tracks from F-Zero 99's Secret tracks. Sand Town, Fire City, and Blue Canyon overwhelmingly had the Port Town, Mute City, and Red Canyon themes, so I used them. White Wind on the other hand, was too much like White Land instead of Death Wind, so I skipped it.
While there was only one officially released F-zero game on the Super Nintendo, there were a few other oddities available in Japan. The Stellaview was an attachment for the Super Nintendo where you could connect to a satelite broadcast and stream games and music. There were a total of 6 releases entitled BS F-Zero. The final two broadcasts were BS F-Zero Grand Prix 1 and 2.
These releases were mostly rehashed content, but added four new vehicles and over time had a total of 10 new race tracks. By the end, BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2 created the Ace League which has Mute City IV, Big Blue II, Sand Storm I, Silence II, and Sand Storm II. All of these tracks are now available in F-Zero 99, too.
Out of all these releases, Grand Prix 2 is the only one with MSU-1 support. The MSU-1 patch for GP2 has the same slots for music as standard F-Zero, but the Ace League is looking for music as if it were the Knight League. That means there are a lot of music tracks we don't need, and we need to move music around a little bit.
The one other thing to note about BS F-Zero is that the starting signal is half a second late compared with standard F-Zero, so I had to adjust it.
Here is the download and the tracklisting:
gdocs/ BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2 (F-Zero 99 Arrangements).zip
f-zero_bs_msu1-1.pcm | 01 - Start
f-zero_bs_msu1-2.pcm | 02 - Zoom
f-zero_bs_msu1-3.pcm | 03 - Lost Life
f-zero_bs_msu1-4.pcm | 04 - Opening Theme
f-zero_bs_msu1-5.pcm | 05 - Select Time Theme / Results
f-zero_bs_msu1-6.pcm | 06 --- originally Big Blue now Big Blue II (using Big Blue track)
f-zero_bs_msu1-7.pcm | 07 - Ending Theme
f-zero_bs_msu1-10.pcm | 0A --- originally Silence now Sand Storm II (using Sand Ocean remix)
f-zero_bs_msu1-14.pcm | 0E --- originally Mute City I now Mute City IV (using Mute City track)
f-zero_bs_msu1-15.pcm | 0F --- originally Sand Ocean now Sand Storm I (using Sand Ocean track)
f-zero_bs_msu1-16.pcm | 10 --- originally Death Wind I now Silence (using Silence track)
It's a bit swiss cheese, but this is all you need.
There are no MSU-1 patches for any of the other BS F-Zero releases, however...
F-Zero Deluxe is the ultimate package. All the content from the base game and the six BS releases is collected into a single game. All 8 vehicles are selectable, all the new tracks are available with the old ones, and all the original special tracks from BS GP 1 are included, too. You no longer need the main game, nor any copies of the BS releases if you've got this one. This release has also been updated with MSU-1 support.
While many of the BS tracks just reuse music from original tracks, the MSU-1 patch allows for all tracks to have unique music. Here is the overall tracklisting and the F-Zero 99 Music I'm using for it.
f-zero_dx_msu1-1.pcm | 01 - Start
f-zero_dx_msu1-2.pcm | 02 - Zoom
f-zero_dx_msu1-3.pcm | 03 - Lost Life
f-zero_dx_msu1-4.pcm | 04 - Opening Theme
f-zero_dx_msu1-5.pcm | 05 - Select Time Theme -- Results
f-zero_dx_msu1-6.pcm | 06 - Big Blue -- Big Blue
f-zero_dx_msu1-7.pcm | 07 - Ending Theme
f-zero_dx_msu1-8.pcm | 08 - Red Canyon -- Red Canyon
f-zero_dx_msu1-9.pcm | 09 - Fire Field -- Fire Field
f-zero_dx_msu1-10.pcm | 0A - Silence -- Silence
f-zero_dx_msu1-11.pcm | 0B - White Land I -- White Land I
f-zero_dx_msu1-12.pcm | 0C - White Land II -- White Land II
f-zero_dx_msu1-13.pcm | 0D - Port Town I -- Port Town
f-zero_dx_msu1-14.pcm | 0E - Mute City I -- Mute City
f-zero_dx_msu1-15.pcm | 0F - Sand Ocean -- Sand Ocean
f-zero_dx_msu1-16.pcm | 10 - Death Wind I -- Death Wind
f-zero_dx_msu1-17.pcm | 11 - Mute City II -- Mute City
f-zero_dx_msu1-18.pcm | 12 - Port Town II -- Sand Ocean Remix
f-zero_dx_msu1-19.pcm | 13 - Mute City III -- Mute City Remix
f-zero_dx_msu1-20.pcm | 14 - Death Wind II -- Death Wind
f-zero_dx_msu1-21.pcm | 15 - Red Canyon II -- Big Blue Remix
f-zero_dx_msu1-22.pcm | 16 - Forest I -- White Land I -- uses White Land I in Deluxe
f-zero_dx_msu1-23.pcm | 17 - Big Blue II -- Big Blue
f-zero_dx_msu1-24.pcm | 18 - Sand Storm I -- Sand Ocean -- uses Fire Field in Deluxe
f-zero_dx_msu1-25.pcm | 19 - Forest II -- White Land II -- uses White Land II in Deluxe
f-zero_dx_msu1-26.pcm | 1A - Silence II -- Silence Remix
f-zero_dx_msu1-27.pcm | 1B - Mute City IV -- Mute City Remix
f-zero_dx_msu1-28.pcm | 1C - Forest III -- Death Wind Remix -- uses Sand Ocean in Deluxe
f-zero_dx_msu1-29.pcm | 1D - Sand Storm II -- Death Wind -- uses Death Wind in Deluxe
f-zero_dx_msu1-30.pcm | 1E - Metal Fort I -- Red Canyon -- uses Red Cannon in Deluxe
f-zero_dx_msu1-31.pcm | 1F - Metal Fort II -- Fire Field -- uses Port Land in Deluxe
Also, here's the download, which includes patches and instructions:
gdocs/ F-Zero Deluxe MSU-1 (F-Zero 99 Arrangements).zip
Overall, the BS releases created 10 new tracks. The 5 courses collected in BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2 are the same ones in F-Zero as Ace League tracks, but there are 5 others: Forest I, II, and III, and Metal Fort I and II. Apparently, many of the BS tracks had unique music played during their broadcasts, and you can find recreations of this music on YouTube by TheBlurCafe.
I don't really like them, though, and it's interesting that F-Zero 99 decided not to use them. Sand Storm, for example, just uses the Sand Ocean music. So, I'm sticking with the F-Zero 99 music and the remixes and adopted those for the new tracks.
Overall, it's nice having everything under one roof, but it's not perfect. Both F-Zero and BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2 MSU-1 versions have Retro Achievement support, but unfortunately the MSU-1 version of F-Zero Deluxe does not. :/
It's still nice to live near perfection, though.