SPC700 sound format

An SPC700 sound file (or SPC) is a video game music file consisting of scores and music data from RAM used by the SPC700 sound chip on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) or Super Famicom. This sound data is usually obtained from a console emulator and not from the system itself.

The capabilities of the SPC700 DSP in the SNES sound system allow for music synthesis by samples (analogous to MOD or IT music formats), allowing long stretches of audio to be produced from only 64 kilobytes of data.

The chip produces 16-bit sound at 32 kHz, but SPC700 emulators generally can be reconfigured to output at a different sampling rate (from 8 to 48 kHz).

SPC plugins are available for media player software and portable MP3 players running Rockbox. Some SPC players offer support for complex sound interpolation methods to attempt to enhance sound quality. Several programs exist to produce MIDI files from the score blocks of SPC files.

The format is unable to support music which is played by swapping samples on the fly, a programmer's trick used to overcome the 64KB limit of the SPC700. The shortcoming is most apparent in the tracks "Yume-Wa Owaranai" from Tales of Phantasia and "Be Prepared" from the SNES version of The Lion King.

See also

• Nintendo S-SMP
• Sony SPC 700

External links

• SPC file format reference (technical)
• SNESmusic.org Archive
• VG Emulation for Newbies: Extracted Game Music - tutorial for playing and converting SPC files

Plugins and players

• Gstreamer is able to play SPC files using libgme
• Moonshell OS - DS Homebrew that enables playback of certain sound formats on the DS.
• SnesMusic - app that play spc files on iphone.
• Noise Entertainment System - a NSF/e, GBS, VGM and SPC player for the iPhone and iPod touch.