Getting Started

I want the CD quality audio in Zelda 3, what do I need to do?

First, download the latest release from here and extract the files to a folder somewhere.

Got it, what's next?

Let's patch your completely legally obtained Zelda 3 ROM first. Take your favorite patching program, such as LunarIPS and apply the .ips file to your ROM. This might be a good time to double check that the ROM file works correctly. If it does not, your ROM had headers in it and you'll need to either remove those or legally obtain a ROM without headers.

My ROM is ready. What do I do next?

Check the folder you extracted the release files to and you should see a folder titled "Zelda3.sfc". Rename your ROM to "Zelda3.sfc" and put it in this folder. Don't bother the other files in this folder!

Done. What now?

You're pretty much done. The game should play normally, but you're here for the CD quality audio, so here's what I recommend you do for music: In the folder you extracted the release files to, you should see a folder titled Soundtrack with a few .flac files inside courtesy of Shane Johnson.

Now, go to this website and download the full album of the excellent Zelda Reorchestrated's (ZREO) Link to the Past. Dump those .mp3 files into the same folder as Shane's music.

Now comes the tedious part. You need to convert these .mp3 files to .flac files. I wish I had a simple program to do this for you, but I don't. If anyone knows an easy way to make this simpler, please send me an e-mail.

Once all your .flac files have been made, simply run ConvertZREOSoundtrack.bat to create a collection of files named "Zelda3-#.pcm" where # is some number. These .pcm files are the audio files each represent a song for the game to play.

Copy these files from the "Soundtrack" folder and put them into the "Zelda3.sfc" folder. Your ROM should now play the ZREO and Shane's audio files at the appropriate points in the game.

Alternately, you can use a third-party program like GoldWave to convert the .mp3 files to the format that wav2msu.exe can use. In order for the music files to be converted properly, they need to be in a specific format of .wav:

Wave PCM signed 16 bit, 44100 Hz, 1411 kbps, stereo

This means that the .wav file must be encoded with signed pulse-code modulation at a resolution of 16 bits, a sample rate of 44.1 kHz, and a bit rate of 1411 kilobits per second. You don't need the file to be stereo, but it will sound much better if it is.

Most other .wav formats cause wav2msu.exe to produce unusable audio files or simply fail to produce anything at all.

Is that it?

You will encounter some weird music behavior unless you give the game a .pcm file for every song in the game (please consult the Tracklist). For more information on these problems, please check out the Issues page. Until then, the best recommendation I have for you is to fill in the gaps in the soundtrack with new songs. See below for how to do that.

I want to add [SOME SPECIFIC SONG] into the game when [SOME SONG ON THE SOUNDTRACK] is supposed to play!

Cool, here's how to do that:

First, get the song you want to put into the game and convert it to .flac format. (Note, you can also convert it to .wav, but I have no idea what exactly you need to do to make your .wav file compatible with the conversion program, so I always just use .flac)

Second, use wav2msu.exe, included in the release's Soundtrack folder, to convert the .flac file to a .pcm file that the patched ROM can use. You can find more information on wav2msu here.

Third, rename the .pcm file to "Zelda3-#.pcm" where # represents the track number for the song you want to overwrite on the Tracklist page of the wiki.

Finally, copy your .pcm file into the "Zelda3.sfc" folder and enjoy.

Not all the songs in the game are represented! What gives?

The ZREO Link to the Past soundtrack is unfortunately not complete. I contacted my friend Shane Johnson, who has graciously agreed to try and fill some of the gaps, but even then there are tracks missing. There's nothing I can do about this right now, but if you know someone who can provide me with high quality tracks that I can redistribute freely with this project, please drop me a line and I'll be more than happy to include them in the project. Until that day comes, feel free to substitute in your own songs using the instructions above.