I need help with my expanded audio on my modded nes

[Johny_lovin_it]

I just had my nes modded for rgb and expanded audio so I can play castlevania 3 with the famicom soundtrack. I bought a repro of the game because I want it to be in english. It comes with an awesome new looking title font. But when I put the game in, the music sounds off like its missing notes. Its not playing the music properly like you hear when you play Akumajo Densetsu. So I asked around and i'm told various things.

 

'The only solution to this would be to get a real akumajou densetsu and replace the japanese eeprom with a new one with the english translation on it. The game uses the VRC6 mapper chip and if a repro does not have this chip, then the sounds will be missing. The VRC6 is a custom chip that is no longer being made. The only way to get one is to modify an original famicom game that already has it.'

 

Now the guy I bought the game from, I explained what's wrong and he said,

 

'theres only extra sounds for castlevania you can see a difference from a modded console and a original system, the difference is not huge, thats how it is, it woild be the same on a original Japanese game as well.
You can check the board , i used a original vrc6 on it with the audio chip.
it uses the original vrc6 chip and also the original konami audio chip that comes with the vrc6
The cartridge is well made, its not a chinese repro .
Mine does have the sound chip on it.
Nothing is wrong with that cartridge.
Like i told you the difference with castlevania Japanese and not Japanese is not huge.
You can hear a difference but its not huge. I use a unmodded nes and i can tell a difference with castlevania 3 redone, but its not huge. The sound is a bit emplified.'

 

Now I am playing from the US console so I told this other guy that,

 

'sounds like everything should be correct with both the console and the cart. The expansion audio mod adds a 47kohm resistor between two points on the expansion port - this works well with flash carts like the everdrive but real japanese carts may sound a little quieter.

The only way to address this would be to add a higher value resistor on the NES like a 100kohm resistor. This would make the cart sound better but make other things like the everdrive sound quieter. So therefore in order to make this cart sound better you would make other things sound worse.'

 

2 years ago, I bought another repro of akumajou densetsu called
Castlevania III - Dracula's Curse - Famicom
Inline image
I have no way of opening this because there's no screws anywhere on it that I can just open. Maybe I just pry it open? Idk.
I'm not sure but if its a famicom game like you said, then I'd just have to replace the eeprom with the redone one? Or is it possible to just move the eeprom and VRC6 mapper chip to the US original game? I'm all for the very difficult challenge of the US version, I just want the music. Can that be done? If so, can I hire you for this little task?

So I'm looking to hire anyone who can look at both my console and the games. If its possible, I'd like to have the famicom music chip thingy w/e its called, moved to my US version of Castlevania 3 cart so I can enjoy the music during the brutal challenge. If not, then just make the repro work right with the music. I believe the modded nes is done correctly but maybe its missing something. Anyone reading this, can you help me? I'm willing to pay for this task.

 

[Tanooki]

He's full of crap the sound difference is huge.  Even if he used the original VRC6 chip something is off, if it's not his cart it's something on your end.

I have the HiDefNES kit in a top loader, by default (aggravating) it won't remember which expanded audio to load by default, so if I don't turn it on, it sounds like it would on my action set, lacking, but it works.  Yet when I flip it on the full array of audio plays just like an emulator or FC+real cart would do and I am using a real cart.

 

You are missing what he said, that added part, but I've never heard adding the audio expansion bypass would jack up the audio from everything else.  He's just coming off sketchy to me trying likely to protect his sale from a return.  There are pop in kits for an original NES, aggravatingly you need to snap the plastic cover over the port under that cover on the bottom of the NES.  If you get this slot in modern PCB you'll get the audio without having to sketchy soldering of this and that.  But I refuse to chop my system as it's a complete in box console I'm using with my PVM so NO I'm not going to remove pieces of it to slot this in.  If you're ok with it, here ya go: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1254293841/audio-expansion-module-for-nes-nintendo?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=nes+expansion+audio&ref=sr_gallery-1-1&organic_search_click=1

 

I'm thinking I'd do this, I don't mind doing a simple spot solder job like this as I did this lay down add a dot of solder 'hack' to my Super Gameboy to get the right crystal speed out of it last year.  So another option would be this, seems a bit less dicey and wouldn't have to chop your plastic.  I'm thinking I may grab this for when I do FC games on my PVM.  https://castlemaniagames.com/products/nes-expansion-audio-board

[Tanooki]

Also this might help you get in a side by side audio of CV3 vs Akamajou Densetsu to see where you're losing audio:

 

[Memblers]

The de-facto standard NES audio expansion mod is intended for NES carts, actually it originated with the NES PowerPak when loopy added VRC6 support to it.  You're using a Famicom cart.  You'd have to be using a Famicom-to-NES adapter of some kind, and that's likely where the audio is being lost.  Most of the FC-to-NES adapters around predate  any standardized audio mod, and I doubt most new ones do anything about it, either.  So, you may need to modify the adapter.  Google searching 'nes to famicom converter audio mod' will turn up some info about it.

[Tanooki]

20 hours ago, Memblers said:

The de-facto standard NES audio expansion mod is intended for NES carts, actually it originated with the NES PowerPak when loopy added VRC6 support to it.  You're using a Famicom cart.  You'd have to be using a Famicom-to-NES adapter of some kind, and that's likely where the audio is being lost.  Most of the FC-to-NES adapters around predate  any standardized audio mod, and I doubt most new ones do anything about it, either.  So, you may need to modify the adapter.  Google searching 'nes to famicom converter audio mod' will turn up some info about it.

I'd agree with this.  I had an eye opening moment about my vintage honeybee.  I thought they were better made, and in one way they were, they have ready to use holes in the board to use a legit NES cart CIC chip.  I wasn't happy to find it was acting like a crap camerica cart throwing voltage to goof the security chip, which on mine I killed, so who knows where that was going if anywhere in case it could have caused some harm there or on my top loader with the HDMI kit too.

I did some modding earlier today.   And when I was at it, I ran the pass through wire from the 60 to 72pin side to retain the audio from the expansion too.

 

All it cost was $5 for a thrashed copy of nes baseball to get the upgrade part.

 

 

Edited June 16, 2023 by Tanooki

[johannesmutlu]

On 6/15/2023 at 8:28 AM, Memblers said:

The de-facto standard NES audio expansion mod is intended for NES carts, actually it originated with the NES PowerPak when loopy added VRC6 support to it.  You're using a Famicom cart.  You'd have to be using a Famicom-to-NES adapter of some kind, and that's likely where the audio is being lost.  Most of the FC-to-NES adapters around predate  any standardized audio mod, and I doubt most new ones do anything about it, either.  So, you may need to modify the adapter.  Google searching 'nes to famicom converter audio mod' will turn up some info about it.

Let there be new nes to famicom adaptors with external audio input to be standardized for roms on the powerpak with sound expansion in mind because that would be great,i hate that i cannot take benefit of the external sound support from the powerpak with those supported games for on the famicom,all because not having the right nes to famicom adaptor for it,sure i could let my nes or nes to famicom adaptor to be modded but that’s not gonna be easy.