GBSPLAY(1)

NAME
gbsplay - Gameboy sound player

SYNOPSIS
gbsplay [OPTION]... [--] GBS-FILE [START-AT-SUBSONG [STOP-AFTER-SUBSONG] ]

DESCRIPTION
gbsplay emulates the sound hardware of the Nintendo Gameboy. It is able to play the sounds from a Gameboy module dump (.GBS format) over /dev/dsp and other sound drivers.

OPTIONS

-E endian
    Set endianness to endian. Valid values are b, l and n for big, little and native endian respectively.

-f fadeout-time
    Set fadeout time to fadeout-time seconds. Instead of cutting the subsong off hard, do a soft fadeout. Default value is 3 seconds.

-g subsong-gap
    Set subsong gap to subsong-gap seconds. Before playing the next subsong after the subsong timeout, subsong-gap seconds of silence will be played. Default value is 2 seconds.

-h  Display short help and exit.

-H filter
    Set output high-pass type to filter. Valid values are dmg (Gameboy Classic), cgb (Gameboy Color) and off (no filter). Default value is dmg.

-l  Set loop mode to range (see LOOP MODES below).

-L  Set loop mode to single (see LOOP MODES below).

-o plugin
    Select sound output plugin plugin. Select list to view a list of all available output plugins. Default value depends on compilation options.

-q  Be quieter, reduce verbosity. Can be applied multiple times. Default verbosity is 3.

-r samplerate
    Set the samplerate to samplerate Hz. Default value is 44100Hz.

-R refresh-delay
    Set the refresh delay to refresh-delay milliseconds. Larger values will lower CPU usage, but things as subsong changes, fadeouts, reactions to keypresses and the on-screen display will be delayed. Default value is 33 milliseconds.

-t subsong-timeout
    Set subsong timeout to subsong-timeout seconds. When a subsong has been played for the given time, the player will skip to the next subsong. A timeout of 0 seconds disables automatic subsong changes. Default value is 120 seconds.

-T silence-timeout
    Set silence timeout to silence-timeout seconds. When a subsong contains silence for the given time, the player will skip to the next subsong. Default value is 2 seconds.

-v  Increase verbosity, print more information. Can be applied multiple times. Default verbosity is 3.

-V  Display version number and exit.

-z  Play subsongs in shuffle mode. Every subsong will be played once in random order.

-Z  Play subsongs in random mode. Like shuffle mode (-z), but a subsong can be played multiple times.

-1  Mute channel 1 on start.

-2  Mute channel 2 on start.

-3  Mute channel 3 on start.

-4  Mute channel 4 on start.

--  Marks the end of options. The next argument will be treated as a filename, even when starting with a -.

GBS-FILE
    The sound file to play. Must be in uncompressed .GBS format.

START-AT-SUBSONG
    The subsong from the sound file to play first. If not specified, the default song declared in the sound file will be played unless shuffle (-z) or random mode (-Z) are active. An out-of-bounds number will be clipped to the possible range of subsongs.

STOP-AFTER-SUBSONG
    The last subsong to be played. See LOOP MODES below for further details.

KEYBOARD CONTROL
gbsplay supports basic keyboard control. The following commands are recognized:

p   Skip to the previous subsong.

n   Skip to the next subsong.

q or Esc
    Quit gbsplay.

Space
    Toggle play/pause.

1   Mute/unmute channel 1.

2   Mute/unmute channel 2.

3   Mute/unmute channel 3.

4   Mute/unmute channel 4.

l   Cycle through the available loop modes. See LOOP MODES below for further details.

LOOP MODES
gbsplay supports different loop modes that govern what happens when a subsong has finished playing. The default loop mode is none. When multiple loop modes are set, the last mode set wins. The term first subsong refers to the parameter START-AT-SUBSONG if it is set, or the first subsong in the file otherwise. The term next subsong refers to next subsong in numerical order unless shuffle mode (-z) or random mode (-Z) are active. The term last subsong refers to the parameter STOP-AFTER-SUBSONG if it is set and not out-of-bounds, or the last subsong in the file otherwise.

none
    When a subsong has finished playing, the next subsong will start to play. When the last subsong has finished playing, gbsplay will exit.

range
    When a subsong has finished playing, the next subsong will start to play. When the last subsong has finished playing, the fist subsong will start to play again.

single
    When a subsong has finished playing, the same subsong will start to play again. The STOP-AFTER-SUBSONG parameter will be ignored as no subsong change can occur. The subsong-timeout parameter will be ignored as well, allowing the selected subsong to play endlessly without any forced restarts.

OUTPUT PLUGINS
Output plugins are sometimes called plugouts because that's shorter, so don't be confused. Not all of the plugins listed here may be available, see `gbsplay -o list'.

alsa
    Use the ALSA sound driver for sound output.

altmidi
    Alternative implementation of the MIDI output plugin (see midi below). Should export more accurate note off events (the length register is taken into account), but generated MIDI files will be more complicated and fine grained and probably not suitable for editing or printing a score.

devdsp
    Use the OSS sound driver for sound output via /dev/dsp.

dsound
    Use the DirectSound sound driver for sound output on Microsoft Windows.

iodumper
    Dump IO calls to the Gameboy sound hardware to stdout. This reduces the verbosity to 0 (see -q) because stdout is used for the dumped data.

midi
    Write a simple MIDI conversion of the song into a separate file per subsong. The files are called gbsplay-%d.mid, where %d is replaced with the subsong number. The files are created in the current working directory and existing files are silently overwritten. Only channels 1 to 3 are converted to MIDI, because channel 4 contains noise data that can't be converted into MIDI note events. Every GBS channel is exported to a separate MIDI channel. When multiple voices share a channel, they will not be separated in the output. The conversion is rather basic and complicated GBS files using tricks and hacks will not be converted properly.

nas Use the NAS sound driver for sound output to a Network Audio Server.

pipewire
    Use the PipeWire sound driver for sound output.

pulse
    Use the Pulseaudio sound driver for sound output.

sdl Use SDL sound driver for sound output. On Microsoft Windows, libSDL might use the wasapi audio backend by default which can result in choppy sound. To fix this, set the environment variable SDL_AUDIODRIVER to directsound to select a different libSDL audio backend (or switch to the dsound plugout instead).

stdout
    Dump the raw audio stream to stdout. This reduces the verbosity to 0 (see -q) because stdout is used for the dumped data. The raw audio is always stereo (2 channels), 16 bit signed PCM. Sample rate and endianness can be set via -r and -E.

vgm Write separate VGM files for every subsong. The files are called gbsplay-%d.vgm, where %d is replaced with the subsong number. The files are created in the current working directory and existing files are silently overwritten.

wav Write separate WAV files (RIFF WAVE) for every subsong. The files are called gbsplay-%d.wav, where %d is replaced with the subsong number. The files are created in the current working directory and existing files are silently overwritten. The output is always encoded as stereo (2 channels), 16 bit signed PCM in little endian (the -E switch is ignored). Sample rate can be set via -r.

FILES

/etc/gbsplayrc
    Default location of the global configuration file.

~/.gbsplayrc
    User configuration file.

BUGS
If you encounter bugs, please report them via https://github.com/mmitch/gbsplay/issues

AUTHORS
gbsplay was written by Tobias Diedrich <ranma+gbsplay@tdiedrich.de> (with contributions from others, see README.md).

COPYRIGHT
gbsplay is licensed under GNU GPL v1 or, at your option, any later version.

SEE ALSO
gbsinfo(1), gbsplayrc(5)