Unused Music

This is a sub-page of Pikmin 2.

Unused Streamed Music#

There are also a bunch of duplicate audio files of existing songs. Two of these copies might have been intended for Challenge Mode:

• ff_c_floor_in.w.32.c4, a copy of the theme for landing on a cave floor.
• ff_c_return_e.w.32.c4, a copy of the music for returning from the Emergence Cave.

These other seven were saved at a different sample rate:

• ff_explain_f60.w.44.c4, a copy of an explanation cutscene theme.
• ff_explain_f75.w.44.c4, a copy of an explanation cutscene theme.
• ff_explain_f90.w.44.c4, a copy of an explanation cutscene theme.
• ff_vs_annihiOW.w.44.c4, a copy of the theme for Olimar winning via extinction in 2-Player Battle.
• ff_vs_pdownLW.w.44.c4, a copy of the theme for Louie winning via leader KO in 2-Player Battle.
• ff_vs_pdownOW.w.44.c4, a copy of the theme for Olimar winning via leader KO in 2-Player Battle.
• ff_vs_tgetOW.w.44.c4, a copy of the theme for Olimar winning via marbles in 2-Player Battle.
• ff_vs_tgetLW.w.44.c4, a copy of the theme for Louie winning via marbles in 2-Player Battle.
• ff_vs_tgetDR.w.44.c4, a copy of the theme for a marble draw in 2-Player Battle. (Yes, there are a lot of 2-Player battle ending themes)

Unused Sequenced Music#

This page or section needs more audio. There's a whole lotta words here, but not enough audio. Please fix this. Specifically: Add 2pbattle.bms, result.bms, and id_test.bms to this list. They all have weird technicalities preventing them from being easily played.

The "ff" before most of these indicates being a "fanfare". Most of them are very short compared to their final equivalents, which loop to work with the cutscene text.

Unused Boss Music#

This page or section needs more audio. There's a whole lotta words here, but not enough audio. Please fix this. Specifically: Get a more complete rip of the Boss theme in swing.

Boss music in Pikmin 2 is composed of several miniature songs that are jumped between to form the complete song. The Titan Dweevil's theme contains one segment that is entirely unused. While the final normal segment for the regular boss theme is 12, it seems that 13-16 can play without crashing, although they just sound like the first 4 segments with some glitching in the later ones. It's hard to say if they're actually unused/unfinished segments or if the game is just reading garbage data that happens to not crash.

Most level music in Pikmin 2 changes to a swing tempo when playing as Louie (or the President). The boss theme is exempt from this, but it seems that was not always the case. Any other song that doesn't normally have swing won't change when the code to activate swing is called, but the regular boss theme actually is fully capable of being played in swing. It was likely scrapped at some point, for one reason or another. It could also just be a bug with how the boss theme is handled compared to the main level theme, hard to say.

Unused Spiderwort Mixes#

There are a lot of cases where Spiderwort mixes are coded in, but Spiderworts aren't actually present to have this mix play in-game without hacking.

Valley of Repose Spiderwort Mix#

Like the other 3 areas, the Valley of Repose has a complete Spiderwort mix track coded in. The pad instrument used for it is the same as the Awakening Wood's. To go along with the Valley of Repose's melody, it plays some very complex harmonies to match. By hacking some Burgeoning Spiderwort plants into the level, it's possible to hear it naturally in-game.

Watch on YouTube

Cave Spiderwort Mixes#

Every cave song in the game technically has a Spiderwort mix, as it's a requirement by the game's adaptive music system. Whether or not there'll actually be any meaningful data present in the Spiderwort mix will vary per song. Every song by Hajime Wakai has a completed Spiderwort mix, and just three songs by Kazumi Totaka (caveconc_00, caveconc_05, coneconc_10) do as well. The rest of the music by Totaka, including "caverelax", "caveglass", and all the "new_XX_Y.cnd" songs just have junk data for the Spiderwort mix, probably because these songs were added late in development and it was clear that there was no point in adding this extra mix.

Unused Cave Music#

Randomly generating cave music in Pikmin 2 needs to have two files: a .bms (sequence) file, and a .cnd (conductor) file.

The BMS file type is a sequenced music format used in many games. For the cave music in Pikmin 2 however, it is specially-formatted. It mainly contains many short snippets of musical information to be randomized.

The CND files are the actual "songs"; they take specific groups of snippets from a BMS file, and endlessly puzzle-piece them together to form a coherent piece of music.

Unused Conductor Files#

The following CND files are unused "variation songs". Dozens of these were made, but an overwhelming majority were never utilized in any sublevels.

First, an unused variation of caveconc_00_0.cnd:

An unused variation of caveconc_05_0.cnd:

An unused variation of caveconc_10_0.cnd:

An unused variation of caveglass_00_0.cnd:

The following are unused variations of cavemetal_00_0.cnd. Only the original version gets used in the game.

The following are unused variations of cavemetal_05_0.cnd. The original version, cavemetal_05_0.cnd, is used once on sublevel 2 of the Secret Testing Range in Challenge Mode. The 4th variant, cavemetal_05_4.cnd, is the one that actually gets common use throughout the game.

The following are unused variations of cavemetal_10_0.cnd. The 4th variant, cavemetal_10_4.cnd, is used once on sublevel 5 of the Snagret Hole.

The following are unused variations of cavesoil_00_0.cnd.

The following are unused variations of cavesoil_05_0.cnd. In each, the treasure mix instrument doesn't have its own gesture set, so it pitchbends just like the tuba. Also, the echo in the pizzicato and brass tracks is gone.

The following are unused variations of cavesoil_10_0.cnd. The original version, cavesoil_10_0.cnd, is used once on sublevel 3 of the Bulblax Kingdom. The 3rd variant, cavesoil_10_3.cnd, is the one that actually gets common use throughout the game.

Duplicate Conductor Files#

Two conductors, iron.cnd and caveboss.cnd, are unused in the final game. They even have unused sequences to go with them: a_iron.bms and caveboss.bms.
(caveboss.bms is not to be confused with m_boss.bms, which is the actual boss theme.)

Unfortunately, neither of these are as interesting as they could have been. Both of these conductor files are identical copies of cavemetal_00_0.cnd, and their .bms files just contain duplicate information from cavemetal.bms.

a_zawinul01.bms#

An unused cave music sequence file, a_zawinul01.bms, has a TON of unused gestures within it. Unfortunately, it was orphaned; it has no CND files that go with it, meaning that it cannot be played, and it is unknown how its music would exactly generate or sound.

Even without the context of a .CND file, it is still possible to look at the gestures inside of the file. It can be surmised that this particular .BMS was most likely used for testing the cave music system while it was in development. While a portion of it does seem to be genuine unused melodic or percussive data (perhaps data for a simple generative test song or two), there are also many sequences of gestures that are nothing but simple chromatic runs, and long, wildly pitch-bent notes. There is also a copy of caveconc_00's melodic gestures near the end of the file.

Unused Gesture Sets#

Gestures and gestures sets are unofficial terms that describe how musical information is stored within BMS files in Pikmin 2.
A gesture is a single pattern of notes, while a gesture set is a group of many gestures. An instrument in a conductor file can be given any gesture set to play from the BMS file. A number of gesture sets are impossible to hear, either due to them being permanently stuck in a muted state, or because they just weren't used in any conductor file to begin with. In the latter case, it is completely unknown what instrument was supposed to play them, and on what beats.

The following gesture sets in cavekeyget.bms don't get used in any conductor file, or go unheard:

The following gesture sets in cavemetal.bms don't get used in any conductor file:

The following gesture sets in cavesoil.bms don't get used in any conductor file, or go unheard:

The following gesture sets in cavetile.bms don't get used in any conductor file: