Frequently Asked Questions

- Index -

General Questions File Formats Uploading
- What is this website? - What are these file formats? - How do I upload new music?
- What is the difference between smashcustommusic.com and smashcustommusic.net? - What is a BRSTM file? - Why can't I register an account?
- Who owns and funds this site? - What is a NUS3AUDIO file? - What is a Game ID, Song ID?
- Where can I contact you? - What is the difference between BRSTM and NUS3AUDIO? - How to add a new game? How do I add a banner image to a game page?
- How do I download music? - How can I create BRSTM files?
- Why is the player lagging or not working? - How to convert NUS3AUDIO to BRSTM?
- How to convert BRSTM to NUS3AUDIO?
- Why is there no option to download HPS, ADX, NUS3BANK?
- Why can't I download WAV, MP3, OGG?

Answers - General Questions


What is this website?

This is Smash Custom Music, a website where you can find pre-made looped audio files in formats used within the internal files of video games, as well as tools to use for modding custom music files into your video games.

Looped audio is the key feature of Smash Custom Music - most files have a loop point which allows the audio to loop seamlessly and endlessly, rather than having a noticeable jump from the end to the beginning. This is crucial in video games.

Smash Custom Music has now existed for over 15 years, and has a long-standing community of Video Game Music and modding enthusiasts behind it.

What is the difference between smashcustommusic.com and smashcustommusic.net?

The current website, smashcustommusic.net, has existed since October 2019 after the previous website, smashcustommusic.com, has shut down in August 2019. This website (.net) is a continuation of the old website (.com).

While we originally started as an unofficial, static and incomplete archive of the previous website, we have since started accepting new uploads from users and have received some support from the previous team. Since then, almost 20000 uploads have been made to this website.

Who owns and funds this site?

Smash Custom Music is currently owned and operated by IC, who almost entirely funds the operating costs of the site, with occasional help from team members and donations from users. Site content is mostly managed by a select team of volunteers. More about us can be found on the About page.

If you wish to support the site, you can donate to us here.

Where can I contact you?

You can contact the administration via our e-mail address. There is also a Telegram group, where you can freely interact with the community and all of the team members. See the contact page.

How do I download music?

To download music, you must find a song on a game page, and then click on the selected song's name in order to be directed to the song's page. There, in the top right corner of the page content, you will find download links, such as Download BRSTM.

Why is the player lagging or not working?

Since BRSTM is not a common general-purpose audio format, it is not supported by general-purpose web browsers. Because of this, Smash Custom Music's web audio player had to do a lot more processing and use more advanced features and functions of your web browser in order to play the BRSTM file. This also means that some web browsers and devices may experience more trouble than others.

While it is true that Smash Custom Music's web player could be improved in many ways, the smashcustommusic.net team is a non-profit community, and as such, doesn't have infinite time and resources to dedicate to improving the site's features.


Answers - File Formats


What are these file formats?

These are music formats used in the internal files of Nintendo game system video games. All of these formats store loop points, which allow music to have clean endless loops, rather than the music starting over from the beginning once it reaches the end. This is crucial for interactive entertainment, since the length that the music track plays for will often depend on the player's gameplay, or may be completely endless.

BRSTM - Found in Nintendo Wii games.
BCSTM - Found in Nintendo 3DS games.
BFSTM - Found in Nintendo Wii U, as well as Nintendo Switch games.
BWAV, NUS3AUDIO - Found in Nintendo Switch games.

What is a BRSTM file?

BRSTM (Binary Revolution STreaM) is an audio file format, intended for streamed, looped music playback, most commonly encoded with lossy 4-bit Nintendo ADPCM audio data compression. On rare occasions, they are instead encoded with uncompressed 8-bit or 16-bit PCM audio. The BRSTM format is most commonly used in Nintendo Wii games.

Since it is the oldest, most supported, most well-known and established format in this modding scene, it is the default format of Smash Custom Music - all songs on the website are stored in this format.

All other file formats that can be downloaded on Smash Custom Music are derived from the BRSTM files.

What is a NUS3AUDIO file?

NUS3AUDIO is the audio file format used in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on the Nintendo Switch. It consists of LOPUS (Looped Opus) streams. With the advancements in video game hardware, such encodings can now be used in real-time directly in video games - Opus (like, for example, MP3) is an audio encoding that has much smaller file sizes, but requires a lot more processing power to play back. Opus, unlike ADPCM, can be encoded at different quality levels (bitrates).

Since Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the most recent and popular Super Smash Bros. game, this is currently the second most-popular format on Smash Custom Music, and one of the most common formats in the video game music modding scene.

What is the difference between BRSTM and NUS3AUDIO?

These are the most important differences:

- BRSTM is a file format that has existed since the Nintendo Wii (2006), while NUS3AUDIO has only been used since the Nintendo Switch (2017).

- BRSTM and its sister formats, such as BCSTM (Nintendo 3DS) and BFSTM (Nintendo Wii U, Switch), have been used in a huge amount of video games over the years, while NUS3AUDIO is only popularly known to be used in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Since BRSTM is very easily converted to its sister formats, it is a much more versatile file format.

- BRSTM, and its sister formats, use the simple 4-bit Nintendo ADPCM codec which always has the same bitrate, while NUS3AUDIO's Opus codec can be encoded at various bitrates, and in turn, varying audio quality levels. Because of this, despite the possibility of a NUS3AUDIO file having much higher audio quality than BRSTM, a lot of NUS3AUDIO files are encoded with audio quality that's much lower than BRSTM files.

- The BRSTM file format and its features are very well documented, understood, and easy to work with, while the NUS3AUDIO format is much more complex, less known, and harder to work with.

- On Smash Custom Music, BRSTM is the primary format of audio files, while the downloadable NUS3AUDIO files are only conversions derived from the BRSTM files. BRSTM files also require a lot less processing overhead.

How can I create BRSTM files?

There are various programs that can be used to create BRSTM files from common audio formats such as WAV, FLAC, OGG or MP3. The loop point can then be manually chosen by the user. Some of the most popular tools are listed on the Tools page.

It is also recommended to use a general purpose audio editing program, such as Audacity, to assist in picking the loop point. In some cases, more advanced audio editing and mixing is needed to create a good-sounding loop.

For creating BRSTM files from other video game music audio files, vgmstream can be used to convert a lot of video game audio formats into WAV, along with the loop point extracted separately.

When creating a BRSTM from another Nintendo format file which uses the same ADPCM codec, such as BCSTM, BFSTM or BWAV files, it is recommended to use a program that supports direct lossless conversions, such as Openrevolution, to avoid quality loss caused by re-encoding.

How to convert NUS3AUDIO to BRSTM?

Converting NUS3AUDIO files to BRSTM files for upload on Smash Custom Music is discouraged and not supported, since NUS3AUDIO files are often found with much lower audio quality than BRSTM files. NUS3AUDIO's Opus codec, unlike BRSTM's ADPCM codec, supports being encoded in different quality levels (bitrates).

If you've made looped NUS3AUDIO files and would like to upload those loops to the website, please re-make them as BRSTM files from the source material you used to create the NUS3AUDIO, using the same loop points.

If you still need to convert a NUS3AUDIO file to a BRSTM file for uses other than uploading to Smash Custom Music, you can do so with a tool that converts NUS3AUDIO files to WAV files with the loop point listed separately, and then use a BRSTM creation program, inputting the loop point given by the NUS3AUDIO->WAV tool.

How to convert BRSTM to NUS3AUDIO?

With vgaudio and nus3audio-rs.

Programs such as SmashUltimateTools or Sma5hMusic can also be used.

A more detailed answer and guide will be added at a later date.

Why is there no option to download HPS, ADX, NUS3BANK?

Since it is a non-profit community, the smashcustommusic.net team has not yet managed to implement solutions for converting BRSTM files to these formats on-demand, on-site. The current website, smashcustommusic.net, was re-built and re-written completely from scratch, and does not contain any internal code from the original smashcustommusic.com website. It also runs on a different server operating system.

Why can't I download WAV, MP3, OGG?

Since these file formats do not have a standard way of storing loop points, and as such are also rarely used in video games with looping soundtracks, we do not provide conversions and downloads for these file formats. Doing so would also require a lot more server resources, due to the large size of WAV files and the advanced encodings of MP3 and OGG files.

If you need files in formats that are not available on Smash Custom Music, you can convert the BRSTM files on your own computer with programs used for working with the BRSTM format.


Answers - Uploading


How do I upload new music?

You need to register an account in order to upload new content to Smash Custom Music. Please do not send audio files directly to our e-mail or Telegram group expecting them to be added to the website.

Uploads need to be made as BRSTM files - it is the only supported format. Once your uploaded song will be publicly visible on Smash Custom Music, users will be able to download it in other formats as well.

Additional uploading guidelines can be found on the Account Registrations page.

All uploaded BRSTM files will go through a manual review process by the administrators, in order to prevent abuse, low-quality uploads, and to ensure that everything is correct. Since the administration team is doing this at no cost in their spare time, this can sometimes take longer than expected. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Why can't I register an account?

To prevent abuse, spam, user data collection, automated registrations and low-quality uploads, accounts can only be registered manually with the help and approval of an administrator.

Accounts on Smash Custom Music are only used for uploading new BRSTM files and optionally suggesting changes to existing site content. An account does not give any additional or improved features to users browsing the website.

If you'd like to register an account, please thoroughly read the Account Registrations page.

What is a Game ID, Song ID?

Every game and uploaded song on the website has a numerical ID. These are sequential, and games and songs are separate - the same number can be both a game and a song. These ID numbers are always visible in the URL/link of a game page, song page, or song download link.

These ID numbers may be required to be specified manually when uploading or changing a song.

How to add a new game? How do I add a banner image to a game page?

An uploader account currently does not support requesting new game pages to be added. If you'd like to upload BRSTM files for a game that's not listed on Smash Custom Music's game list yet, please contact one of our team members through our e-mail or Telegram group.

You can also submit banner images for game pages - they should be in good quality, and must be 1920x1080 in PNG format. If you do not have an image in this resolution, you can use an image manipulation program to scale, resize, or add extra space around an image. Image transparency is supported.

When submitting a banner image through the Telegram group, please select the option that says Send as File, Send images without compression or disable the "Compress images" option in order to disable compression. Telegram compresses sent images by default, which makes them unsuitable for use on the Smash Custom Music website.


Additional account-related questions are answered on the Account Registrations page.


If you have other questions, you can contact us in our Telegram group or by e-mail.