Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec - Audio Extraction

This tutorial is for use on a system running “Windows 98SE” and for “PAL” versions of “Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec” (Platinum Edition)

This tutorial may also work with other versions of “Windows” and copies of “Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec” from other regions too.

You’ll just have to try it and see.

Requirements (to enable you to rip/extract the soundtrack from the “Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec” DVD).

A PC Equipped with a DVD-ROM dive. This is because regular CD-ROM drives cannot read DVD disks.

An original copy of the “Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec” DVD.

A “Windows Startup Disk”.

A basic understanding of the commands used in “MSDOS”

The necessary software to read/extract and then convert the audio files.

All of the music files from “Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec” are contained within a file called “gt3.vol”. This file is found on the “Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec” DVD.

The music files are in *.ads format and need to be extracted from the “gt3.vol” file before they can be converted to *.wav.

After extraction & conversion, the resulting *.wav files can be burned to CDR or converted to MP3 etc.

The “gt3.vol” file cannot be read direct from the DVD, so it needs to be copied to the hard drive on your PC first.

Due to the huge size of the “gt3.vol” file you will need a minimum of 3.5GB free on your hard drive plus around 250MB for the *ads files that need to be extracted. So a more realistic 4GB of free space would be ideal.

The “gt3.vol” file cannot be copied to your hard drive while you are in a “Windows” environment either. So, to copy the “gt3.vol” file to your hard drive you will need to start the PC in “MSDOS” mode (with CD-ROM support), and use the "Copy" command.

This is what you need to do first.

Copying “gt3.vol” to the hard drive

Print out this walkthrough
Create a new folder in the root of the “C:\” drive and name it “gt3”.
Now shut down the PC, insert the “Windows Startup Disk” in the floppy drive & the “Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec” disk into the DVD-ROM drive, then start the PC again.
When the “MICROSOFT WINDOWS 98 STARTUP MENU” is displayed, select the following:
1. Start computer with CD-ROM support, press [Enter] and wait until the A:\ prompt is displayed.
The DVD-ROM drive letter will now have been pushed back by one letter. For example: if your DVD-ROM drive is normally the D:\ drive, it will now be the E:\ drive.
At the A:\ prompt, type the “new” letter that corresponds with the DVD-ROM drive followed by a colon (i.e. E:), and press [Enter].
You should now see a E:\ prompt (or the letter that corresponds with your DVD-ROM drive).
Type “dir” (without the quotes), then press [Enter] and you should see a list of all the files on the “Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec” DVD.
Now type the following precisely: “copy gt3.vol C:\gt3” (without the quotes and respecting all the spaces).
It will take a while to copy the “gt3.vol” file to the hard drive (approx 50 minutes), but the copying will be complete when you see the E:\ prompt again.

That's the first part complete.

Extracting the music files from the “GT3.vol” file

Once the “gt3.vol” file has been successfully copied to the hard drive, the music files can now be extracted from it.

You will now need a tool called “GT3 VolReader” to enable you to extract the audio files (which are in *.ads format) from the "gt3.vol" file which has been copied to your HDD.

Download “GT3 VolReader” from here (you’ll need an archive program such as “Winzip” or “7Zip” to unzip the file).
Launch “GT3 VolReader” and click on the “GT3.vol dir” button and browse to where you copied the “gt3.vol” file on your hard drive and double-click on it (a + symbol will appear in the lower window of "GT3 VolReader).
Select a destination folder for the extracted files in the upper window of “GT3 VolReader”.
Click on the + symbol in the lower window of “GT3 VolReader” to reveal the file structure of the “gt3.vol” file. The audio files are located in the "bgm" sub-folder.
Now just simply right-click on each of the filenames in the "bgm" folder in the lower window of “GT3 VolReader”and select "Extract" (a sub-folder will be created in the upper window of “GT3 VolReader” containing the extracted files).

The music files in the “bgm” folder are in *.ads format and there is a "sample" and a "full" version of each track.

The "sample" is what you hear in the “Options” menu and the "full" version is what plays while you’re competing in races when playing “Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec”.

For instance, the file “i-race_e02.ads” is the "sample" of the file “race_e02.ads” (which is the full track).

So you only need to extract the larger files of which there are approx 17 track all together (PAL version).

Now there’s the extraction section complete. You can now delete the “gt3.vol” file if you like to free up some space if needed.

Converting the *ads format to *.wav format.

You will now need another tool called “MFAudio” to enable you to convert the extracted music files (which are in *.ads format) to *.wav format.

These files will take up approx 740MB of disk space after conversion.

Download “MFAudio” from here (you’ll need an archive program such as “Winzip” or “7Zip” to unzip the file).
Launch “MFAudio” and click on the “Open” button.
Browse to where you extracted the *ads files and double-click on one of the files (unfortunately, you can only do one file at a time).
In the “Output audio file” section, click on the “Save As” button.
Select a destination folder for the *.wav file, type a suitable name in the “Filename” space and select “Microsoft WAV Files (*.wav)” from the “Save as type” drop-down list.
Also in the “Output audio file” section, click on the “File Format” drop-down list and select:
“WAV – Microsoft RIFF – Uncompressed PCM”
The other settings are:
Frequency - 44100
Samples: 16
Channels: 2
Click on the “Process” button.

You will need to carry out steps 2 – 7 for each of the 17 *ads files ("PAL" version).

Well, that's all there is to it as far as I can remember.

A big thankyou to "MuzzleFlash" (the autor of "MFAudio") for pointing me in the direction of "GT3 Vol Reader".