PipeProject talk:Music

Question about splitting some albums' songs

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To preface: We're admittedly moreso asking this for the sake of the Foreign Media PipeProject, but seeing as this will inevitably encroach on the territory of this one, we reckon we'd ask here. Also, shamelessly mirrored this over from the Discord, so if you saw our message there, you don't need to read this.

For awhile now, we've been meaning to look into Super Mario Bros. Special (the album, not the game) (for once), getting its lyrics transcribed and translated and what-not. This would normally not be particularly interesting of a question, but the thing is that the album is, to our understanding, more-or-less a coherent narrative, sorta in-line with Donkey Kong Goes Home.

Our question is this: Would it be worth splitting apart both the tracks of Donkey Kong Goes Home and Super Mario Bros. Special (album) to give individual, by-song summaries of the "plot" being told, and then have a synopsis on the album's main page, or is that particularly overkill? (We feel like it's warranted in the case of the Special album because that's almost inevitably going to need lyric transcripts and translations, but then we can't think of any reason to do that to the Special album and not do it to Donkey Kong Goes Home. ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 23:03, June 29, 2026 (UTC)

Questions about this project

Hey, my name's Ian; I'm new to contributing to the MarioWiki, and since Day 1, I have been contributing to this PipeProject's drafts: Mostly Unlock fanfare & Underground Theme (New Super Mario Bros. Wii).

I don't know if there are rules that specifically apply to specific PipeProjects and not others, which is why I'm asking here rather than the parent page.

So, first, I want to know if anyone is allowed to add their name to the Active contributors list. I just became autoconfirmed, and once I finish making my user page I would like to add my name to the list as I plan to continue actively contributing to the project into the foreseeable future. But I also don't want to do it without permission if there's a system to deciding who gets on that list.

Secondly, I would like to get information on adding Drafts to the project. If I create a draft for a page relevant to the project, am I allowed to add it here myself, or is there some sort of voting system or a person I have to run it by first?

Finally, I want to get clarification on how and when drafts become proper pages on the wiki. I do come here with the hope of improving the MarioWiki as a whole, and contributing to fully-fledged pages is part of that. I know that, personally, I've at the very least seen the Unlock fanfare draft reach a point where it feels like most of, if not everything, we can currently get is there, and I wanna understand the process of drafts being finalized.

After using the MarioWiki as a source for finding all sorts of information about Mario over the years, I'm really excited to finally start making contributions and improving the future experience for people like me who come here to learn about anything and everything Mario.

Thanks in advance for any information you can give me; The help is much appreciated.

Iand255 (talk) 23:03, July 17, 2026 (UTC)

1. You don't need permission from anyone to add your name to the contributors list of create a subpage draft. (In fact, I don't think there are any explicit rules on whether or not you need to be autoconfirmed or established to sign up for a PipeProject, which is something I'm not really comfortable with.)
2. To consider a draft "complete", you can simply read the {{todo}} notice at the top of the page and make the improvements listed on it.
3. Per our current rules, any theme without an official title must have made 8 appearances in any Super Mario-related media to receive a proper article. The unlock fanfare from Mario Kart Wii has only had 7 such appearances so far, so it's just kinda stuck as a draft for now.

Hope this helps! The Dab Master 23:20, July 17, 2026 (UTC)

Clarifying page creation & theme naming rules

The subject came up amongst staff about what exactly to do about two parts of our article naming policy: the rule that conjectural names are only available for "recurring themes", and the stipulation that theme pages must have a valid name to have a page. In the pursuit of transparency, we'll bring up that the following decision was made because of our personal idea.

In short, both of these rulings, combined, do far more harm than good. The designation of "recurring" is entirely arbitrary, and is mostly a vestige of when the Wiki used to only cover recurring tracks, rather than every valid tracks. As of present, there are some drafts that are entirely feature-complete, but cannot be pushed to mainspace because they're waiting on a hypothetical Nintendo Music release that might not happen for months, or years, or even at all. Others are for songs that are extremely unlikely to ever see an official name in the modern day, whether by Nintendo Music or otherwise.

These are pages that would be perfectly acceptable for mainspace, yet are being arbitrarily withheld for circumstances outside of their control, as per these two rules... And these rules are not popular amongst staff. We held an internal poll amongst other members, and of the staff that responded, 9 out of 9 expressed they'd rather cull these rules, than enforce them. Every active bureaucrat voted in favor of this decision. Basically nobody in charge agrees with the notion of enforcing rules that only serve to hinder our coverage. So, we've come to the decision to simply... Not do that, if we all disagree with the rules.

What this means is relatively straightforward, though we have provided clarifications, of course:

• Theme pages, both "recurring" or otherwise, will no longer require a non-conjectural name to be pushed to mainspace. While you will still follow the source priority, after official soundtrack names, the source priority will follow the standard "acceptable sources for naming" list, and if a valid name is still not found, then conjectural names will be permitted. What those names should be should be left to the discretion of editors, and may require conversation.
• Conjectural redirects, within reason, will be permitted. "Within reason" meaning that they are held to the same standards as other redirects; there's no specific exceptions carved for them, for or against. They still cannot conflict with another subject's name, they still cannot be predicated on outright urban legend or an obvious lie, they still cannot be nonsensical such that there's no reason to believe a user would search that name, and redirects that are rendered obsolete by the passage of time will still be subject to deletion by staff's discretion. In general, the assumption is that it's better to keep a redirect than delete it, and this will remain true. In no uncertain terms, this means redirects along the lines of "In-Game Location The Song Plays (Game Name theme)" are now valid, and will be maintained so long as an alternative does not present itself.

We'll be rewriting the actual section about theme article naming to clarify these decisions shortly, though this is effective immediately. If there are any further questions, feel free to ask them. ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 18:00, September 30, 2026 (UTC)

Regarding conjectural titles themselves, I believe that identifiers should be discouraged. The now-published Greenhorn Forest theme article should be titled "Greenhorn Forest theme" rather than "Greenhorn Forest (theme)", for example. B700465189a9 (talk) 22:58, September 30, 2026 (UTC)

We personally agree that parenthetical should be avoided in these conjectural titles when possible, though we do ultimately feel like how those conjectural names are chosen should be left to the discretion of the people active in this PipeProject. We're mostly here to be the messenger, admittedly. ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 23:16, September 30, 2026 (UTC)

Agreed. It feels weird to have to use quotation marks for a title that isn't even official. The Dab Master 12:11, October 1, 2026 (UTC)

What should we do about the way we split arrangements? I feel like we should at least rework it if we're going to get rid of the whole "recurring" thing entirely (it is, admittedly, kind of flawed). The Dab Master 12:11, October 1, 2026 (UTC)

Okay, so, I'm personally not opposed this change; I think this does have a lot of value, but, does this just mean that the floodgates are opened for drafts here to be released if they're considered complete? I would also like to hear what this means for split arrangements and the "recurring" metric. I-AHH-nD255 (talk/stalk) 21:37, October 1, 2026 (UTC)

Indeed. If pages are otherwise feature-complete, there's no reason to withhold them over not having a sufficient "official" name when names are generally trickier to come by for themes. Admittedly, there's nothing really fancy for split arrangements, we're mostly leaving that to the rest of the PipeProject crew. As of present, whether or not a theme is "recurring" is still tracked for the sake of categorization, that much hasn't changed. ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 21:57, October 1, 2026 (UTC)

Got it, thanks! I-AHH-nD255 (talk/stalk) 22:02, October 1, 2026 (UTC)

BPM and the Game Boy Advance

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I mentioned this in the Discord, but this should not be buried there and instead be more visible here on the wiki. I started looking into BPM so I could begin to understand it and potentially help with adding it. I went to edit "Sea... Sea... Sea..." to fix a redirect and noticed I could also add the BPM. I figured out the remake BPM is 112, then realized I should double check get the BPM of the original GBA version. Upon testing 112 BPM for the GBA version, the music and a metronome desynced, with the music being slower. I then remembered seeing how the mGBA emulator has a "FPS target" setting, which notes that the GBA's target FPS is 59.7275. I then changed the mGBA FPS target to 60, and the GBA version of "Sea... Sea... Sea..." became 112 BPM. Notably, the GBA music included inside of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions is playing at the GBA's 59.7275 FPS, so it is accurate.

I then wanted to make sure this was really happening, so I started playing Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World on my Game Boy Advance SP, got to the Super Mario World title screen to hear the normally 150 BPM "Title BGM", set up a metronome at 150 BPM, and watched in horror as they desynced.

What this means is that potentially all Game Boy Advance music is playing at a rate slightly slower then the composers likely intended. This affects all BPM notes for all GBA music. Should "Sea... Sea... Sea..." be listed as 112 BPM, or is that incorrect because it plays slightly slower due to the hardware? Or is it accurate to just say 112 BPM because that is likely what the composer intended? Is a note needed to explain the GBA framerate affecting the BPM? Do any other consoles have unusual framerates that affect the perceived BPM?

This is a lot, but it makes the most sense to dump this here so discussion can begin to figure out how to handle this. --Spencer PK (talk) 22:33, October 19, 2026 (UTC)

I think this might be a thing with sequenced music in general. I have tested the for BPM of "World 1 Map (Grass Land)", "Drawing Board 1", and "Results (1st – 4th Place)" before (all of which are sequenced in their origin games) in my DAW, and they all use some pretty unorthodox decimals. The Dab Master 12:09, October 20, 2026 (UTC)