conNCW-NG (C# / .NET 10 port)

Full port of the legacy Delphi software conNCW (NCW <-> WAV conversion, Native Instruments Kontakt) to .NET 10 LTS, x64, with robustness fixes.

Status: in progress

Fixes applied compared to the original

• NCW signature: whole-block comparison against an extensible list (signatures.json) instead of a byte-by-byte comparison against two hardcoded values — eliminates false negatives on undocumented variants.
• Recursive traversal: Directory.EnumerateFiles(..., SearchOption.AllDirectories), which permanently fixes bug 0.5 ("the program did not process files unless some were present directly at the root of the folder").
• WAV parsing: generic chunk-based RIFF parser that properly skips unknown chunks (LIST, JUNK, fact, PEAK, bext, ...) instead of crashing, unlike the original's rigid behavior.
• Logging: added a proper timestamped log file (absent from the original), in addition to the live-scrolling console output as before; a final summary (detailed successes/failures) is still displayed on screen at the end of each run.

New flags (in addition to the original syntax, unchanged)

Flag	Purpose
--learn-signature <file.ncw>	Analyzes the file's signature, asks for interactive confirmation, then adds it to signatures.json
--label <text>	Label to associate with the learned signature (used with --learn-signature)
--bypass-signature	Forces NCW decoding while ignoring the signature, analyzes the resulting PCM stream (plausibility heuristics), writes a test WAV to _bypass_test/ for manual listening before validation
--log <path>	Path to the log file (default conncw_<timestamp>.log)

Original syntax preserved identically

conncw file.ncw [file.wav]                    # file mode, direction auto-detected
conncw src_folder dst_folder -n2w -r          # folder mode, NCW->WAV, recursive
conncw src_folder dst_folder -w2n -r -rw      # folder mode, WAV->NCW, recursive, overwrite existing
conncw -l @mylist.txt                          # list mode

Recommended workflow for unknown signatures

1. Run a normal conversion: files with an unknown signature are cleanly rejected with [FAIL] ... unknown signature: <hex> in the console and in the log.
2. Test plausibility without writing an actual output file:

   conncw suspect_file.ncw --bypass-signature
   

   → generates a test WAV in _bypass_test/ plus a confidence score and warnings (abnormal silence, clipping, range overflow).
3. Listen to the test WAV (or check in Kontakt) to confirm the file is valid.
4. If validated, learn the signature:

   conncw --learn-signature suspect_file.ncw --label "Kontakt7-variant"
   

   → interactive confirmation before writing to signatures.json.
5. Future runs will automatically recognize this signature.

Project structure

src/
  ConNCW.Core/
    Models/       AudioFormat, NcwHeader, ConversionResult
    Signatures/   SignatureStore, SignatureEntry, SignatureLearner, signatures.json
    Bit/          BitReader, BitWriter (replaces raw Delphi pointers)
    Ncw/          NcwFile (decode/encode), NcwBlockHeader
    Wav/          WavFile (generic RIFF parser), WavFileFactory
    IO/           FileScanner (recursion fix)
    Logging/      ConversionLogger (console + file + summary)
    Bypass/       BypassAnalyzer (heuristics), BypassRunner (orchestration)
    Engine/       ConversionEngine (orchestration core, 3 modes)
  ConNCW.Cli/
    Program.cs    System.CommandLine CLI, syntax parity + new flags

Build

dotnet build -c Release -p:Platform=x64

Self-contained publishing

dotnet publish src/ConNCW.Cli -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained -p:PublishAot=true