Seconding freezedream! https://freezedream.bandcamp.com/album/today

As long as you don't try to pass it off as 'authentic' SNES/Genesis it's completely cool and anyone who says otherwise is a jerk.

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(43 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Cooshinator wrote:

Only vaguely related but how come every single time we have some nelly coming in here asking questions someone feels the need to update the banner blurb to make fun of him

Seems more teasing than ridiculing to me. also I like when the blurb is regularly updated bc it's usually funny and lets me know if there's any good stuff going on in topics that I haven't been following until then

4

(43 replies, posted in General Discussion)

FLOOR BABA aka sleepytimejesse calls it gamewave but honestly just call it whatever feels most correct.

I personally use 'post-chip' if I really want to emphasize the chip connections and history but it's all just "soundcloud electronic music" if you remove the historical context

I can do it but you're not gonna like the results

PULSELOOPER wrote:
Psynaptik wrote:

the kind of banging melodic house type music

Pretty much 99,2% of all LSDJ users.

hahaha, this is completely true

But yeah, seconding Je Mappelle and Roboctopus, although Je Mappelle does a bit of everything, pure mixed or non-chip.

Oops, didn't realize this topic was a few weeks old until I'd written this whole post, but maybe it might still be helpful:

Cool tracks! Nice harmonies and some pretty good melodies too.

That being said, I think you could work a lot on your instrument levels in Dawn Pollen, as the track in general sounds pretty unbalanced. For example, you have a pretty decent kick sample but I can hardly hear it over those blaring leads! I'd recommend turning down the volumes for all your instruments besides the drums, but especially those 2 melodies in channels 14 and 15 as they're quite loud.
Another thing is that right now those melodies are going on at the same time and fighting for the listener's attention, which is something you generally want to avoid, at least at the beginning. I would introduce them one at a time, and then maybe play them together later in the song so that the listener will be familiar enough with them to not be totally lost trying to follow both at the same time.

Quinoa Fields sounds pretty good for the most part, but personally I wouldn't pan the bass in channels 14-16 and the melodies in channels 9-11 as much as you have here. Because these elements are so prominent, it can be uncomfortable and disorienting for some listeners (including me) if they're not panned near the center. If you do want to have them off to the side, you should reduce the volume more and more as you get further away from the middle.

For real though I love that you pitched the first track up around a semitone, it shows off completely different colors for the whole track

yes!! yes!! yes!!

SIDWizard doesn't support overwriting song files of the same name at least as far as I know, you have to use a new filename every time you save and then just delete the old versions later in a disk editor. I just do stuff like MYSONG0001, MYSONG0002, etc

sandneil wrote:

which also makes doing collabs really easy and fun!

Yeah like I always wondered how other people collab when they don't own the same VSTs and effects n stuff. trading wav stems always seemed kinda inflexible (but I've never done anything like that myself so maybe it's not that bad)

I love how portable the project files are and how a lotta people are pretty open with sharing them. it's a lot of fun to trade mods/lsdsngs/etc and really learn how other people get their sounds to improve your own technique, all from self-contained files smaller than an mp3.

If it's any consolation they only opened last October (unless you went after that in which case ah, maybe next time).

Oh I almost forgot, there's also Akiba BEEP which sells and refurbishes stuff like the PC88, Sharp X68000, MSX, and other Japan-exclusive computers. I bought some european demoscene compilation CDs while I was there, haha. http://www.akihabara-beep.com/

Seconding Hard Off and Book Off. If you have the time and really wanna try for some cool old stuff def check out locations farther away from the city center as well. I spotted a mostly-functioning DX7 at the Hard-Off in Mitaka once (it was gone after like a week though sad )
General anime goods are also usually slightly less expensive if you go to stores outside of Akihabara, unless you're looking for something super specific or niche.

If you wanna check out some less-touristy but also interesting spots in Tokyo I highly recommend Kichijoji and Shimokitazawa, they're both local-hip neighborhoods with lots of cool shops and eateries to wander around in that not as many tourists visit.
I also personally really like the Ochanomizu/Jinbocho area. Ochanomizu has a lot of musical instrument stores and Jinbocho has tons and tons of vintage book shops including ones that specialize in art/fashion/culture publications (might not be quite as fun if you don't know any Japanese though).

8bitcafe in Shinjuku is a cool bar and usually has a variety of small events happening throughout the year, although it looks like they haven't put up their October event schedule yet.
If you're into jazz at all I also recommend visiting a jazz bar, there's an old one right near the train station in Kichijoji called Sometime that has great local bands performing almost every night, and it's just a really neat experience.

As for food, you can honestly walk into just about any restaurant you see and the food will be great or, at the very worst, decent. Out of all the time I've spent in Japan, I can remember only 2 times when the food was just not good.

I'm not sure how busy he is around this time, but you could try giving aka_obi a call for people to hang out with in the Tokyo area. He's a chipscene/demoscene historian specializing in the C64 and knows english fairly well, and I feel like he might be interested in meeting other chip people.

Oh also Odaiba is super touristy and a little expensive but Joypolis is a fun amusement park to spend an afternoon at, and of course there's also the life-sized Gundam statue close by n all that.

I also have another friend living there right now who really (and I mean really) is in the know with all things chip-event, so if you want I can get you in contact with her through PM as well.

Plogue Chipsounds is not too expensive.