bitpusher2600
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Hello all. I'm brand new to LSDJ and have questions I can't so easily find answers to web searching. To be honest, I was reluctant to join this forum because I really hate the idea of being a bother to anyone but I am so determined that I gave in and I hope you'll bear with me. I don't even know how to clearly enunciate my question.

I've managed to put together my first workable drum track with snare (wav and noise channels respectively), and the kick drum sequence consists of four phrases. Is it more sensible to put the breaking point in this four piece loop one by one in the song screen, or do I try to lay out as much of that as possible in the chain screen?

If something sounds ridiculous here it may not look it to me, so maybe I'm just asking what is the most correct means of laying out chains? The individual line per chain seems to make the song screen play line by line, and having experience with Nanoloop, that almost looks right to me.

SECOND QUESTION:
Say I have a chain to keep the snare going and I want a break (silence) in the middle of that for just a moment, then back to the snare. Do I have to make a phrase that is silence or is there another way? The song screen is confusing me here because if I just blank out a single line in a chain, it skips the rest. What do I do there?

FINALLY:
Another bit of song screen confusion. Is it sensible that each line in all four of the channels contain the same number of chains? It feels wrong to me that if I don't, the little arrows showing playback begin to scatter. Seems difficult to manage what I'm seeing. Again, this is just perspective from sequencing in Nanoloop, so maybe the arrows bouncing around instead of staying lined up is normal? If the tune sounds correct because the chains themselves are managed correctly, I would be ok regardless or no?


Again, I truly apologize if I've used some incorrect forum etiquette or am making myself any bother. I'm just one of us that truly love chip music. I have produced tunes with the Atari 2600 and Nanoloop on iOS, and after a few years of being intimidated as heck by LSDJ, I'm finally buckling down and making myself learn this. Ironically, I do not want to use Nanoloop on the Gameboy as my own research online says LSDJ has more capability for manipulating that sound chip, sounds beautiful to me. Thanks all.

199X
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Spookane, Warshington

This is just what I do when composing in LSDJ, so it isn't necessarily best practice or anything...

Q1: I tend to do 8 phrases per chain. How many phrases you put per chain really depends on the song and your style. Due to the limited number of chains/phrases you just need to make sure you don't run out. smile

Q2: As far as I know, if you'd like silence you'll need to create a chain that has blank phrases in it. I usually set up 7F and 7E to be my silence chains. 7F just has 8 blank phrases and 7E is the same but with a kill command (K00) at the beginning. You can also mute/solo channels which will cut out sound.

Q3: You don't need to have each chain the same length, but like you said it might help with organization.

Hope that helps!
Welcome to the world of LSDJ smile

Xuriik
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Puerto Rico

199X already gave a pretty great and straightforward answer, but I wanted to add my own thoughts:

Having a single phrase per chain is wasteful IMO; and it's generally more useful to have a few phrases per chain so that you can easily repeat sections of your song. So you'd want to organize your 4 part loop into a single chain in order to easily repeat it later, yes. I mostly put 3 or 4 phrases on each chain, except for transition, pause, or drum fill sections, which sometimes get their own, 1 phrase chains.

However, this depends on your style, if you like to introduce a lot of variation bar per bar, then maybe single-phrase chains are for you. if your bpm is really fast or your bars are really long, you might want to stick a lot more phrases into each chain to stay organized.

For silence, it's the most common practice to just use an empty phrase. Some people use the 7F chain, I personally use 00, because I associate it with nothing, and thus silence. Unless you get in the habit of using a table/E command to gradually release steady-envelope instruments, an additional empty chain with a K at the beginning is helpful. (Note that you can kill an instrument from the last step of the phrase before by using K06 (On the default groove); which will delay a kill 6 ticks forward and into the following chain.) You can also use B+Select on the song screen to mute a channel, and/or Select+Start to stop an individual channel in Live Mode. There are other methods of getting silence, like the VOL column on tables, or M/O commands; but that's just counter intuitive if all you want is silence.

Your assumptions on question 3 are all correct. Yes, the sensible thing is to have each row on the song screen have the same chain length, but that can start to change when you start playing with polyrythms, H commands, alternate grooves, and other stuff. It doesn't REALLY matter where the arrows are if it's properly managed, but it's a visual aid to have them all lined up. Play with Live Mode to get a feel for what happens when they're not synced up!

Sounds like you pretty much got the hang of it, best of luck!

bitpusher2600
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You guys are awesome, thank you for helping me.

Yeah, being new at it I have not tinkered much with groove yet, and only a couple commands but you've got to admit, while I'm sure there's plenty of tricks within, it's nifty that LSDJ will outright tell you what they all do.

The idea of the tables actually makes sense to me in that you can assign commands  in the phrase screen as well, but they are like a one time use deal whereas making commands and such adjustments in the table make it a permanent part of that particular instrument, is that correct? I successfully used the table to get my particular kick sound instead of putting my command on each note. If that's not exactly all tables are for, it is still a valid use apparently. There I go rambling smile

Ninten Kwon Do
Offline
Atlanta, GA
bitpusher2600 wrote:

I successfully used the table to get my particular kick sound instead of putting my command on each note. If that's not exactly all tables are for, it is still a valid use apparently. There I go rambling smile

That's exactly what it's for! Almost everybody I know uses a WAV instrument with a P command in the table to make a kick (unless they use samples). You're really intuitive! You'll be a lsdj wizard in no time.

ryba
Offline
Czech Republic
Ninten Kwon Do wrote:

That's exactly what it's for! Almost everybody I know uses a WAV instrument with a P command in the table to make a kick (unless they use samples). You're really intuitive! You'll be a lsdj wizard in no time.

I use noise channel for kicks mostly. But you're right, Wav channel with P command in the table is the best way for the best Kick.

JodyBigfoot
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everyone has answered very well so far and I'll add my two pence:

the length of a chain for me depends on the progression of the chords/melody i am using

so if I have a progression that is (for basic example) :

C major off beat chords for two bars
E major off beat chords for two bars

or

C major off beat chords for three bars
C Minor off beat chords for one bar

The Chain will be 4 phrases long. This is a simple progression of chords and goes back to the start every 4 bars. But obviously some songs are more complex or have a bit more to them, I have some chord progressions that are 8 bars long and are then 8 phrases to a chain, and I am even covering a song right now where the lead melody is 16 bars long and therefore my chains are completely full.

I find that keeping chains the same length really helps for knowing how far away sections are in the song, and how long your song is by looking at the song screen.

bitpusher2600
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This is truly awesome, i'm on the right track then and by pure luck smile

I've done chiptune with a pair of  Atari 2600's but that was essentially playing a synthesizer and then sequencing waveforms by hand in Audacity, easy stuff. Tracking though I have never touched and in fact shyed away from anything to do with LSDJ for years, just because it was massively intimidating and numbers are not something i'm good with at all, so the sight of that alone, geesh.

Thanks for the replies everyone. Hopefully I can chip in on these forums once in a while (terrible fracking pun, sorry.)

@Ninten Kwon Do,
If your statement wasn't sarcasm i'm absoluely flattered. I've been convinced for some time before just lately that LSDJ was well beyond my comprehension, and here i've got a drum track put together and have figured out some things on my own. I've looked over the Sabrepulse tutorial and a couple vids on YouTube but that stuff moves to quick for me to follow, so I'm just figuring things on my own. Anyway, thank you. I didn't expect to come away feeling incredibly encouraged smile

Ninten Kwon Do
Offline
Atlanta, GA
ryba wrote:

I use noise channel for kicks mostly. But you're right, Wav channel with P command in the table is the best way for the best Kick.

Oh yeah, that is also doable. I tried this on a new song recently and was pleasantly surprised with the outcome.

bitpusher2600 wrote:

If your statement wasn't sarcasm i'm absoluely flattered. I've been convinced for some time before just lately that LSDJ was well beyond my comprehension, and here i've got a drum track put together and have figured out some things on my own. I've looked over the Sabrepulse tutorial and a couple vids on YouTube but that stuff moves to quick for me to follow, so I'm just figuring things on my own.

lol I was not being sarcastic. A couple of chip artists have released their save files and stuff so I'd go check those out. I know Roboctopus and Zef released their saves with an album or two. there is also lsdsng.com but I remember their being a requirement to join like uploading something of your own first so maybe hold off on that until you have a song to post up. Anyway best of luck!

Edit: (the albums I referred to) https://roboctopus.bandcamp.com/album/tidal-bout https://zef-music.bandcamp.com/album/ground-zero
these guy's have two completely different styles but hey ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Last edited by Ninten Kwon Do (Feb 4, 2015 10:20 pm)

Dire Hit
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Seattle, WA

Don't be afraid to ask questions on the forum. We don't bite (well, maybe saskrotch).

Xuriik
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Puerto Rico
bitpusher2600 wrote:

...like a one time use deal whereas making commands and such adjustments in the table make it a permanent part of that particular instrument, is that correct?

Not necessarily. Since there's the A command, you can create a table and use it in the phrase screen, independent of the instrument, and in a few different situations. This is useful for tremolo and other volume modulation tricks like what I said about note release; complex arpeggios (Seventh chords or more? Falling notes instead of rising?); and even pulse channel pwm or simulating effects like noise gate or ducking.

Roboctopus' LSDJ and You is really helpful for this, and all the mind blowing things you can do with the wav channel.

Ninten Kwon Do wrote:

A couple of chip artists have released their save files and stuff so I'd go check those out.

This one brought some mostly new techniques to the table AND brings both a sav and a helpful pdf talking about them! https://datathrash.bandcamp.com/album/HYMNAL

Dire Hit
Offline
Seattle, WA
Xuriik wrote:

Since there's the A command, you can create a table and use it in the phrase screen, independent of the instrument, and in a few different situations.

I feel really stupid for making seperate instruments for every different arp. It seems so obvious know, I don't know why I haven't been doing this the whole time.

Another cool A command tip, mess around with some stutter tables.

OLR      OLR      OLR      OLR
------      ------      ------      ------
O----      -----       ------      ------
------      O----      ------      ------
H00       ------      O----     O----
              -----       ------      ------
              H00       ------     OLR
                            ------     O---
                            H00      H00

Put one or two of these on seperate tables, and use them on every channel as a cool gating effect. I did that a lot in this  hella old track

bitpusher2600
Offline
Xuriik wrote:
bitpusher2600 wrote:

...like a one time use deal whereas making commands and such adjustments in the table make it a permanent part of that particular instrument, is that correct?

Not necessarily. Since there's the A command, you can create a table and use it in the phrase screen, independent of the instrument, and in a few different situations. This is useful for tremolo and other volume modulation tricks like what I said about note release; complex arpeggios (Seventh chords or more? Falling notes instead of rising?); and even pulse channel pwm or simulating effects like noise gate or ducking.

Roboctopus' LSDJ and You is really helpful for this, and all the mind blowing things you can do with the wav channel.

Ninten Kwon Do wrote:

A couple of chip artists have released their save files and stuff so I'd go check those out.

This one brought some mostly new techniques to the table AND brings both a sav and a helpful pdf talking about them! https://datathrash.bandcamp.com/album/HYMNAL

I have no idea what half of what you just said means sad
I have no education whatsoever in music theory and whatnot. I used to be a live turntable DJ at just a couple of local clubs years ago, and I know my way around Audacity, that's about it. I also have no idea what a stutter table or gating effect is. You guys are somewhere beyond me. I'm sorry.

Last edited by bitpusher2600 (Feb 6, 2015 3:13 pm)

Xuriik
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Puerto Rico

An arpeggio is a broken chord, it's basically what you can do with the C command. Using the TSP(transpose) column on a table, you can greatly expand the capabilities of your arpeggios to include more than 3 notes, the order they play in, etc. Like this:

TSP  CMD                   TSP CMD
00     -00                      0B   -00
04     -00                      00   -00
07     -00         OR        07   -00
0A     -00                      00   -00
00     H00                     03   -00
                                    00   H00

Tremolo, Gating, and Ducking are pretty easy to just do a search on, so I'm just gonna let you find out about that stuff on your own. Do play with the tables Dire Hit and I posted. Take your time, I just wanted you to know that you don't HAVE to lock each table to an instrument, they can be used independently. It helps to look at tables like expanded command columns.

199X
Offline
Spookane, Warshington
Dire Hit wrote:

I feel really stupid for making seperate instruments for every different arp. It seems so obvious know, I don't know why I haven't been doing this the whole time.

This might just be in my head... but sometimes I feel that making an instrument with a table attached to it isn't always the same as using the A command in a phrase. I get a cleaner result if the table is on the instrument and not an A command. I think this happens with the O command mostly... Has anyone else experienced less 'clicking' when doing this? I might just be crazy - _ -

Dire Hit
Offline
Seattle, WA
199X wrote:
Dire Hit wrote:

I feel really stupid for making seperate instruments for every different arp. It seems so obvious know, I don't know why I haven't been doing this the whole time.

This might just be in my head... but sometimes I feel that making an instrument with a table attached to it isn't always the same as using the A command in a phrase. I get a cleaner result if the table is on the instrument and not an A command. I think this happens with the O command mostly... Has anyone else experienced less 'clicking' when doing this? I might just be crazy - _ -

It is clickier, but depending on how busy the song is it probably won't matter.