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This is my second LSDJ song and would love any feedback/criticism. Specifically, I am trying to figure out how to make it sound "thick". I feel like there are tricks I am not utilizing. I'll think this song sounds okay until I hear it next to other chiptunes that sound thicker.

I never liked how the c function sounded in this song when I'd apply it, although I am sure I will use it more in the future. Beyond that and making chords (i.e., copy pu1 into pu2 or wav and make it a few notes to an octave higher), I am a bit lost. Thanks a bunch!

https://soundcloud.com/h2ocean1/chase

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Naptown

hey! i remember your last track, keep up the good work! your ideas are solid, i think it's just a matter of playing around some more and really getting the hang of working in LSDj. to that end, here are some tips. edit: my apologies for covering some of the same ground as the last post, but i hope this is helpful regardless.

the first thing i would suggest is messing around with some tables on your instruments. you can do things like adding little accents and such to the beginning of the notes. this tutorial by nick maynard aka little paw really taught me a good number of little tricks like that.

one way to get a thicker sound is to use the fine-tune on your pulse channels, even setting it to 1 should thicken the sound since some of the pulse notes are being duplicated in this track (changing fine tune on an instrument tunes one pulse down and the other one up, for a kind of chorus-like effect). likewise, you can also set your PU2 tune to an octave higher or lower so you're covering a wider range if a phrase is playing on both pulse channels at once. and don't hesitate to use V commands (throw one in a table for fun, especially VF4 for a really thick sound). anything at all, including P commands and L commands, to make the pitch more than just a static, straight pitch will sound more evocative and interesting.

the noise channel is capable of some pretty rad sounds and i always recommend checking out the excellent tutorial by Boy Meets Robot (i think i linked this in the last post).

speaking of low end, you've got a wav synth packed in there and it would be good to utilize that for some kicks. throw a PE0 command on the first table command and a K00 on the 6th table command and adjust the P speed as necessary. you can make some cool kicks using the triangle wave, or even the square wave (change the filter Q and cutoff to vary the intensity).

speaking of the wav synth, it's capable of all kinds of crazy sounds. the wav channel has the widest range of possibilities on the entire game boy including custom samples. go nuts with experimentation to come up with something wild. use F commands, use E commands, etc.... really the whole trick of working in LSDj is just to try to think outside the box as much as possible in all regards.

also, as far as i know it is pretty common practice to run the game boy through a mixer channel strip in order to beef up the bass with EQ. so don't be afraid to do a little post-processing either. don't be excessive, just use enough to enhance the sound.

watch those tutorial videos (even if you saw them, watch them again)!! i think you will really appreciate them, and learn A LOT. and let me know if you have any questions. hope this helps smile

Last edited by urbster1 (Feb 21, 2017 9:37 pm)

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Wow thanks that is awesome! Sorry if I unintentionally didn't incorporate any advice you gave last time! I tried to play with with L and V throughout the melody and add bits here and there. This gives me a ton more to play around with!

I have been uploading straight from the GB so perhaps I am underestimating how much post-processing can do smile

I still need to check if I have seen those vids, but even if I have, I find that something that made less sense originally makes more sense at a later time once i've played around in LSDJ a bit more.

thanks again!

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Chicago

That's a nice tune; I'm getting kind of a Konami vibe smile

One suggestion if you want to make C commands sound fuller, combine them with octave transposition in a table like this.

My biggest critique would that there is a lot of repetition and I'd like to hear more variety and contrast.

urbster1 wrote:

the noise channel is capable of some pretty rad sounds and i always recommend checking out the excellent tutorial by Boy Meets Robot (i think i linked this in the last post).

Thanks for the shout out smile

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Naptown

you're welcome! that tutorial basically taught me everything i know about the noise channel, so thank you!! big_smile