Feryl wrote:

Excuse my ignorance (it's been a while since I've written anything in FamiTracker), but does pure 2a03 mean four channels?

2a03 is the stock NES sound chip. 2 pulse channels, triangle channel, noise channel and DPCM.

nonfinite wrote:

Oh cool, I stumbled on this track somewhere else like a week ago.

I like the piano DPCM samples, it's a smart way to allow use of two notes in one channel. I do think the samples stand out a bit too much in the mix, however, and without any change to the actual structure of the samples they get a bit tiring on the ears, similar to how the same kick snare chain in a fruityloops track might get to a person after a while. We need subtle changes to keep our brains thinking "this is novel."

There was a famicompo track that had been submitted something like, oh, 2009 I think.  It made it into the top three if I recall, and it used the same piano concept. It was a lovely piece. I liked it so much I set it as my morning alarm tone for a number of months, back when people still used custom ringtones. Anyways, if I recall the reason this track didn't win the gold was similar - the samples were what made the track unique, but also what caused it to be limited in scope.

If you're not dead-set on staying strictly in the 2a03 chipset, I'd consider recording those notes on a different platform, (a real piano would be pretty sick) so you can add more dynamics to it. You may even find yourself making some changes to the chip part of the song as you introduce other elements. A slight slowing in tempo between sections of the song comes to mind as a plausible addition. Everything else sounds great.

I'll definitely switch some things up!

But I really do want to stay pure to the 2A03 for this song and others that I'm gonna be making in the future, but it isn't a bad suggestion by any means!

Excuse my ignorance (it's been a while since I've written anything in FamiTracker), but does pure 2a03 mean four channels?

Oh cool, I stumbled on this track somewhere else like a week ago.

I like the piano DPCM samples, it's a smart way to allow use of two notes in one channel. I do think the samples stand out a bit too much in the mix, however, and without any change to the actual structure of the samples they get a bit tiring on the ears, similar to how the same kick snare chain in a fruityloops track might get to a person after a while. We need subtle changes to keep our brains thinking "this is novel."

There was a famicompo track that had been submitted something like, oh, 2009 I think.  It made it into the top three if I recall, and it used the same piano concept. It was a lovely piece. I liked it so much I set it as my morning alarm tone for a number of months, back when people still used custom ringtones. Anyways, if I recall the reason this track didn't win the gold was similar - the samples were what made the track unique, but also what caused it to be limited in scope.

If you're not dead-set on staying strictly in the 2a03 chipset, I'd consider recording those notes on a different platform, (a real piano would be pretty sick) so you can add more dynamics to it. You may even find yourself making some changes to the chip part of the song as you introduce other elements. A slight slowing in tempo between sections of the song comes to mind as a plausible addition. Everything else sounds great.

This is really good. The leads are really fluid and expressive and there are a lot of unusual and beautiful sounds in the mix (the bass sounds really cool). Also just a nicely written tune. Did you use any expansion chips or anything? if not, i'm very curious about how you did some things.