chipmusic.org is an online community in respect and relation to chip music, art and its parallels.
You are not logged in. Please login or register.
...the same way there is to rip FM instruments?
I'd like to make some music with VGM Music Maker, but I'm utterly clueless as to how to make my own synths, so I need to rip them from other games.
While I have found a way to rip FM instruments using vgm2tfi, I haven't found anything that rips PSG instruments at all.
Do you have any suggestions?
Better yet, is there a tutorial for creating Genesis instruments and noises?
I think the reason there's no PSG instrument ripper is that they are dead simple to create and really quite primitive. In VGM MM, once you've got some FM instruments you can just play them back in the PSG channel to get a normal square sound with a similar envelope, so that's what I usually do. AFAIK it simply does envelopes on a per-tick level using the volume register which gives it a lot of flexibility over the hardware envelopes.
I think there's a mode where the hardware envelope generator of the PSG is used at audio rates to generate saw-like tones in VGM MM, but I never got it to work correctly. Maybe it's a broken feature, but I don't mind. Most PSG sounds you hear in Genesis games are simple squares or noise, and any creativity in sound design with them is either done with volume settings or in the pitch domain, most things could be achieved using normal tracker commands (vibrato, arpeggio, pitch slides etc.)
Something I found very effective is layering an FM lead with the same melody in a PSG channel. Differences in frequency resolution puts them slightly out of tune with each other which fattens the sound a lot. If you delay the PSG channel a bit you get a nice echo as well.
Yeah, I might have guessed that was the case. Thanks for that.
But, actually there ARE PSG instruments, software defined envelopes to be precise. The really issue here is that VGMMM do not have proper envelope generators for the PSG (only a forced and crazy mix between the AR/RR/whatever of the YM2612), so, even if you can rip some PSG instruments somewhere, you will never can put that inside VGMMM.
I will code someday a PSG/GB/NES/YM2612/PC-Engine VGMs/ROMs to DMP format (DefleMask Preset), DefleMask have proper PSG instruments with manual defined volume envelopes, arpeggio envelopes, noise envelopes, etc.
Last edited by Delek (Dec 30, 2012 5:19 pm)
"Not proper" in what sense? As far as I understand they are software tick-based envelopes modeled after the YM2612 envelopes. I'm not sure what's particularly improper about that if you are using software envelopes anyway. It makes perfect sense from a consistency perspective. If by "manual defined volume envelopes" you mean drawing them out step by step, sure, it's flexible, but IMO it's not particularly useful in most cases.
Wtf?, you cant make lot of envelopes used by lot of games, examples:
F, | 5, 2, 1 LOOP
F, 1, F, 1, F, 8
That for vol envelopes, but fixed arp envelopes for noise, arpeggios with more than 3 notes, rapid noise mode changing are also examples of popular effects.
If that is not useful in most cases for you then you never get the SN76489 full potential.
Go, try to cover a complex SMS song with VGMMM and come back, the things that the SN76489 is doing as normal in most games is impossinle to be done in VGMMM without using maximun 60hz per tick editing.
I think that you used the PSG as only a company for the YM2612, as in SEGA Sonic soundtracks for example, where it is used in a very simple and secondary way.