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Ballard, Washington

This project cTrix and Ferris are working on sounds rad.  I'm really looking forward to trying it out.

I thought I'd chime in about some other options mentioned.  XM2SNES didn't provide very good results from what I recall.

SNESMOD was pretty great though. I used it for an album I recorded several years ago and continue to use it for all my live stuff.

I've been able to get 42-45 songs with an average length of 2 minutes and 30 seconds onto a single soundbank on a ROM.  My soundbank usually tops out around 979,172 bytes depending on the number and length of samples and how many commands I have in each module.

The most songs I've gotten with multiple soundbanks is 312.  Could get quite a bit more if more songs shared instruments.

edited to add greater detail.

Last edited by Augustus Blackheart (Aug 9, 2014 3:20 pm)

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Malapascua, phillipines

Get lsdj get a super gameboy get a snes put lsdj in the super gameboy turn on the snes . And there you go a seqencer on your snes

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Australia
nitro pulse wrote:

Get lsdj get a super gameboy get a snes put lsdj in the super gameboy turn on the snes . And there you go a seqencer on your snes

You could do that. :-P  (I'm assuming that's a joke!! although fair play... ) But then you aren't taking advantage of the whole APU in the SNES.

So I'm still here with Ferris testing / building / coding (reverse order) the SNES music tool.  Ferris is kickin' goals with some mad devs on the play-routine code and sample basics.

Updates:

- Looping samples.

Kudos to Ferris for finally getting this ticking.  It's quantised to a 16 sample loop so you gotta be pretty mathematical on your note frequency vs. samplerate if you want a correct zero crossing on loop.  I'm in the process of making a library of single cycle looping wave forms including sampling from MC202, DX7, Prophet 600.  When this is released, it's going to be dope ++ on the sample department.  Trying to find the right combos to get cleanly converted waveforms ;-)   Triangle and square / pulse cycles sound mad.  Sine sounds.... well, sound SNES "dirty".  The BRR audio compression system "vectorises" (for the sake of a better term!) the waveform.  So everything you import has this "SNES" grime about it.  It's damn cool - but not in a subtle way!

^^^^ Yes.... waveforms get deeeeestroyed!  Part of the fun of the SNES ;-)

- Envelopes

Yup - envelopes are working.  We want to eventually add some graphical representation of what the envelopes actually are doing.  As far as functionality (along with loops) this is a big step to shaping the sound in that SNES way.

- RLE Compression of Patterns

Finally!!!  We are getting some optimisation into our play-routine :-)  Where, a week ago, every pattern was eating 5kb of APU RAM... now it's a fraction of that (depending on complexity).  We also have 16 note (or "1 bar" of 16ths in 4/4) detection of repetition.  For those who want to do odd time signatures... we'll do pattern jump in time - or maybe offer variable windowing.

Ferris also fixed a huge frikkin bug on the ROM image exporter.  In fact re-coded it.  The cool thing about the two of us workin' on this is that Ferris does some insane piece of code... then I break it.  From the outset I'm applying every command-combo trick I know (from the Amiga + DMG) to push this baby to the limits.  From shuffles to echos to stupid tempo shifted arps to a ridiculous number of samples... it's all being tested as we go, and for the most part is very stable.

So yup (pun intended) : just wanted to let you all know that it's still happening. Step by step.  Just like Bobby Brown said in the 90's... ("every little step you take").  Ehhh?!   Hey, it's a sat night and I've been drinkin' beers and tracking all night ok?!

Still can't give an ETA on a public beta at the mo.  Tool is very early stages and as long as we are having fun and it's coming along basic functionality wise, we will keep it alpha.  Until the day one of us says "you know what?  I think we could public beta this shiz..."   And that day will come!

Also - TUNE:  http://weeklybeats.com/#/ctrix/music/su … ld-of-tool  (scroll down past description and hit play)

^^^ that's what I'm making so far.  (and this was pre the looping samples build with proper envelopes!)

Huuuuugeeee big-ups to Ferris.  He really is the driving force doing all the assembly coding on this one.  I'm just the testing / bug reporting / complaining / nodding at the code / sample lib making / hyping-up guy.  Yes, I look at the DSP / ASM code (and countless block diagrams) and get what he's achieving,  but it's a true joy to work with a fellow chip artist who methodically makes efficient assembly / C++ routines happen.  In that logical "oh, cool!" way :-)  Right down to the SNES BRR audio compression level (which shouldn't even work!)... and writing an assembler from scratch for the SPC700.  The work on the true guts of this project has been massive.

We're a lucky bunch to have this guy on board!  Which means I owe him beer... damn.

Last edited by cTrix (Apr 20, 2014 3:56 am)

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Oslo

^ what he said big_smile And big ups back to you as well Chris; awesome to hear such banging tunes coming out of such an unfinished tool ^^

Also, if any of you guys are sceners, I've just finished a demo for The Gathering 2014 using the tool for music, so that'll be up in the next 12 hours or so after the compos. SNES DEMOSSSS!!!!

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Abandoned on Fire

I'M SO SUPER STOKED FOR THIS YOU GUYS!!!

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Oh my god. That track is gonna make me lose it. I can't wait for this to go beta. You guys are awesome!

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I'd be doubly happy with noise generation and pitch modulation (as well as the type of muting that allows pitch modulation to pass through). I've especially been a fan of pitch modulation lately, since I hacked SNESMod to add both noise and pitch modulation features for some of my songs.

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Oslo

kungfu: yep, if hardware supports it, it's gonna be in the tool. It's already in the emulator - just needs tracker support.

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Oslo

also, I won the compo at tg14 I mentioned, with another track using the tool ;D http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=62927 \o/

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Ballard, Washington
KungFuFurby wrote:

I'd be doubly happy with noise generation and pitch modulation (as well as the type of muting that allows pitch modulation to pass through). I've especially been a fan of pitch modulation lately, since I hacked SNESMod to add both noise and pitch modulation features for some of my songs.

Nice!  I've been meaning to look into this whole pitch modulation stuff.  Any plans to release your changes to SNESMod?

ferris wrote:

also, I won the compo at tg14 I mentioned, with another track using the tool ;D http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=62927 \o/

Ace job!  Sounds so good!

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Dallas/Fort Worth, TX
cTrix wrote:

TUNE

Wow! I would love to get in on beta testing whenever you get to that point.

Also, I would definitely be willing to throw some money at this project. Fantastic work.

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Australia

^ Captured from my SNES last night.  This is Ferris' winning Super Nintendo entry @TG14 !!  All graphics / audio running from stock PAL SNES.  I love the fact he's gone for some really chip-inspired waveforms in there too.

Meanwhile... a test file from me which is testing the envelopes + extended octave range : http://ctrix.net/snes/cTrix-SNES-MidnightByPiano.mp3   It's also making use of the pan command and I pushed the APU to use the full 64k RAM for samples / playroutine. (27 bytes free)  It also does some pretty heavy crunching on compile to get the pattern size down.  For me, this whole track is about the last 10 seconds where the piano holds.... that SNES envelope sustain... :-o

As we add more and more commands (like volume command / pitch mod) I'll be able to demo things which are more dynamic than this.  There is no point releasing builds until the basic commands are locked down and the reverb / noise section is implemented.  And still need to add basic copy / paste / undo (lol).  At this point there is way more to test - and we will assemble a small team of beta testers to try and brk things - and thanks for the offers!!  (still months away at this point)

As you can see with the video above, there is more to this SNES project than just making the music tool ;-)

Last edited by cTrix (Apr 22, 2014 6:43 am)

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Oslo

perhaps we should split this out into our own thread at this point?

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Detroit, Michigan
cTrix wrote:

As you can see with the video above, there is more to this SNES project than just making the music tool ;-)

Guhhhh I want it, it's beautiful

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Dallas/Fort Worth, TX
ferris wrote:

perhaps we should split this out into our own thread at this point?

I agree.

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UK, Leicester
snesei wrote:

Guhhhh I want it, it's beautiful