sub
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Hey!  First post here, just wanted to clear the air and say I know practically nothing about chiptunes besides vague definitions of a few buzzwords, I'm writing here asking for your help.  What I've tried searching online has yielded no results so I'm going to ask you guys instead, you all seem to know your stuff - hey, maybe the answer is really easy and I'm just barking up the wrong tree.

So I'm interested in creating GBA tracks along the lines of this, this or maybe even something like this (obviously not shooting for this level of skill first time around, I just mean in terms of the type of stuff I'd like to do).  Anything I've searched for online has given me means that don't really sound anything like the kind of sound I'm going for (things like nanoloop - great in their own right, just not what I'm after).  After further rooting around search engines I discovered that apparently most GBA stuff is sample-based, basically meaning the sounds are gotten from elsewhere and compressed to be compatible with the Advance?  Soundfonts are also a term I've seen used a fair bit, but do I have to take from other games?  I'd rather make something more original...

Ooh, I'm stumped!  If you were me, what would you do?  What trackers should I use?  All of the ones I've found appear to be unfinished...  Does anyone actually make music like this?  I can't find any for the life of me.  I'd hate to go on the FL-Studio route or something similar - making tunes with actual hardware sounds really cool to me.

A lot of questions!  I'm not really looking for a "how to get good quick" sort of deal, I just kind of want to know where to start and more importantly, if it's even possible.  Sorry if I'm asking the wrong crowd by the way, hopefully you'll be able to point me to where I need to go.

Thanks for your time!

bitjacker
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Alive and well in fucksville

Dont bother with pocket music. It is a waste of monies. Have you considered using a ds? if so nitro tracker has a lot of power. For gba try fat

sub
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bitjacker wrote:

Dont bother with pocket music. It is a waste of monies. Have you considered using a ds? if so nitro tracker has a lot of power. For gba try fat

I just did a little look-up of nitrotracker and to be honest it sounds a bit too synth-y for my tastes, thanks for the suggestion though.

The latest version of FAT I was able to get my hands on is v0.2.0 which seems to have a lot missing from it - would that still be what you'd suggest?

How was this stuff like, originally made anyway?

Alpine
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UK, Leicester
sub wrote:
bitjacker wrote:

Dont bother with pocket music. It is a waste of monies. Have you considered using a ds? if so nitro tracker has a lot of power. For gba try fat

I just did a little look-up of nitrotracker and to be honest it sounds a bit too synth-y for my tastes, thanks for the suggestion though.

The latest version of FAT I was able to get my hands on is v0.2.0 which seems to have a lot missing from it - would that still be what you'd suggest?

How was this stuff like, originally made anyway?

nitrotracker isn't synthy at all, it's all sample based

Mrwimmer
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Los Angeles, CA

Build one of these guys

https://spritesmods.com/?art=gbamidi

walter b. gentle
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babylon

if i understand correctly the gba has some internal synth stuff in its firmware or bios or some shit like that. but i guess no one uses it and most of the music is sample based. if your hellbent on tracking with a handheld then im not sure if you can accomplish it on the gba. lots of people here have chubbs for Little Gamepark Tracker. maybe theres a way to playback songs on the gba with a particular sound engine  and a flashcart? anyway take everything im saying with a grain of salt, im no expert on these types of things.

TylerBarnes
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Dallas, Texas
Mrwimmer wrote:

Build one of these guys

https://spritesmods.com/?art=gbamidi

^^^ I second that. They are very fun and useful. Best GBA specific music tool to date.

› Show Spoiler

AuburnKitsune
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California

Ive always wanted a gba tracker just to make Battle Network inspired tunes.

MostlyToast
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Arizona

So your saying you want to make vgm without using anything too "synthy" and you also don't want to use vgm samples? I'd say the reason you are stumped is because what you are trying to achieve isn't really possible. My advice would be to use soundfonts with little piggy tracker. I believe using soundfonts requires that you use a ghetto build of the piggy but it should be stable. Snes soundfonts should sound similar to gba stuff but gba soundfonts shouldn't be hard to find/make.

Good snes soundfont sites:
http://woolyss.com/chipmusic-soundfonts.php
http://snesmusic.org/v2/select.php?view … mp;limit=0

boomlinde
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Sweden

Don't immediately dismiss a tracker because a few of the sample songs you heard were too "synthy", because these tools are pretty versatile. People are giving you the kind of advice you were asking for and you are giving up on them after "a little look-up". That's not very polite and will make people more reluctant to help you out.

Bit wish
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New Albany Indiana

If your not looking for something "synthy" i'd suggest LSDj.
You can get the ROM for as little as a penny (donate like 5 dollars tho, it helps the dev behind its creation), and emulators are free all over the place.
You really wont know what you want until you get out there and give them a spin, so don't be so quick to discard wink
I started out on the GBA btw.

sub
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Thank you all for the help!  I think I have a general idea of what I should be going for, sorry for dismissing some ideas too early ^^

Beware
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What exactly is wrong with Nanoloop?  Almost every sound in all three tracks is not outside the realm of possibility for NL.  Yes, there are some samples, but Nanoloop 2.x has a pretty powerful engine.  Also, if anything is "too synthy" then you have quite a but to learn about chip music as a whole.

sub
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Beware wrote:

What exactly is wrong with Nanoloop?  Almost every sound in all three tracks is not outside the realm of possibility for NL.  Yes, there are some samples, but Nanoloop 2.x has a pretty powerful engine.  Also, if anything is "too synthy" then you have quite a but to learn about chip music as a whole.

That's probably just my lack of vocabulary, I'm not really sure how to describe it perfectly I suppose.  I saw in stuff like LSDJ it's possible to have custom sounds (I think they're called kits?) is something similar possible in nanoloop or do you only have the defaults to play with?

Sorry for asking so many questions, my own research hasn't really gotten me anywhere.

Beware
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The "default sounds" are a very well put together FM synthesis engine in addition to your regular pulse and noise.  Kits are not available on the GBA unless you were to use MML which is certainly not what you want.  Just about everything in the three tracks you posted can be done in Nanoloop, you just lose the super lo-fi samples.  The tricks used for these tracks is to get them running on real hardware beside a real game.  Using it for just music you are not stuck with that limitation.  Look up anyone using Nanoloop 2.X and you'll see how crazy versatile it is once you learn how to use it.  6 note polyphony and a robust synthesis engine can accomplish just about anything you could possibly want from a GBA.

Also, it's nothing personal, but if your "research" hasn't presented you with any of the information in this thread you have not done much research at all.

Last edited by Beware (Apr 26, 2014 1:54 pm)

sub
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Beware wrote:

The "default sounds" are a very well put together FM synthesis engine in addition to your regular pulse and noise.  Kits are not available on the GBA unless you were to use MML which is certainly not what you want.  Just about everything in the three tracks you posted can be done in Nanoloop, you just lose the super lo-fi samples.  The tricks used for these tracks is to get them running on real hardware beside a real game.  Using it for just music you are not stuck with that limitation.  Look up anyone using Nanoloop 2.X and you'll see how crazy versatile it is once you learn how to use it.  6 note polyphony and a robust synthesis engine can accomplish just about anything you could possibly want from a GBA.

Also, it's nothing personal, but if your "research" hasn't presented you with any of the information in this thread you have not done much research at all.

Again, I believe you could just tack that down to the fact I have pretty much no idea what I'm looking for, sorry for seeming ignorant.  From what I saw of Nanoloop I gathered it was certainly powerful, but I wasn't sure whether or not it would be suited to the kind of thing I wanted to do for it.  Do you know if many do?  Where would you suggest looking?

Thank you for your help, I really appreciate it!