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Does anyone think the fact that PAL games typically run more slowly than NTSC games has affected chiptune composers that came from a video game background? Or are there other reasons that I see more European chippers?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXMioUgT69U
I can't imagine growing up listening to that. The PAL music sounds sluggish or even 'dumb' compared to the NTSC version.
herr_prof'd
Last edited by akira^8GB (Jan 20, 2016 3:53 pm)
Edit
Last edited by herr_prof (Jan 20, 2016 3:08 pm)
As I recall, weren't some games optimised for their PAL release? The Super Mario Bros music is actually slightly faster in the PAL version.
Last edited by PROTODOME (Jan 19, 2016 3:31 pm)
Listen to the NTSC and PAL versions of Time Trax, Music 00. I prefer the slower 50 hz version. Considering it's written by Tim Follin, who is in the UK, 50 hz is the speed it was actually composed for.
50hz PAL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_IJYc9 … p;t=21m59s
60hz NTSC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_IJYc9t3vQ&t=0m1s
I don't know if the regional difference actually affects the composition process, though. Even my preference for the PAL version of Time Trax is just a personal thing, it seems from the comments on the video that many prefer the faster NTSC version, which sounds ludicrously fast to me.
Last edited by Vaina Moinen (Jan 20, 2016 7:10 am)
It kinda makes sense that it would affect the process. I mean, if you're going into writing music knowing that "it's going to playback at this speed" of course you would write the music so that it sounds good at the speed at which it's going to play.
If there was an NTSC version on the cards and you were using a vblank player in PAL, you might slow the tempo by one frame tick to try and compensate. I remember doing that once or twice. It's difficult though unless you're using an IRQ timer or something (which isn't always possible) you don't have the granularity to do it properly. (and even then it's not going to be exactly the same) See LFT's elements of chip music seminar where he talks about this a bit. I don't think people were thinking about composition within PAL/NTSC, you just wrote tracks and tried to fix the playback problem later. (or not)
Listen to the NTSC and PAL versions of Time Trax, Music 00. I prefer the slower 50 hz version. Considering it's written by Tim Follin, who is in the UK, 50 hz is the speed it was actually composed for.
50hz PAL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_IJYc9 … p;t=21m59s
60hz NTSC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_IJYc9t3vQ&t=0m1s
I don't know if the regional difference actually affects the composition process, though. Even my preference for the PAL version of Time Trax is just a personal thing, it seems from the comments on the video that many prefer the faster NTSC version, which sounds ludicrously fast to me.
We're talking about Tim Follin here, so either version sounds good. 
You're right though, I prefer the 50Hz version but the 60Hz version sounds like a "hurry up" or "running out of time" part of a game level.