tuzuw
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Hello everyone,

I'm not a musician nor a chiptune expert, so I unfortunately have nothing to propose.

I recently was listening to Jean-Baptiste Lully's "Marche pour la cérémonie des Turcs" and was wondering what a chiptune translation would sound like.
I'm not talking about a remix, but how it would sound if someone tried to make a faithful rendition using limited instruments, like the SID chip on the C64, or the OPL2/3 on a Soundblaster, etc…

If anyone here is ready to seriously take this challenge, I would be happy to hear about it and give my point of view.

Best regards to everyone.

rumpelfilter
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Italy

It should be pretty feasible, if you dig into it and understand all the ins and outs of counterpoint. Actually, I think this should be a lot easier than translating music from later periods that rely a lot more on harmony.
Baroque counterpoint often has few monophonic voices (sometimes just 4) and works mostly with the interplay of independent melodic sequences... which seems like a perfect fit for chiptune music.

garvalf
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France

I'm an avid fan of medieval, renaissance, folk and baroque musics, and some of my own compositions have some ancient music touch (I like to see this as my trademark).

I've also made some quick or longer covers of such musics.

Here is a quick conversion of some Tielman Susato renaissance musics on C64: http://2a03.free.fr/dl.php?file=4828 (it's a C64 disk image you can use in emulator, the sid files are included in it). It was quick because I've only used the convenient midi to sid converter from sidwizard. It could be done more carefully with some rework on the instruments for example. You can get one of the sid files there: http://2a03.free.fr/dl.php?file=4825

On OPL3, I've made this which is obviously like renaissance dances: https://soundcloud.com/garvalf/cyber-danserye

This tune (on C64) was inspired by renaissance dances as well: http://garvalf.free.fr/var/upload/musiq … e1_drm.ogg
This other one a bit by baroque: http://garvalf.free.fr/var/upload/musiq … id8580.ogg

So not much pure baroque music, which is a shame. Lully's Marche pour la cérémonie des Turcs is without doubt, along with Marin Marais' Alcyone music, one of my favorites, so it could be a very very good idea to make a cover of it! So... challenge accepted.

Last edited by garvalf (Dec 5, 2016 8:40 am)

rumpelfilter
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Italy

@garvalf: some cool stuff in there! Big fan of baroque music and counterpoint myself! Actually this reminds me of the soundtrack to the Game Boy edition of Gargoyle's Quest, which was also strongly inspired by baroque music, as far as I can tell.

tuzuw
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@rumpelfilter Thank you for your answer. Baroque music is indeed pretty simple, but on the other hand, the instrument used produce very deep sounds.

@garvalf Thank you very much for your answer, that's very interesting. Content aussi de voir qu'il y a d'autres français ici smile
I'm eager to see what you are going to produce.

garvalf
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France

This gargoyle's quest is nice.
The whole Castlevania franchise also has a strong baroque music feeling:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIu4gRq … 68894529C1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4HhvGk … mp;index=5

rumpelfilter
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Italy

@tuzuw: yes, that's a major point. When you work with a classic string quartet, there's a lot you can do by just working with articulations and dynamics, which might be a bigger challenge when working with the tools available in chipmusic. On the other hand I didn't want to say that baroque music is simple. Counterpoint is a pretty complex thing to master (just look at Bach), but it's probably more achievable in chipmusic than if you wanted to recreate a romantic symphony. In fact a lot of switched-on classical music focuses on Bach and counterpoint-based music.

garvalf
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France

It's not always the case for all baroque music, but some of them (I think to harpsichord music especially) have a quite harsh sound which turns well on chiptune. The same goes for some ancient instruments (crumhorn, organs)

garvalf
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France

I've started something with the Sega Megadrive chip. It's only the first part at the moment and it sounds rather rough, something like the Orange Mecanique / Clockwork Orange's theme: http://2a03.free.fr/dl.php?file=5288 (it's in vgm format)

edit: and since it was made with DefleMask, I can also export it to SID format: http://2a03.free.fr/dl.php?file=5289 but with only 3 voices it is quite limited.

Last edited by garvalf (Dec 5, 2016 3:16 pm)

XyNo
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Joliette, QC, Canada

Some Commodore64 game music were kinda Baroque.


The Soundtrack of Friday the 13th on C64 is really weird. Some songs are really ridiculous for something from an horror game (like that wedding song) but it's still a good OST

garvalf
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France

nice musics XyNo...

I've finished the transcription of Lully's march to Megadrive: http://2a03.free.fr/dl.php?file=5298

I'll probably try to improve the instruments and the orchestration later...

Last edited by garvalf (Dec 7, 2016 2:52 pm)

urbster1
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Naptown

I would like to try doing some Bach in LSDJ like this, but with a little more expression and variation in the instruments, Switched-On-Bach style

(you can find a couple more videos by searching for "Bach LSDJ")

Herbert Weixelbaum has done some badass Mozart on Game boy (again you can find more by searching "herbert weixelbaum")

Knife Crimes
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I have a partially tracked version of 'Zadok the Priest' in LSDJ. If it's ever finished I'll share it here.

Boy Meets Robot
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Chicago

I made a fakebit version of a baroque-style fugue I wrote a while back:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3wjF … YxRFdlOGx3

TetrisEffect
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URBSTER1'S  is right....

http://www.herbertweixelbaum.com/gameboy.htm

dude is so badass

Arc-Demon
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Does this count?