CarrieStronggrog
Offline

Hi fellow chipmusicians,

I have, by no means, an advanced studio nor do I have any fancy recording equipment.

I've been making Game Boy music for about 10 years now, but I've never really got it right on how to set up my tracks properly to record each channel separately for more mixing possibilities to get a more 'pro' result.

I tried the method of putting a click on the noise channel and then record record every channel separately one after the other but I didn't get any great result..

I would be so thankful if you could walk me through your ways of preparing and setting up your tracks for recording and mixing smile

Thaank you all!

egr
Offline
Abandoned on Fire

For lsdj I recommend using the "record channels separately" feature of BGB. You'll get a clean and perfectly synced set of wavs that you can then treat individually if needed in your DAW of choice (or audacity etc).

Last edited by egr (Mar 20, 2017 11:10 pm)

CarrieStronggrog
Offline
egr wrote:

For lsdj I recommend using the "record channels separately" feature of BGB. You'll get a clean and perfectly synced set of wavs that you can then treat individually if needed in your DAW of choice (or audacity etc).

That sounds interesting, what is BGB?
In matter of fact I just received the little USB adaptor for nanoloop and I was thinking that I could use that to sync and record each channel separately to ableton from my GBAs. Does anyone have this approach to recording their tracks ?

urbster1
Offline
Naptown
CarrieStronggrog wrote:

That sounds interesting, what is BGB?

BGB Game Boy Emulator

Does anyone have this approach to recording their tracks ?

the BGB method is much easier and less noisy, although this is doable

CarrieStronggrog
Offline

I see! Well, I guess I'm just gonna have to sit down to try out different arrangements to find one that works for me. I'm a bit against using emulators but I guess it's great if you wanna get the cleanest possible signal..
On both LSDJ and Nanoloop 2 I like to arrange my songs into complete tracks so that I just need to press play. I have a complete song on my Nanolopp 2 that I tried to record by individual pattern from each channel separately to then be able to recreate the song manually in Ableton. But I really never got the hang of the timing.. It didn't sound right even though I think I quantized correctly.

Last edited by CarrieStronggrog (Apr 9, 2017 1:06 pm)

urbster1
Offline
Naptown

i hear you, i also arrange my tunes that way. i don't personally use emulators either, i just plug a pro-sound DMG into a mixer and record stereo out from that. only reason to use BGB imho is if you want to record and mix the tracks separately, but i normally just apply a bit of EQ on the mixer and maybe a touch of polishing in the DAW if i feel it really needs it. for the most part i want it to sound like it does when it comes out of the game boy.

Rees
Offline

I record every track separately from my Game Boy, then align the recordings in my DAW of choice (Reason) by zooming all the way in and perfectly lining up the waveforms. No guess work.

CarrieStronggrog
Offline
Rees wrote:

I record every track separately from my Game Boy, then align the recordings in my DAW of choice (Reason) by zooming all the way in and perfectly lining up the waveforms. No guess work.

I actually tried the same, by recording all channels separately in live mode in LSDJ and putting like a 'clap' sound on the noise channel before every separate channel recording and then just line up the 'claps' of all the four recordings in the daw, but it started to sound a bit weird after a while into the song.. I don't know how precise the clock is in LSDJ... I read up on this in the forum and akira/8gb spoke about this method, except he used some kind if midiclock to get everything better synced. I just wonder how this is achieved, my guess is thanks to an andruino boy.. But I just wanted to see what methods there are, because I really don't have the time to build one or the money to buy one at this point in time..

urbster1
Offline
Naptown

the clock in LSDJ should be accurate according to the BPM, but the ticks can fluctuate per beat to try to keep the tempo consistent. so i think some beats may end up being a little longer or shorter. i'm not sure if that's the proper way to explain it but it was brought up somewhat recently on the LSDJ Facebook page, and that is my understanding anyway. it is possible to sync to MIDI clock using arduinoboy, which might be more accurate for use in a DAW, but i haven't tested this

Last edited by urbster1 (Apr 9, 2017 11:07 pm)

iano
Offline
Trento, Italy

Live mode doesnt compute paused channels so it could not be in sync
Best way to record separate channels in real HW is to use the mute function

e.s.c.
Offline
IL, US
iano wrote:

Live mode doesnt compute paused channels so it could not be in sync
Best way to record separate channels in real HW is to use the mute function

i'd recommend this + MIDI sync (the MIDI sync will help stabilize the tempo)

urbster1
Offline
Naptown

i wonder if it would be trickier to use MIDI sync if the song contains tempo change commands though

herr_prof
Offline
Unsubscribe

Tempo changes are ignored when slaved to midi.

What Im doing right now:

Record gameboy stereo track to Ableton
Make that audio the master track for tempo sync. This preserves the weirdo groove of the track and helps with tempo changes. You can also record midi out this way, and quantize it to the master track
Put your gameboy in midi slave mode, record each channel separately, with the others playing chains full of K00 commands.

Its a pain! Is it better than justa stereo master? Who knows!

CarrieStronggrog
Offline
herr_prof wrote:

Tempo changes are ignored when slaved to midi.

What Im doing right now:

Record gameboy stereo track to Ableton
Make that audio the master track for tempo sync. This preserves the weirdo groove of the track and helps with tempo changes. You can also record midi out this way, and quantize it to the master track
Put your gameboy in midi slave mode, record each channel separately, with the others playing chains full of K00 commands.

Its a pain! Is it better than justa stereo master? Who knows!

Thank you! This is the kind of reply I wished for! Could you go into a bit more detail? For example, how to you send the midi signal to the DMG? Via an arduinoboy ? You mentioned 'make that audio the master track for tempo sync'; I've used ableton for several years but I don't quite follow how this achieved and then how the DMG just follows along that signal in sync. Cause the midi derived from the stereo audio recording would contain only note data if I'm not mistaking ?

Thank you all for your inputs, I greatly appreciate all suggestions/quirks/info I can get! Keep it coming!

herr_prof
Offline
Unsubscribe

In ableton you can use warping to map a recorded tracks tempo into the tempo track for the project:
https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/audio … d-warping/

Im using an arduinoboy~

So record gameboy audio, make it a warp master (this can be complicated if your track doesnt have well defined beats) check that the click track and your gameboy audio is in sync, and then using the aboy, set the lsdj to midi slave and record each track one by one to ableton as sync master. You might also want to run a warp pass on each channel and make sure everything is synced for each recorded channel, then mute the reference track and mix as you like!

CarrieStronggrog
Offline

Ah I see! But doesn't that also require like a 'start signal' or a 'clap' or does a midi slaved LSDJ start immediately at the beginning of the midi clip ? If yes, then I think I know how I would proceed. I don't have an adruinoboy but I have the USB to link cable dongle from Oliver which is mainly for nanoloop 2. Does anyone know how stable the sync is on Nanoloop 2 ? If I was to record all channels separately from a song that I've created in song mode I guess I would have to duplicate it onto four different banks and just map out the numbers of the individual patterns on each track in song mode and leave the other 3 at 0? Because there's no mute in NL2...