For live play you'd need a really good PA that cuts out background noise. This isn't really my forte so I can't say what the specs on the PA should be - all I know is I've played two live shows where the volume was up very high and couldn't hear anything when the track wasn't actively playing through my setup. It has something to do with whatever is built into the system to force it to produce no sound when the input levels are below a certain amount. I also use NES and DMG for my tracks so I'm not sure if it's a similar frequency or whatever but that would be your best bet for live shows.
For recording, you have a lot of control if you're willing to put in the time. After implementing every trick I know to cut back on artifact sounds (including mods, note overlaps - which unfortunately I don't think you can do with a tracker, etc), I record every channel on it's own, then go into each channel's spectrogram in my editing software and insert silences in place of all gaps between notes where the background noise can be heard. If you record all of your channels together then you won't be able to cut the background noise in the gaps between any notes on a given channel where another channel is playing a note (obviously, since you'd be cutting out that portion of whatever is playing on every other track) so I definitely recommend recording each channel separately, syncing them in your audio app, then polishing each one the way I described above. For quiet parts of the song where you can still hear it, you can try using a filter, taking a sample from a section of the track with just background noise to remove that same noise from a section with those quieter notes playing. However, this method should only be used in dire circumstances as it will usually leave that section of track sounding muddy.
It may seem excessive and a pain in the ass to do all this but the difference is night and day in the final track. Seriously, listen to this track where I did all of that and try to hear any background noise at all, even with headphones. I used both NES and DMG on that track (7 audio channels total in the recorded mix).
https://soundcloud.com/doctoroctoroc/wa … rrangement
One other hot tip I can offer is to record your noise channel at the same time as one other channel (on the NES I record it with the triangle, on the DMG I record it at the same time as the WAV channel sometimes, but I usually utilize the noise channel on the NES more than on the DMG so I don't often do this on DMG), then record the pulse channels each on their own. The reason for this, at least for me, is there are a TON of gaps between notes on my noise channel with all the hi hats, short snares, quick kicks, etc. Recording this channel on its own and silencing the nose between gaps would take ages (I mean, you can do it if you want) so recording it with the triangle or WAV means I only have to insert silences when neither channel is playing on the recorded track - which you wouldn't want to do with all the tracks as described above but for one of a few tracks, it's fine cause there will likely be enough volume overall throughout the track that you won't hear background noise at all. In terms of the NES it's also convenient because the noise, DPCM and triangle are all on the same audio out (with my prosound 'stereo' mod) so I actually record all three at once with the pulse channels unplugged because they create more noise in the background. I also tend to double up the noise with DPCM to make the samples punch a lot harder.
I hope this is somewhat helpful. I know this isn't really an answer to your original question, just general advice for recording chiptunes. And I haven't messed with the GBA yet but a lot of the principles should be the same. But I have heard that the GBA can be one of the noisiest of the Nintendo handhelds so as a last ditch effort you could get yourself an original brick and try that on for size!
Last edited by Doctor Octoroc (Feb 21, 2021 3:46 am)