49 Topic by bitpusher2600

(7 replies, posted in General Discussion)

How is everyone?

I'm just wondering if there are any fellow bassheads or car audio junkies around here? I also wonder just how outrageous an idea it is to want to do chiptune geared towards banging one's system. Growing up, even well before I was old enough to drive, I used to accumulate electronic music in the form of what people used to call "bass tapes" (examples being Beat Dominator, Techmaster P.E.B, DJ Magic Mike, etc etc.) I honestly had a shoebox full by the time I was 12. Serious boom has always been a passion and the varied styles of electronic music that comprised all these albums has always been a very strong if not forefront influence.

I have attempted to mix that with chiptune. My Atari 2600 tunes for example, often focused on some amped up low end and it sounds awesome to me in my own setup. It has been a little more challenging to get that sort of boom out of the Gameboy but I have a few tunes in my roster that likewise hit surprisingly low and well (my tunes "Ultrabass'd", "Sexy MF'n Binary" and "Pixelated B-Boy" are my best examples.)

What do you guys think? Does chip music have any place in the world of electronic music oriented towards bass junkies?

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50 Reply by bitpusher2600

(5 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

You know, it's funny you posted this because I experimented with something similar recently and I about sh*t when it actually worked. What cartridge are you using. I have the EMS64 here. Now then, I have a Windows Phone and have been playing  with the VBA8 emulator. My device is higher end so that may be part of it but I have to say it performs flawlessly. Anyway, I took a test .sav file from that and tried flashing it to my cart with the software that comes along with the cartridge. I made sure to use the very same LSDJ rom that is on my cartridge for the sake of keeping things kosher. I simply copied the sav, I had to rename it to Records.sav and flash that file to the cartridge. When I first booted up on my DMG, I got the corrupted Nintendo logo and thought it simply failed, no big deal. I rebooted a couple times and then it fired right up and the LSDJ sav loaded exactly with what was left from my phone.

Long story short, it worked! The whole reason I wanted to try this is because my phone is always with me, my DMG is not, so I could mess with a song on break at work for example and be able to keep any on the go work, yet still be able to playback and record from the real hardware at my convenience.

What I do not know is if the .sav from all Gameboy emulators are equal. In the case of VBA8, it works out for cartridge use just fine. I don't know a thing about Gambatte, but in all honesty you really don't have alot to lose. Good luck.

*Edit:
I also should mention that Johan's extractor worked there as well. The .sav from the emulator allowed me to extract the lsdsng's. Super cool.

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51 Topic by bitpusher2600

(2 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

I had ordered a fresh EMS cartridge recently from Nonfinite, and the accompanying copy of LSDJ has been patched with some awesome kits, so I finally began investigating how that actually works. In the course of a few days I have done some internet scouring and have amassed a huge library of kits. I have checked out all of them and built a collection to max out LSDJ on my cartridge. I removed just a few of the stock kits, and all that I wanted to use, I have zipped up and stored on my website. The direct link is right here:

http://bitpusher2600.net/files/KitLib.zip

I had no idea patching LSDJ was so simple if you can find ready-made kits. Hope someone enjoys them.

Just wanted to mention too: Over the years I have moved between web hosting services a couple of times but long story short my website has been up since 2010, so this link will be good for a long time to come. Thanks guys.

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52 Reply by bitpusher2600

(3 replies, posted in Audio Production)

I wish my computer were capable of two monitors, its a tad too old for that. I was shocked that it was able to run the insider preview of Windows 10.

Oh well, thank you guys.

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53 Topic by bitpusher2600

(3 replies, posted in Audio Production)

Hey guys, question. I presently run my RCA prosounded DMG to the UCA-222 usb sound interface to my computer to record. I was wondering if there is any such thing (a piece of hardware) as a passthru spectrum analyzer or display that would allow me to essentially plug my Gameboy's RCA lines into it to see some sort peek into my assorted levels then go from that device to the sound interface and record as normal.

I want to see something a tad more verbose than the gain level displayed in Audacity, and as stated I would love to have a piece of portable hardware as opposed to something on my computer screen. Does such a thing exist?

*edit:
I should mention i'm wanting to be able to see assorted levels on the fly, i'm not talking about a waveform display. Thanks folks.

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54 Reply by bitpusher2600

(34 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

Why not both?
I have both a DMG our own ThursdayCustoms built for me, as well as using vba8 on my Windows Phone. The device is a Lumia 1520, so it has both higher end hardware spec and a big screen, it's comfortable and doesn't really hiccup, and no need to worry about a failing battery wiping out your sav since you can cloud sync it and do a local backup. There is nothing however quite like the sound of a real DMG, especially for the low-end. I have tinkered with all kinds of crapola, such as recording a channel from the smartphone, and the others from the DMG and putting them together on the PC. Lots of quick switching stereo effects tend to give the DMG a hard time for example, so voila there's a way around that. If it were possible to sync LSDJ between the emulator on the phablet with the DMG, that would be pretty wicked, but there's always other means smile

As for the original question, there are a couple of arguments that exist on the sidelines here. One; considering emulated vs hardware reminds me of the debate of the sound quality of vinyl vs CD. Everyone who cares at all about music has heard of or engaged in that one at one point. The other is the purist argument; one saying it's only real chip music if it's done on real hardware vs the other (sometimes labeled fakebit) that are simply emulating the hardware or sampling it and actually making the music in a DAW. Fun subjects to ponder.

In any event, my original statement remains the same for any angle one could look at LSDJ or chip music in general with; why not both smile

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55 Reply by bitpusher2600

(8 replies, posted in General Discussion)

I just want to say hello, and that I'm enjoying your videos.

I've been wanting to tinker with some NES beats myself, but he'll I struggle doing anything really decent with Little Sound DJ, let alone something as big as a NES tracker. That said, I only knew of FamiTracker, never really heard of ModPlug. If I can ask, why (for you) is this preferable to FamiTracker? Just curious. The tunes you are making sound like proper NES to me.

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56 Reply by bitpusher2600

(46 replies, posted in General Discussion)

There's several names here I have not heard of or have listened to, and here I thought I was familiar with a fairly long list of names. This is good stuff folks smile

@QuietMind: absolutely great isn't it? I've shown that same video in recent times to friends of mine who don't understand this chip music thing i'm into.

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57 Reply by bitpusher2600

(8 replies, posted in General Discussion)

I was fortunate to be able to do so and it happened by chance! I mean I buy my cables and stuff at local stores but when I wanted a Gameboy pro-sound modded for LSDJ, I had to go online to buy  because I don't know a thing about soldering boards and etc. Turns out that a shop called Thursday Customs is local to my state (in fact, about an hour and a half away where I live.) So yeah, it is definitely nice to be able to get stuff near home smile

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58 Topic by bitpusher2600

(46 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Hi everyone.
Just thought it would be interesting and perhaps fun to ask and share the following:
Who would you either name as your biggest personal influence in chip music, or who is someone you admire most for their expertise and talent? I don't mean as in trying to emulate someone, but as a favorite when you're in the mood to crank some chip, that go to artist....and WHY?

As for myself, it probably should've been Bit Shifter because back in November of 2009 is when I first discovered that people were using vintage hardware to make so called "chiptune", and while poking around on YouTube, I stumbled on a video of Bit Shifter mixing some raw techno shit on a pair of Gameboys and that boggled my mind, let alone sort of changed my life and i'll always appreciate him for that. Ironically though, once I started researching it and listening to alot of stuff from 8bitPeoples, the first thing I remember coming across that I was crazy about was a release from Yerzmyey called FREAKuencies, and when I first started dabbling with my own stuff via the Atari Music Network, we actually spoke on there and he was extremely kind. Never would've thought years later he'd remix one of my tunes. The man has been at it for so many years. So long story short, my choice is Yerzmyey. He's just incredible and I admire the fact he commands a small empire of hardware and software with so many styles and approaches.

Cheers.

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59 Reply by bitpusher2600

(4 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

Holy crap someone else who knows about Plan9! Respects sir.

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60 Reply by bitpusher2600

(24 replies, posted in General Discussion)

I don't exactly make "good" chiptune but I do it once in a while anyway, so I may not have the best advice but i'll share anyway:
I use LSDJ on the Gameboy, it's what I prefer. I actually prefer to put together a drum beat / percussion first, then tinker with that until I have at least a couple of workable sequences together, then just build from there. More often than not I go next to conjuring some kind of bassline, then just experiment and create the rest from there.

I don't know, perhaps the order in which you create all of the elements of your song matters. I for example really can't come up with a melody or lead first and work the other way. Apparently, the real key is experimentation, and lots of it. It's neat to just keep things and see it slowly fall together.

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61 Reply by bitpusher2600

(16 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

I'm at work at present, but when I get home today I'm going to take another crack at that, thanks to Dire Hit smile
I need to re-watch Zef's videos a couple times because I'm a slow learner (if I were a smart man I wouldn't be doing what I do for a living.) At any rate, I never knew how to really use H commands, that like the A command and a couple others, I couldn't honestly figure out a sensible use for. Using H to steadily repeat a sequence of other commands, I would've never figured that one out.

For once my mood is good smile

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62 Reply by bitpusher2600

(16 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

I promise I did in fact read the manual, I didn't hop in totally blind. I will however take your advice and do it again, some of the wording I confess goes over my head at times. As for that tutorial, I may have seen it, I know I looked at a few, even the two parter by pandastar. Maybe you ought to do one wink
Thank you for trying to help me good sir.

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63 Reply by bitpusher2600

(16 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

herr_prof wrote:

There is nothing you can do in nanoloop that cant be done in lsdj, except you actually have to know what you are doing in the later.

I know. I did a bass CD in Nanoloop on iOS. With it's capability to both create instruments and import high resolution sound samples and then manipulate those sounds, I completed almost the entire project in just that. I've looked at the Gameboy version online, and its a slightly different beast, but I meant to say I probably have  better chances of getting where I would like to be a heck of alot faster since I have a very familiar and comfortable knowledge of Nanoloop's work environment.

LSDJ is cheaper, more flexible (in that it doesn't require special hardware, it can be flashed very easily), and the very fine control nature of it appeals to me somehow, I'm just stuck at a wall im not getting past. For now.

Forgot to say that I love the vertical sequencing of the tracker (which is something that is very new to me.) It's awesome if not sensible. Don't get me wrong either, I love the 1xlsdj sound and I'm quite satisfied with my present Gameboy tunes, even if they weren't too popular on CMO, I still like to listen to myself on occasion in my car. I just know from listening there are sounds and possibilities I have heard and know exist but can't seem to achieve because of the complexity of formulating thick tables, I don't want to keep relying on the infamous patch book.

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64 Reply by bitpusher2600

(16 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

Jesus, that's brutal. Been at this the last couple hours, the frackin' LSDJ screen is burned into my eyes and my head hurts to boot.
I just cannot reproduce those sounds. I don't understand how to count in ticks and use the H command. The C command, I just scanned the values and can get a bit of vibrato, and trying to really use transpose throws me off too because since it's possible to change a note so drastically, I'm never sure which note to begin with before tsp. W is not making sense either because what is the goal unless maybe you use lots of W's in the list, that would sound like some serious glitch noise.

Anyway, I'm taking a break, this is wildly depressing. I bet I should be using Nanoloop, but dammit I want LSDJ.
I will probably end up sticking to the simple techno stuff. Actually, I have friends in a couple local bands and was offered the chance a couple times to open for them. I promptly said nope because I don't know how and don't want to be in front of people anyway.
Sorry, frustration has me rambling.

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