257 Reply by bucky

(24 replies, posted in Nintendo Consoles)

(move to NES forum?)

The samples are 1-bit. Also you can do a pretty good job of sneaking triangle kick hits between other triangle melodies, so I wouldn't consider it a waste of space at all. If anything, it's a better use of space! wink

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258 Reply by bucky

(52 replies, posted in General Discussion)


Bernard Fevre - Pendulum

I'm not sure what year this is from, possibly late '70s? It sounds like whoever made the Ecco the Dolphin soundtracks listened to this and then went from there. smile

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259 Reply by bucky

(6 replies, posted in Nintendo Consoles)

I'm under the impression that it's an idiosyncrasy of the sound engine and not actually a bug. Like there's probably some sort of equation or maths above my head that determine the pitches, and the more out-of-tune notes are a casualty of that. I think I recall hearing high pitched triangle melodies in games that were both in tune or out of tune, so it's probably dependent on the underlying code.

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260 Topic by bucky

(6 replies, posted in Nintendo Consoles)

I posted this over at 8bc some months back, but figured I'd do a repost. I'll be doing that to a couple things I put some work into, so I apologize in advance for the redundancy! Maybe this'll be helpful to anyone new in this community... that and I feel safer having this on more than one forum. wink

--
The triangle gets noticeably sharp at some higher pitches, and I was able to use the fine tune, or PXX, effect to get it much closer for certain notes. I figured I'd look at all the notes and make a table to use as a reference.

Table of Famitracker pitch values

DF = Desired Frequency. What the pitch "should" be in an equal tempered scale.
AF = Achieved Frequency. This is what the NES produces with a normal note in FT.
Effect = The PXX effect used.
EF = Effect Frequency. This is what the note turns out as with the effect applied.

Where ever you see a PXX effect is somewhere you can obtain a closer, more accurate pitch (asides from a couple of the triangle pitches which come out as equally out of tune, in the other direction). If there is no PXX effect, then that's as close as you're getting with FT. smile

Observations:
-Most pitches for the pulse waves are varying amounts of sharp. Most are by a pretty subtle amount though, so while you can get some notes closer on the flat side, there's no real need for fine-tuning.
-Triangle pitches can vary between flat and sharp. Notes like D#6 and A#6 are very sharp by default, but you can get them near perfect by changing them. Also A-1 can be altered to be perfect.
-There is never an instance where pitching more than one value above (P81) or below (P7F) gets you closer to an equal tempered pitch. Nothing is quite *that* far off.

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261 Reply by bucky

(27 replies, posted in Nintendo Consoles)

alex_mauer wrote:

im not sure if the SNES power pak has SPC playback built in or if you will have to make your own ROM

I was wondering about this while taking a shower this morning. Hahah. I may be interested in recording some soundtracks from hardware, and would of course prefer SPC playback over playing a game or hoping there is a soundtest.

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262 Reply by bucky

(18 replies, posted in Nintendo Consoles)

Thanks, very insightful post! smile

alex_mauer wrote:

[it does have a distinct noise generator, however there is not yet any DIY snes music method that utilizes the noise generator...

Ah, makes sense, given that the tools available are module / .it converters. That's why I was kind of bummed that super famitracker was scrapped, seemingly in favor of just using SNESmod. A tracker made specifically for the SNES could allow for a more detailed and intuitive control. The more synthy aspects of the SNES is something I am very curious to see explored for sure.

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263 Reply by bucky

(32 replies, posted in Nintendo Consoles)

neilbaldwin wrote:

Heh.....I just figured out a really cheap way to do it.

Gave it a quick rough test and it seems pretty good.

So, anyway, back to the poll: "Pattern Master Volume Fade Command" or "Pattern Speed Table Command"? Which is better?

smile

Awesome, thanks for adding the note delay! A pretty crucial effect imo. smile

I haven't weighed in an opinion yet on the original question, mostly because I can't make up my mind weighing out the pros and cons. I think I'll be cool with whichever you pick here, really.

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264 Reply by bucky

(18 replies, posted in Nintendo Consoles)

akira^8GB wrote:

I don't see a point in this thing, unless you want to make a low-fi sampling machine (with inbuilt cheesy reverb effct and sample interpolation tongue)

The point would be to control the SNES in real-time. I mean I'm kind of with you on the sound, there's not much in it for me, but if someone wants to use it as a lo-fi sampler then all the more power to them! I haven't seen it done before, so it would at least be interesting. The cheesy reverb effects would actually sort of be its saving grace imo, since it is distinct. And you could look at it this way, why bother making Amiga music? ... wink

Also, saying that it has no synthesizing capabilities is incorrect. Granted, as far as I know there isn't a whole lot you can do with it, but I've heard people talk about generating sounds with it, however basic. (can someone with more knowledge on this chime in! I'd like to know more about it...). It also has a dedicated noise generator too.

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265 Reply by bucky

(18 replies, posted in Nintendo Consoles)

I know that composer Alberto Gonzalez used some sort of Midi interface on the SNES back in the day-
http://good-evil.net/features/interview … lez-part-1

B: It appears that you used Compact Editor for almost everything besides the SNES. What tools were used in the development of sequencing and programming the music for Asterix & Obelix? Being primarily sample based, do you recall the sources of the samples?

AG: For Asterix & Obelix I used Octamed, a well known Amiga 500 tracker, and I also used a very basic PC midi sequencer. Depending on the song I used one or the other. The SNES development kit had a MIDI input so it worked more or less like a synthesizer in real time. All the instrument samples were digitized from a Turtle Beach Maui PC sound card. For the effects, many were synthesized on the SNES using basic waveforms, and others were taken from many sources, but I don’t remember exactly which ones.

Should I inquire more about the snes dev kit? I find it interesting that there was stuff like that around 15 years ago but very little is known about it today...

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266 Reply by bucky

(37 replies, posted in Past Events)

http://www.youtube.com/CheapDinosaurs

We put up 5 songs on youtube!

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267 Reply by bucky

(373 replies, posted in Nintendo Consoles)

neilbaldwin wrote:
KeFF wrote:

midisync would be heart

I would love to but I (currently) wouldn't know where to even start.

A mad idea I was thinking of (and I don't even know if such a thing exists or is possible) would be an optical CV-to-MIDI gadget that you could point at a particular area of the screen and I would flash a small white square on screen in time with the refresh rate of the song. Then these pulses could be turned into MIDI clock (with some smoothing) and so NTRQ would be MIDI master clock to your slave devices.

That's probably insane I know big_smile

big_smile


Unfortunately I can't find the article on it, but I know it came from here-
http://little-scale.blogspot.com/

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268 Reply by bucky

(32 replies, posted in Sega)

Hey guys tell me where can I find Sonic Spinball for my computer?! wink

Wait, more serious question... Joey do you have a 4.5MM security bit I can borrow?

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269 Reply by bucky

(373 replies, posted in Nintendo Consoles)

Ah, it turns out it's not really a bug, just something you have to deal with. I posted a thread about it here-
http://8bitcollective.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=10361

The best way to avoid unstable tempos is to not bother with tempo (Fxx) commands and simply use the global speed settings. Doesn't quite give you a lot of freedom, I know!

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270 Reply by bucky

(373 replies, posted in Nintendo Consoles)

neilbaldwin wrote:

Method one offers the most stable timing as it's always based on a factor of 60fps e.g. a "tempo" of 3 would have a delay of 180 frames between each tick. However, this means that you have little in the way of tempo resolution as the smallest difference between one tempo and the next is 60 frames.

Method two offers you more resolution (I won't get into why) but is less stable because, depending on the speed, every X ticks, it will miss an update. This shows up as tiny fluctuations in your song tempo.

So the question is, which one to use for NTRQ? You've all probably more experience of trackers than me so I'd value any input.

Dare I say I've thought of a way of maybe having both. Maybe... but forget I said that for the time being smile

Haha, awesome. If you can't do both, I am a fan of stability. I've worked on some tracks in famitracker with unstable tempos and it can become VERY noticeable. Like an entire 32nd note or more being dropped, depending on the tempo, making any 16th note rhythm stand out as sounding clearly wrong / inconsistent.

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271 Reply by bucky

(37 replies, posted in Past Events)

SKGB wrote:
enso wrote:

What a great show! Photos are rad too!

where did rob come from?

Ah, I believe Carlson brought it. I think he was selling it with the rest of his stuff.

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272 Reply by bucky

(136 replies, posted in Past Events)

Bummer, won't be able to make it. This event sounds ridiculous / awesome. Hope everyone has a good time there.

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