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Thanks guys!

Expansion Audio Comparisons V1

So there's not much to compare anything to yet, unless you wanted to compare these to nsf players. As mentioned in the text file, I think afterall that the expansion is likely too loud from the RCA output of an NTSC NES, using the powerpak and the 47k resistor mod. Like you'll hear immediately how it sounds louder than every nsf player. Is it like this for everyone else? An extreme example is Madara track 2, you can barely hear the DPCM in it.

Perhaps all the more reason for the mod to include a volume knob...

Oh, I forgot to mention that everything was sampled at the same volume as well. I used one of the Akumjou tracks to 'master' to since it was loudest. There's also a bit of noise, and I'm not certain it's normal NES/ powerpak noise. I don't hear it from the same RCA output when I'm only sampling 2a03 stuff, so I think it must be coming from the expansion but only when it's in use. I'm not %100 on this though. Or maybe that's normal if it's that much louder...

Anyways, I was surprised to see that expansion won't work from the original carts using a gyromite adaptor! Whoops. I kind of assumed that would work if the powerpak worked! Why is that? It goes through a pin/ leg that gets lost in the adapter? The games will still work and play 2a03 audio. What would it take for a Famicom expansion cart to have its audio work on a US NES? Do I need to pull audio from a pin on the cartridge?

I'll probably sample from Enso's famicom next and see how that sounds.

Magician, Neil Baldwin

Looks like I should finally dig into nullsleep's tutorial, this looks really cool.

Well, I don't actually know for certain that the VRC6 is too loud on the powerpak. Part of me is suspicious that the saw is too loud in Castlevania from an arrangement standpoint to begin with...
But it did sound kind of annoyingly loud, yes.

However, the emulated FDS channel was very noticeably out of tune when I ran some FDS games on the powerpak, so there are certainly some flaws to be found. My general concern/ skepticism about sound expansion is that, unlike 2a03 stuff, we don't have lots of good reference points for how it's "supposed" to sound. With normal NES music, we've all heard it a bajillion times, so poor emulation can really stand out. Otherwise, I've heard the VRC7 sound very different between two NSF players, so how are we supposed to know which is better?

I've begun collecting sound expansion games with the intention of sampling their soundtracks properly from hardware.
So far I've gathered-
Gimmick! (FME-07)
Madara (VRC6)
Akumajou Densetsu (VRC6)
Lagrange Point (VRC7)

I'm planning on getting all sound expansion games that exist (asides FDS games), if non are rare/ super expensive. I'm sure other people have done hardware recordings before, but I'd love to put up something nice and organized for them...

This may be needlessly anal-retentive, but I also wanted to compare a couple tracks from each game when sampled from the RF output of a Famicom, the RCA-out of an AV-modded Famicom, and the RCA-out of a modded NES. Perhaps low-gain or someone else may have some insight, but I'm not too trusting that the 47k resistor mod 'guarantees' the proper levels between the expansion and 2a03 like the original Famicom has. I have no technical understanding to back this hunch up, but I'm definitely interested in double checking the quality of everything.

I guess it doesn't really matter for most musicians-- you compose for what you have, so it's not like the VRC6 being mixed "perfectly" matters for original music. But I figure why not poke around and see how to get the most proper sound for these game soundtracks.

Anyways, back on topic-
I also think there'd be a demand for a low-gain sound mod w/ expansion support. To echo theta-frost, I know someone else who was interested in low-gain's mod but passed because they were concerned how it'd work with sound expansion. I'll also put in a vote that you should make one dude!

I have an NES sample set I made several years back. It's free and you wouldn't have to credit me or anyone if you use it. It only works for .it modules, but I could probably remake it as .xm for use in milkytracker. (milkytracker doesn't do .it, right?)

But here it is anyways - NES .it module Sample Set V1.

The idea behind my set is that you're starting with a blank module but all of the instruments are already loaded in. The reason for this is because individual .wavs are pretty useless without the looping data in the tracker they need... so my set can only work as a 'blank' module file. Kinda sucks for people who don't use .it... but oh well.

There's a lot of samples because I tried to include some basic effects that sample-based trackers aren't good at.

Or, since you've mentioned you're a windows user, you could try out modplug. I think it's very user friendly, and although I'm not familiar with milkytracker, I imagine figuring out modplug shouldn't be hard if you understand how any tracker works. You can open the .it file with it.

Best of luck, and let me know if you have any questions!

oh, cool!

Yeah, that's unfortunate. Emily has been getting the original .mov files out to some of the bands already, so hopefully I can reupload the cheap dinos stuff to youtube.

LOVING THIS.