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(62 replies, posted in Releases)

Hi everyone! I'm really happy about the positive response the song received! This was something I absolutely was not expecting to happen -- especially for doing a so-called 'brostep' song for the first time! Being featured in destructoid especially surprised me. It really opened my eyes, since originally I was fearing that it wasn't going to be as accepted as a legitimate song -- hence I was about to keep the song strictly for future live events. But I'm really happy that even listeners normally critical about dubstep/brostep at least appreciate the technical aspects of the song! All in all, thank you sooooo much for all your support!

I guess I should talk about technical stuff regarding the song, since I've received a whole flurry of questions wondering how the song sounds like the way it is -- mainly how the wubwub bass sounds are made, as well as the snappy drums.


Reese basses:
Most of the reese stuff were done on the squarewave 2A03 channels (there's a few weird effects done on the VRC6 channels too, but mostly they do auxiliary / filler stuff... for example the 'supersaws' on the melodic parts). Without revealing my secret sauce, I will say one essential ingredient: custom software timer. It's a long-established trick to use for chiptunes (I believe LSDJ and Nanoloop's sound engines are based around it, even? Please do correct me if I'm wrong), but until recently hasn't been fully exploited in NES music. That being said, creative programming on the squarewaves opens up a pandora's box of weird tones usually not possible within 60/50Hz refresh.

Aside from being obviously impractical to use in actual games, I think the reason custom timer stuff isn't as popular in NES music is because most NSF players ignore the replay speed on a NSF's header and just force the playroutine to refresh at 60Hz (of course, replay engines like SuperNSF have their own timer code that can bypass all that, but that's another topic). Fortunately, Powerpak's NSF player plays Kyunstep (and most similarly-timed NSFs) in its intended speed totally fine.


Drums:
Yeah, they're a mixture of DPCM and noise channel played together. That was one of the parts I took a rather long time on creating. It's pretty hard to make DPCM drums sound powerful enough in a heavy mix like what is usually done in 'brostep' songs (especially given the muffled nature of delta playback even @ ~32khz max), so it has to be backed by clever noise channel programming. In addition, otherwise unorthodox stuff like pseudo side-chaining on the melodic channels helps bring the drums out. I think it can't be overstated that having good volume control programming synced to drums in dance-based chiptunes can REALLY make a huge difference.

For reference, there's only 3 DPCM samples used in the entire song: A bassdrum and two snares (less snappy snare for Part I, more snappy snare for Part II). DPCM channel doesn't do anything else other than take advantage of non-linear mixing volume control via smooth $4011 register writes.


Mixing:
The song in bandcamp is mixed in post accordingly -- which does help make the overall sound even more aggressive (and that way it can somehow audibly compete with non-chiptune dubstep songs, haha). That being said, it's mainly EQ'ing and compression/limiting on the master; There's no creative post-processing effects applied. All the strange sounds in the song really are from just the 2A03 + VRC6. (Side note: the songs during blipfest were directly fed from my NES consoles with no post-effects applied. And yes, the NES machines are wired to accept expansion audio from the powerpak / Famicom games with such soundchips. tongue )

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(62 replies, posted in Releases)

Listen / Download in Bandcamp Here

Recently, I played Tokyo Blipfest 2012 in KOENJI HIGH along with a group of absolutely amazing chipartists. Originally this was the result of a bet with a good friend that a NES really can emit heavy reese growls without resorting to DPCM samples or direct PCM playback (in fact, the reese basses in the song were mainly created with the 2A03 pulsewave channels, despite the song also using VRC6 expansion smile ), but eventually this dub/bro style song was retrofitted specifically for this final blipfest. I was very happy with the crowd response of the song (and was even more happy that my friend on stage did such a good job rallying the crowd with me), but I was planning to just keep it within my library of live material and be done with it. But after tons of friends and acquaintances asking and begging (even one threatening!) for me to release it, I eventually decided it really would be the best thing to do so.

It's a 2-parter album single (in fact, the first part is the same denpa song featured in NO CARRIER's Tokyo Blipfestival 2010 Invite NES ROM!). The 2nd part is, of course, the dub drop.

It has a silly storyline to it, too. smile Its little jokes are heavily based off Japanese Akihabara otaku culture... which otherwise the story won't make much sense if you haven't experienced the culture firsthand. (for instance, the "Oishiku nare, moemoe kyun!" phrase repeated multiple times in this album, in particular, is a common phrase for maids to "bless your food to make it more tasty" in a cosplay cafe. Seriously, just go along with it. wink )

It's posted in bandcamp as a free / name-your-price deal. Hope you guys enjoy it!
Bandcamp page

an-cat-max wrote:

awwweeeeeeesome! love the pixel art.

will there be some sort of OST release?

Yeah, that'll appear sometime soon. It's definitely planned. smile

Hi everyone. I recently collaborated with a couple of fellow chiptune musicians in Japan on a soundtrack for a Japanese adult eroge (aka "hentai game") for Windows PC. It's not just some regular dating game though; It's a 2D overhead action-adventure "futanari sneaking" game. Yes, the "sneaking" part is quite similar to a certain popular game franchise.

Pretty much the objective of the game is to survive each level by avoiding losing sanity before time is up. Since your "sanity level" (health bar) progressively drops, you have to sneak your way through the public finding sweets to replenish your health without getting detected. And if you do get spotted, you have to run away while avoiding getting surrounded & attacked by enemies... and eventually find a place to hide (e.g. cardboard boxes). Again, quite similar to a certain game popular game franchise.

But in addition to all of this, one of the main & more peculiar gameplay mechanics is that you're supposed to make your character pleasure herself -- complete with an always-visible, phallic-looking "excitement gauge" on the side of your screen. Eventually white liquid accumulates all over your gameplay view as you keep doing it. I am not making this up.

The long term objective of the game is to unlock all the ero scenarios -- which, depending on what level and what criteria you need to meet (e.g. successfully pleasuring yourself X amount of times, finding X amount of items in a level, getting a mess of enemies to chase after you, etc.), will eventually unlock a scenario with its theme based on the level that you finished. They're fully voiced and all, just like a normal ero ADV / dating game sim.

The main director and artist is Misakura Nankotsu -- a pretty famous 2D ero artist who's also well-known for really detailed futa/dickgirl art. Specifically he's known for a series called "Asa Kara Zusshiri Milk Pot", which is coincidentally the series that the game (and two previous ADV games & an anime) is based off from. He did all pixel art in the game, and collaborated with Hida on the ero scenario pics.

As for the audio section, it's all chiptune goodness -- featuring Hally, Keishi Yonao, KAJA, and me smile
Hally did the opening theme (with Alice Sakurai singing) and a stage BGM. Keishi Yonao did the menus, the ero scenes, a (really awesome & hyper) "!" panic song, and a stage BGM. KAJA did the sound effects. I did the majority of the stage BGM.

It was first released in Comic Market 81 (aka Comiket, C81) during the end of last year, and is now sold in the major doujinshi (indie comics & nerdy material) shops in Japan like Toranoana and MelonBooks.
Even though the retail product is not available outside Japan, fortunately overseas folk can purchase & download the actual game itself via DLsite.com. The game itself is not translated, but it's fairly easy to understand the tutorial in the game.


Links (PLEASE NOTE THAT THESE ARE ALL ***NOT SAFE FOR WORK***):

English page of DLsite.com (you can buy the download here & read about the storyline):
http://www.dlsite.com/ecchi-eng/work/=/ … 87900.html

Game homepage (Japanese-language only):
http://www.harthnir.com/game05/index.html

OP Theme @ YouTube (slightly censored version):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-bkrHdBm1Y

Gameplay preview @ Niconico:
http://nicoviewer.net/sm16532088


Considering the nature of the game, obviously this is something a bit unorthodox for me to talk about. And I know it's not going to be everyone's cup of milk tea. But I had a lot of fun making music for it -- especially considering the limited timeframe involved. So I hope you at least check it out for the music.

So yeah, I guess that's all I have to say about it for now.

(edit: additional info & corrected typos)