177

(617 replies, posted in Releases)

now with a real-world promo available from your local BBS:

music by Goto80, code by 4mat and PETSCII graphics by iLKke

179

(21 replies, posted in Bugs and Requests)

I'm looking forward to the first series of Chip Idol

Playing a Knaeckertraecker demo tune through the TED soundchip wrapper.   These tracks are a really good test-bed.  (this one plays a 4x per frame)

181

(15 replies, posted in General Discussion)

sandneil wrote:

also, what happened to pc demos not being shit

per pixel lighting and shaders mostly

182

(15 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Weathergirl.xm
JudoGrooves.xm
Peekaboo.xm

Whatever tracks are in these:


edit: this one is kookoo.xm by Radix/Loonie

Hi Fi Sky by LMan

SNDH
YM (look on the left pane)

AY format is probably out on the net somewhere, both SNDH and AY are just headers around the native player code + data for the target machine. YM format is a log format recorded per frame which will be much easier to parse. Some Amstrad/Spectrum demos play ST song data back using that method, the only worry there is picking a decent compression scheme.

by degauss/bauknecht^tek, was used to create the music for the recent "Rocket-Science" demo.

download

As far as I know SNDH uses the 68000 driver from whatever the song was written with to play the song back. (like the .SID format does)  It's not an audio output log like the YM or MYM formats, but I guess your converter is going to convert the output to a log format.  (I think the reason the other formats fell out of favour is because they don't support some of the newer ST sound tricks tbh)   I'm using YM to play ST tracks on c64 with Exomizer as the decrunch path.

sky-myamigaisdead.mod

and now some other guy is making new keys in different colours

disclaimer : don't know this guy, can't vouch for quality etc.

189

(617 replies, posted in Releases)

Can't comment on deflemask's emulation, Goat Tracker is fine for the most part and the one I use personally, particularly if you use the 8580 chip.  Cadaver is still updating it (recently to a new reSID core) so it's always improving.  Plus there's a tweak tool on that page you can run on the c64 to fix up instruments in your songs if you need to.   

One thing to look out for is how notes retrigger on the c64.  I think it's improved in more recent builds, but I've had people send me their GT songs that "sound weird on hardware" and half the time it's because they've set up some odd gating on the instruments that don't retrigger quite the same way on the machine every time.   The SID is closer to an old analogue synth in the way it triggers sounds, it can depend on what the previous note's volume was, or how closely it's triggered to something else etc.  So it really pays to learn the hardware a bit before jumping straight into song writing. 

If you're going to use an emulator use Vice which has the most accurate emulation.  Make sure under SID settings it's set to reSID-FP for the most accurate playback.  Alternatively the very latest Vice builds have replaced some of the SID emulation to make it even more accurate, those are available from here but might be a bit unstable.   I've been developing with one of those nightly builds for a few months and it sounds great to me.

Either way if you use the 8580 SID it's going to be closer to what you hear on hardware. (and it's what most modern musicians use anyway)  The filters on the 6581 have a great rumbly sound but sound different depending on what fab of the chip you have in the machine.  (Play a song on one c64 and it'll lose the bass, play it on another and the filters are too open etc)  This has been a common problem since the c64 was created though, hence why Commodore fixed it in the 8580. smile

Well it's already had it's "big debut" with the Blip Festival/Malcolm Mclaren etc. coverage a few years back.   Personally I think one artist will have a break-out hit and there'll maybe be two or three more artists off the back of that, and it won't be called chipmusic.  (my money is probably on Sabrepulse)   I mean, chipmusic is all over games and on the back of certain tv show segments, if it was going to be a major "genre" in it's own right I reckon it would have happened by now.

Victory Road wrote:

everything will disappear someday

P.S. sorry (i guess?) for having a video-game-reference name :v

I wouldn't worry about it, perceptions on this stuff are all personal based on how people got into it really.  Some of us old farts are perplexed by the console/game associations because our first chip music was probably written by hand in BASIC. smile