Search options (Page 31 of 48)

"Scattered" -- compared to an editor where you have to switch back and forth between screens to change column?

Say what you want about either type of interface (I think that they both have their advantages), but I just don't think that scattered and clunky are the right words for PC trackers compared to LSDJ-type trackers. I'll agree that they might seem unintuitive to a beginner and that the learning curve is quite steep, but when you get into them, PC module trackers are usually very fast to work with. It still largely depends on what you want to do, though, and both interfaces lend to different approaches to composition.

I do something like "sox -D in.wav -r 16726 -b 8 -u out.raw" using SoX to convert my samples, but most often, as cTrix says, a rough conversion sounds better for most sounds. I haven't figured out how to do that in SoX yet.

EDIT:
Maybe I did! I think -D is for disabling dithering.

That permanent state where you know that most of these moments are too anecdotal for anyone else to be able to relate to, kind of missing the whole point.

I think you might be missing the whole idea if you think that there's a single "whole idea of using the game boy;" a portable game console that you are now using to create music.

Ah, that rules that out then.

Well, you're both right and wrong. The SID has three waveform generators and three envelope generators, all digital with each their own corresponding D/A (the waveform generators have D/As with 12 bit resolution, and the envelopes with 8-bit resolution). The envelopes amplify the waveform in the analog domain using a simple DCA circuit, and the filter circuitry is also analog.

The waveform generators, as I said, are essentially just 24 bit phase accumulators. Waveforms are not generated in the analog domain, nor do they use wavetables. They are simply derived digitally from the topmost 12 bits of the accumulator using some serious why-didn't-I-think-of-that digital circuitry. This also means that you get very high precision frequency control and bit depth, especially compared to other sound chips of the time. It's by the nature of the design that audible folding and other artifacts inherent to sampled sound simply won't happen. It will always output the waveforms with phase length at even divisors of the sample frequency, and the highest tone frequency is 1/256 of the "sample" frequency -- well below the nyquist frequency and then some, for the harmonics.

I still very much doubt it, and I brought out my Game Boy to try it just now. I can tell you right off the bat that my listening conditions aren't the best, but I can't hear _any_ folding or post-nyquist frequency mumbo-jumbo. The harmonics of the square wave, although harsh, are very clear and seem undistorted. The oscillator also sweeps up well into the ultrasound range without any of the folding noise I'd typically identify as an effect of aliasing.

What I can hear, though, is some constant high pitched bus whine, and also some lower frequency zipping noise when using an envelope. The latter noise has some high frequency content, too, which is very obvious and quite annoying. Maybe this is what you are hearing?

Do game boys actually have a low enough sample frequency (except for the arbitrary waveform channel) to explain this problem? I assumed that it would be very high (likely beyond your soundcards). The SID, for example, operates at the master clock frequency (~1 MHz) using 24 bit phase accumulators for tone generation, and PSG chips are usually in the several hundred kHz range, right? A high operating frequency in general has very little to do with cost, and is not only feasible, but also very practical for these simple types of chips.

It seems more likely to me that the whine is a product of bus/screen noise.

EDIT: Does it sound the same when played straight through an amplifier? If you are using playing/recording through a computer I guess it might introduce some folding noise.

Completed my first song! http://mixtape.be/stuff/trinitronsunset.vge