Hahaha, lovely. I asked on assemblergames.com, so hopefully they will be able to answer some questions.
1 Jan 29, 2016 8:14 pm
Re: Composing Music for NES Hardware: Homebrew Games and ROM Hacks (6 replies, posted in Nintendo Consoles)
2 Jan 27, 2016 9:21 pm
Re: Trying to Understand the SNES's SPC700: How to create SNES-like music? (7 replies, posted in Nintendo Consoles)
If there was a way to be able to format whatever SNES music I compose into usable data for a programmer of a SNES homebrew/hack game (if the time ever comes where that is necessary), that would be helpful. I wondered the same thing about that, as well as with the NES and Genesis. This sounds like a pretty, pretty small game dev niche, though it would be a great selling point if and when it becomes available. I learned from looking around that, at least for the NES, the audio needs to be programmed alongside the programming of the rest of the game. I also learned from Neil Baldwin, an original SNES composer, that the audio tech and the "gameplay/graphics" tech were separate, so that leads me to believe that maybe SNES music, unlike NES music, can be inserted after the fact. I could be very wrong about that since I'm no programmer.
I hope the SNES tracker you were talking about comes out soon. The SNES GSS tracker needs a lot of touch-ups like a better GUI, simpler controls, better menu searching, and a live mode. Essentially, FamiTracker but for the Super Nintendo. Super FamiTracker has a nice ring to it. 
When you say "native" does that mean it will run on the original hardware instead of computer software?
I'll take a look around at those links.
3 Jan 27, 2016 7:14 pm
Re: What is everyone working on? (66 replies, posted in General Discussion)
1. 2D animated cartoons for commission and for self
2. Turning a DMG-01 Game Boy and Model 1 SEGA Genesis into a two-tier keyboard synthesizer
3. Working with Clear View Pictures on indie films including scriptwriting, audio recording, and assistant directing.
4. Composing music for video games, animation, and movies.
5. College
How do I do all that plus college? Not well.
4 Jan 27, 2016 6:54 pm
Topic: Composing Music for NES Hardware: Homebrew Games and ROM Hacks (6 replies, posted in Nintendo Consoles)
I understand that I can use Famitracker to create music that can be played using NES/Famicom hardware.
- What steps can I take to make sure that the music is more usable for the programmer(s) to implement into their development?
- Are there size limits to individual tracks? I know that FamiTracker allows for limitless frames, but how much space can be used on a NES game to be used for audio?
- How do I sort out sound effects? Should they be separate songs in FamiTracker or in one song? Is there something I can do in FamiTracker that would allow for the sound effect to return back to the background music after the sound effect is finished playing?
- Are there specific Song Settings I should use (e.g. Speed, Tempo, Rows, Frames)? I understand that the NES does not build its tempo on BPM but on some kind of "clock" (whatever that means; my knowledge of NES hardware/software is limited). Would changing the Speed or Tempo in the settings affect how the game is programmed? This includes the Fxy function.
- Expansion audio (e.g. VRC6, FDS, Namco 163) can only be used on Famicom games, right? If the ROM of a game with expansion audio implemented were to be played on the 2A03-only NES, would the expansion audio simply not play or would that lead to complications? I presume that any music with DPCM is playable on the 2A03, no expansion needed.
- How should I export the music data to the programmer? I presume BIN and ASM would work.
Thank you for your help!
5 Jan 27, 2016 4:04 pm
Re: Trying to Understand the SNES's SPC700: How to create SNES-like music? (7 replies, posted in Nintendo Consoles)
nitro2k01 wrote:
Have you looked into the SNES GSS tracker?
No, but it sounds like something I missed.
6 Jan 27, 2016 6:50 am
Topic: Trying to Understand the SNES's SPC700: How to create SNES-like music? (7 replies, posted in Nintendo Consoles)
I've been trying to figure out how to compose music that accurately models the music that can come from a SEGA Genesis and Super Nintendo. FM synthesis is fairly easy for me to understand, however the SNES has had me pretty darn confused because it seems to be a little more complicated than FM.
I gathered a bunch of information from around the internet, including here (Neil Baldwin has been pretty helpful from reading other older threads). Here is what I have written down so far.
"The audio chip of the Super NES/Super Famicom (Sony SPC700 via 65816 RAM(?)) has 8 adaptive differential pulse-code modulation (ADPCM) channels for bitrate reduction- (BRR) compressed samples. All the samples had to be compressed with ADPCM/BRR formats at a ratio of around 3.5:1 (32:9(?)) to less than 64 Kilobytes to fit on the discrete audio chip’s RAM. This means that for every 32 bytes of 16-bit PCM there are 9 bytes of BRR. The size of all the samples should in total not exceed more than 150 kilobytes. The original, raw samples of the instruments are tweaked for downsampling, then downsampled to 8 to 22 kHz, and cut into small loops that are then truncated to 8 bits. Equalizing to retain brightness can occur before or after downsampling. Samples are often no larger than 2 kilobytes, having 16 samples to be looped.
The DSP also allowed for echo effects. [How can this be recreated accurately?]
The SNES is capable of Dolby Surround Sound, albeit it was pseudo-surround sound using stereo Q-Sound.
Many games used Nintendo’s ready-made samples for its SNES games.
Because there are currently no programs that have simplified the process of making accurately modeled SNES music like FamiTracker does with the NES, the alterations to the original, raw samples must be done manually. I can use BRRTools to compress the raw sample."
Did I get anything wrong here? I want to get these things down pat before I begin shouting from the mountaintops that I can compose music that can (theoretically) be played on an actual SNES.