I'll throw my two cents in about backwards compatibility:

It's always nice to maintain backwards compatibility but I think many of the users of this sort of software are decently advanced users and can work around issues caused this way. With different versions of Protracker and different versions of LSDJ I've had to either modify my songs or simply use an older version of the software to get my songs sounding right. I know as a coder that sucks, doesn't feel elegant, but if the new features are worthwhile then I don't mind.

LSDJ in particular had several big changes (noise channel stable mode) that broke backwards compatibility but also brought so much new utility that I accepted it without complaint. It's like ripping a band-aid off. tongue

466

(9 replies, posted in LittleGPTracker)

PULSELOOPER wrote:

Just tested it, and it didn't work.

If I merge existing projects into a new file, this new file is empty after saving.

And if I merge one existing project into another existing project (and save the last), all the patterns get scrambled. I'm using the last Python version on Windows 8.1.

Were those save files created in version 1.1h_043?

467

(46 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Feryl wrote:

Is there ah... any reason for this thread? Why are we talking about a former chip plagiarist's arrest for sexual misconduct?

Because this is a chiptune community forum and something has happened that is of interest to the chiptune community?

Use a virtual machine running windows 98 or xp.

469

(6 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

Sounds like there's now a short between the left and right signals. I'd open it up and take a look, perhaps take a multimeter to it to see for sure.

Another option is to get a USB composite capture device. You could then use VLC to display your NES video on whichever screen you'd like.

EDIT: I got one from Roxio that only cost about $40, does composite or S-Video and stereo audio. The software it came with is garbage but I use it with VLC and it works great with no noticeable latency and the added benefits of portability (paired with a laptop) and of course easy video capture if I need it.

471

(6 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

It's not a matter of a stereo signal going through a mono path, is it? Everything sounds perfectly fine when you pan the channels left or right?

But that's just, like, my opinions, man.

You might need to dig a bit more in the instrument setting screen, some of the sounds could possibly use some finessing.

I'm not sure if you consciously left out any bass line or if you intended to put the melody/harmony so close together sonically; for me the similar timbre and closeness in register makes it hard to distinguish them. That said, you've clearly got a hold of the basic operation of the software and how to put together a song so you can start to really explore now.

There are a million tutorials on how to use LSDJ so I'm not going to bother giving you any of that because, really, LSDJ is easy to learn compared to learning how to write a good song. Teaching someone how to write a song is hard for even a professional music teacher and I'm certainly no expert in that regard but I'll give you the best advice I can give to someone who is learning to write music:

Your first focus should be listening to a lot of music. Now that you're writing music you need to start to listen to music in a different way. Normally your brain takes all the information in a song, answers a bunch of pretty complex questions totally automatically and then returns to your conscious brain the answer to "is this a good song". Now that you want to start writing good music, you've got to start training yourself to answer those questions...erm, yourself?

When you hear a song that you really like - or one that you hate, because you can often learn just as much from that - you have to really listen for what's going on. What is making that song so interesting or catchy or awful? What do you like about it? Listen to each element, start isolating each of those sounds in your head and listening to what they're doing. Where do they sit in the register - are they sitting in lower octaves, near the middle, high up? - and how the the different instrument's timbre interact with one another? What is is about the timbre of a sound that makes it sound evoke a given feeling?

What about the arrangement of the notes; what makes a fun melody, what makes a sad one?  Why are some melodies catchy and others cheesy and how can cheesy sometimes sound perfectly catchy? It's not just the pitch of the notes, what the meter like? How long is each note, how long are the rests between notes?  Some of this comes down to music theory but scales on their own are boring, a huge part of music is about expectation and surprise - patterns and change - and the interplay between them. What do these different arrangements make you feel? That's always an important question to ask about any given musical choice; what emotion does it evoke? Don't restrict yourself to "happy" or "sad", there are a lot more colours to paint with - silly, wistful, sly, angry, creeped out, sexy, snake-like, joyful, playful - there are a lot.

Starting to answer these questions for yourself is really important and I can't really answer them for you - partly because I don't know anything about your musical background, what you enjoy listening to or what you are trying to create - but also because your unique answers to these questions are what will define your own personal aesthetic. The music that you make will be strongly tied to your personal taste and really the term "taste" is just a fancy word for the sum of all those answers that your brain normally makes automatically.

474

(11 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

nitro2k01 wrote:
jefftheworld wrote:

You can always just get a USB parallel port.

Nope. Those won't work with Transferers.

Pretty sure it works with the transferer 2, I've seen someone use it at a show.

EDIT: One of those USB printer port ones probably won't work but a proper compliant parallel port ought to work. If it says that it's fully IEEE 1284 compliant it should work, right?

475

(11 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

You can always just get a USB parallel port.

476

(1 replies, posted in Releases)

Btw, it also comes with the original source XMs as a bonus!

477

(1 replies, posted in Releases)

note: This might be a bit different than what you're used to from me. It's all 4 channel XM module music and the album isn't pure chip but since it fits on a floppy and has blips and bloops I thought it'd be worth posting.


https://jefftheworld.bandcamp.com/album … us-prelude

At the far edges of the Orthogonal Dimension a series of somewhat strange events are about to occur. Aboard his star-yacht Astrayus, Inter-dimensional musician jefftheworld is dragged into a situation which, while it may determine the future of the universe, probably won't be a big deal.

**********

This 5 track EP consists entirely of 4 channel PCM modules. Recorded on an aging Toshiba Laptop running in DOS-mode, it has had little modern sonic treatment and comes to you in a close-to-the-chip form.

The album can be had for $5 and comes with the original modules as a bonus. However, I'll also be releasing the album for free in one months time via my website.

What's wrong with all the builds sitting in the daily builds directory? Is the current build broken, are the features missing? You'd have to explain what you want changed before any coder is going to even know what you want.

479

(37 replies, posted in Commodore Computers)

herr_prof wrote:

If you are bad at using a text editor then maybe trackers aren't for you.

That was a joke, I don't know that it's possible to be bad at a text editor.

480

(37 replies, posted in Commodore Computers)

Delek wrote:

Inside the config.ini, there's a skip_intro thing that should be changed to 1 if you don't like the start up animation. It is explained in the manual that, as usual, nobody reads. tongue

Even if they didn't want to mess with config files because they were extremely bad at using text editors or something, it takes nearly zero effort to just hitting enter or escape.