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ChipMusic.org / Forums / Posts by Shiru
No. It is far from the main goal of the project, and I would not be able to test it anyway.
If one wants to convert patches and has some programming skills, it should be not too difficult to make a converter. Instrument format is very simple and documented, and there is text exporter as well - it exports whole song with instruments in human-readible, easy to parse format.
Saskrotch, got it. It is a relatively major change, so it can take time to implement (make many internal changes), but I'll think about it, this could be useful.
A Versus B, to my knowledge there are no native SMS/GG trackers that runs on the consoles.
Actually you able to do it already. There is a play pattern in loop feature (F8), and you can enter notes during play. Don't think it going to work well, though, there is no real sync between display and sound, so you will often miss rows you need.
Sorry, but no, I don't want to make a virtual chip tracker with unlimited channels etc. The main goal of the project is to provide ability to make music that could be used on the HW (in games, demos), everything else is considered only if it does not take much work, like small usability improvements here and there.
VOPM is about 95% identical to 2612, I personally use it much often than VGM MM. There is an ongoing 2612 VSTi project as well.
Looping has resolution of 16 samples; samples are 16-bit but lossy compressed and decompressed on-fly - means specific distortions, forward-only looping, interpolation is applied, pitch range is limited. Plus hardware ADSR, panning/volume control with 8-bit resolution, and echo capabilities with configurable filter.
In fact the SNES do have some synthesis capabilities, although I doubt they were used often (to my knowledge there are few rare cases). It capable to generate noise (one generator for all channels) and modulate pitch of one channel with output of other channel, and few channels can be stacked this way - a kind of FM synthesis.
SNES's own tone is not in the synthesis capabilities, though - it is in the (relatively unique) set of limitations imposed on the sample playing. Combination of these limitations create distinctive sound, you can distinguish a SNES music from an Amiga MOD, a XM module, or a sample-based music from low-spec systems (C64, ZX etc - 4-bit sound) just by listening, without much trouble. Of course, it is rather easy to imitate any of these kinds of sampled music with modern sound software.
there doesn't seem to be much of a point to coding a .SPC tracker given XM and MOD trackers
I had the same standpoint before I actually get into SNES development. Now I think that a SPC tracker would actually make sense. The main reason is to allow you to hear exactly what you get, because difference between what you hear in a XM tracker and in resulting SPC is major (not only in sound quality, but also in envelope timings, volume levels etc). Other reasons are that you simply can't make good use of the echo feature while composing, samples are filtered and looped in a special way that could affect to the timbre greatly (and you have to resample them to a very special frequency 33488 hz to make them loopable), you probably would like to use hardware ADSR, which is difficult to control using a converter, also control on the memory usage is difficult, especially if you going to use echo.
SNES does have unique tone, that's true, because it is not just samples, it is special kind of samples.
The official SNES programming manual has a mention of 'Sony NEWS, which has been the standart tool used by Nintendo to date', but as far as I understand this one only allow to make BRR samples, not music data, and does not have a sample library.
SNES is a great console but also great headache for a developer, especially in the audio part. It is kind of love and hate all in one. Making good looped BRR samples is definitely one of difficult and tedious things.
Actually, SNES homebrew scene suffers from underdeveloped audio tools - there are about three (including mine), all of them aren't too polished or easy to use. So it would be great to see some new developments in this area. After messing with MOD converters and stuff I actually has started to think that a custom SNES crosstracker is not so weird idea (because it would allow to hear exactly what you get).
That's how the chip works. SN76489 also has 'backwards' volume, i.e. it is an attenuator instead of a volume. I didn't reversed it because you may need to enter previously designed instrument parameters by hand, and you would have to reverse these values in this case. The knobs itself for these parameters are reversed though, to show up that the output is low at the leftmost position and high at the rightmost.
There are buttons to reset settings of a single operator (under operator's number) and all four operators of an instrument ('New' icon to the left from the instrument list).
I think the operator mute feature is doable.
What I'm proposing is like F5/F6/F8 to play as usual or Shift+F5/F6/F8 to play it ignoring solo mode, not a toggle.
In the Solo mode you only hear current channel, where the cursor is located. However, you say that it is not comfortable for you because when you need to play song, you have to toggle it all the time. So I'm asking, maybe a button that will allow to play song with all channels on regardless of the Solo mode (which will be turned on all the time in your case) will be enough?
So basically you need something like 'Play all regardless of solo mode' button/hotkey?
The volume balance problem does not seem to have a proper solution - the current balance was measured on the real HW (not by me, though), and it does not match to emulators indeed. I can change range of FM/PSG slider, though.
Ability to highlight separate columns would require to rewrite major part of the UI, so it is not among current plans, although it is considered in far plans.
3 - There is solo mode (the S buttons in the channel headers).
4 - Is Numpad 1-8 not enough?
There is a mess across the docs with operators 2 and 3, they are switched sometimes, but it is the same thing anyway. 1>2 in this particular doc is the same as 1>3 in VGM MM. I already thought to drop this Operator 1-4 numbering system and use the other terms like in VOPM - Carrier 1-2 and Modulator 1-2, which is less confusing.
The first thing is how the hardware works, it never resets output level of operators, that creates 'accumulation' effect if you start a new note with slow attack when previous note is not faded yet. It is not very convinient, but could be used as an advantage for things like imitation of a filter that opens slowly.
The second thing is likely a bug, I'll check it out.
ChipMusic.org / Forums / Posts by Shiru