nintendro boy
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Alright, so I've been looking into this quite a bit, and as far as I can tell there is nothing about having the NES and SNES play in sync with each other? I own both the NES and SNES PowerPaks and I have a bunch of .nsf and .spc files that were made to be played in time with each other. I know that each cart can play the music files of its respective console but as far as I can tell there is no way to get the consoles to work together. The one idea I had was a controller that could be used with both consoles at the same time so I could start the songs at the same time. However I'm not sure that the clock of the NES and SNES are exactly the same so I dont know if it would work even if I could get the songs to start at the same time. So, does anybody have any idea if these two siblings can play nice and finally work in musical harmony? I dont know but I thank you for any help you can provide or any brutal truth that what im thinking is impossibly stupid. Again thanks.

Last edited by nintendro boy (Jun 26, 2014 7:42 am)

SurfaceDragon
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USA

Try recording them both separately then sync up the recordings on your computer.

uXe
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Melbourne, Australia

...here's half the solution:

http://chipmusic.org/forums/topic/13101 … amislayer/

You just need a SNES / .SPC version of something like FamiSlayer to form a happy marriage!

yogi
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Jelly Stone park, MD USA

On the NES there are some BPM that are 'difficult'  due to the use of the VBI for playback timing in most cases. A BPM of 150 is spot on the 60 Hz of the VBI/ Video refresh rate. With BPMs above and below 150, file playback has to be adjusted and some values aren't handled well. The timing of the VBI needs to be very solid for a stable video output, so music playback would inherit this timing.
Not sure there is a similar issue on the SNES, due to the SNES' APU; which is independent to the main processor. I would think that the APU would be able to handle any BPM you throw at it.
I'm guessing that both system should be able to stay reasonably  synced, if both files are the same BPM. The ideal setup, as pointed out, is an external beat clock to both systems.
yogi

nintendro boy
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uXe wrote:

...here's half the solution:

http://chipmusic.org/forums/topic/13101 … amislayer/

You just need a SNES / .SPC version of something like FamiSlayer to form a happy marriage!

This is exactly what I need for the .nsf files! Thank you so much!!!

yogi wrote:

On the NES there are some BPM that are 'difficult'  due to the use of the VBI for playback timing in most cases. A BPM of 150 is spot on the 60 Hz of the VBI/ Video refresh rate. With BPMs above and below 150, file playback has to be adjusted and some values aren't handled well. The timing of theVBI needs to be very solid for a stable video output, so music playback would inherit this timing.
Not sure there is a similar issue on the SNES, due to the SNES' APU; which is independent to the main processor. I would think that the APU would be able to handle any BPM you throw at it.
I'm guessing that both system should be able to stay reasonably  synced, if both files are the same BPM. The ideal setup, as pointed out, is an external beat clock to both systems.
yogi

And thank you for the juicy info bits!
I agree that an external beat clock would
definitley be the ideal setup. Do you know of any midi interfaces for the SNES. Iknow I've read that the development kits came with a midi in, but other that I'M don't think I've seen a snes midi input.

yogi
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Jelly Stone park, MD USA
nintendro boy wrote:

....
I agree that an external beat clock would
definitley be the ideal setup. Do you know of any midi interfaces for the SNES. Iknow I've read that the development kits came with a midi in, but other that I'M don't think I've seen a snes midi input.

  As with all systems, a hardware interface will require software to run it smile  Haven't seen any SNES softs for Midi/Sync, but there is a SNES tracker in the works (search the forum).
  The APU could be tricky for frame by frame playback. It's a sub processor that gets programmed by the main processor, then plays the song till a new song is loaded. To allow control over playback, the main CPU would have to interact with APU on a more intensive basis.
  Not saying that it can't be done, just that this is not how games handle it and there hasn't been much interest in the SNES for chiptunes sad Too many roadblocks, which is a shame. The good news is it seems like more people are looking closer at the SNES and tools are getting better.
yogi

nintendro boy
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yogi wrote:

...but there is a SNES tracker in the works (search the forum).

So is that what cTrix and ferris have been up to? Ive seen there little cryptic messages and couldnt help but wonder what they were up to. Anyway, thank you so much for the help Mr. Bear and hopefully someday the snes and nes will be able to work together.

yogi
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Jelly Stone park, MD USA
nintendro boy wrote:
yogi wrote:

...but there is a SNES tracker in the works (search the forum).

So is that what cTrix and ferris have been up to? Ive seen there little cryptic messages and couldnt help but wonder what they were up to. Anyway, thank you so much for the help Mr. Bear and hopefully someday the snes and nes will be able to work together.

Yes, I do believe they are building a native tracker, but needed to build the PC tools also. So it may be a combined PC/SNES music system due to the sample based nature of the APU (which is how they have previewed songs ATM, I think).
  Part of the problem is the APU doesn't have it's own 'sound'; it's a CPU driving a DSP and plays sample based .SPC song data. To have a native tracker you would need to supply the sample data along with the tracker code on a SNES cart or download them to the console's RAM
So there needs to be a tool to create/add samples to the ROM image before it's flashed to a cart or downloaded to the console. Think of Famitracker and the NES' DPCM channel; you can create the Instrument wave form and then use it in your song. When you'r done, you export the NSF or .NES for playback on hardware.
  Looking forward to see what they come up with, seems like the first chiptune related homebrew for the SNES. smile)
yogi

yogi
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Jelly Stone park, MD USA

From Farris in this thread http://chipmusic.org/forums/topic/12762 … rt/page/6/

ferris wrote:

The tool is a pc tracker like famitracker for snes.. superfamitracker I guess smile . There's a replayer that's a native rom, but it's in a VERY early state atm. We'll plan to be able to mute channels and stuff on the fly; it'll be mainly for playing back tracks live.

yogi

uXe
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Melbourne, Australia
nintendro boy wrote:

I agree that an external beat clock would
definitley be the ideal setup. Do you know of any midi interfaces for the SNES. Iknow I've read that the development kits came with a midi in, but other that I'M don't think I've seen a snes midi input.

Just as you can use a NES controller on a SNES:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du9yco1zOeo

You could also use FamiiDI as a MIDI interface to the SNES - that's the easy part! The difficult part is creating the software for the SNES, as yogi says...

nintendro boy
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So I looked at the FamiSlayer and Gameboy sync video, was wondering if I could take an snes controller and instead of connecting the clock and corresponding trigger button pin to a gameboy link cable, I could use a midi in or out to sync to a midi clock. Of course until I have a super famislayer of sorts, It will be somewhat useless, but its a first step. Will this idea work, and if not is there a way I could change it to work? Sorry to keep this thread going but I'm desperate to play .spc files on legitimate hardware and nintendo is my brand of choice! Thanks again for any and all help!!!

yogi
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Jelly Stone park, MD USA

At a hardware level Yes with a Sync24 signal. The issue is the Midi beat clock message is one byte (8bit) message transmitted at a rate of 24 Per Quarter Note. This is similar to the older Sync24 system that was sent as a pulse stream at 24 Pulses Per Quarter Note (ppqn). So to drive FamiSlayer by a Midi Clock we basically need a Midi Clock-to-Sync24 converter wired to the Game Pad's button.
The converter would read the Midi messages and only respond to Clock messages by outputting a pulse to the Game Pad; and ignore other messages on the Midi cable. A midi clock running at a BPM of 150 (150 quarter notes per Min) works out to 3600 pulses per Min.
Which works well with a NSF file set for 150 BPM that is being called at the VBI's 60 Hz rate! Because we find that we call the NSF play code: (60 times per Sec) x (60 Sec per Min)=3600 times Per Min or the same as the Midi Clock rate for a BPM of 150.
uXe's FamiDi shield can be programmed to handle this, and I have been working on this also. But the big 'IF' is the needed software for a SNES. Perhaps when Ctrix and Farris release their package, their player routine can accommodate, or be modded to, sync similar to the NES. But again the APU is very different compared to the sound hardware on the NES.
Yogi