NES AUDIO TOOLS (make music using your NES!)

› Quick dirty guide of differences going from LSDJ to Pulsar

‹ Quick dirty guide of differences going from LSDJ to Pulsar

-CHECK THE MANUAL ANYWAY!
-No Live mode
-B to move between pages instead of SELECT
-Warp zone navigation, LEFT/RIGHT limited/different functionality
-you copy entire pattern(no precise selection) and paste it from cursor position and below, does not overlap the top so everything above is safe
-32 different envelopes, E command takes you to selected one instead of actually being an envelope (looks like ADSR vs multifuncion of LSDJ's AD)
-Some values like Retrig or envelope numbers are reversed (FF is fastest on Pulsar)
-DPCM is very different from WAVE channel
-1st instrument advice: apply gate!

› WORKFLOW ADVICE:

‹ WORKFLOW ADVICE:

[DISCLAIMER: THIS GUIDE IS NOT MANUAL REPLACEMENT]
(please take time to read it, especially CONTROLS and QUICK START!)
-----3 first things you need to know:
*(SMALL BUG+EASY FIX) PR8 is tuned for PAL mode, so if you're using NTSC, set OSC-C value to FF for channel A,B and C (Noise keeps it's shape across regions though!)
*KEEP PHRASE 0 EMPTY! It's necessary for pattern cloning;
*PR8 SAVES ALL THE TIME! All changes you make are permanent, there's no undo!
-----PR8 priorities
Changing Phrase, Pattern(and values next to it) or Instrument will affect NEXT loop
Changing instrument parameters or triggers will happen INSTANTLY
Tracks at the bottom have PRIORITY over ones above (e.g. you have 2 tracks that use noise channel, so as long as bottom one is playing, the one above will not)
-----Unique advantages
--I feel that PR8 tries to encourage the user to add and remove notes from the phrases as you play, or even shifting the phrase left or right, playing with the sequence in the pattern - Though because of constant saving happening all the time, the user might not notice it.
There are 2 ways to work around that:
1.If you copy phrase, then you can modify it freely, and when finished, paste over original phrase! (Phrase is transferred to separate buffer, you keep it until you copy something else, or reset the console)
2.Create copy of the phrase and keep it in the pattern on track without instrument on it, so you can copy notes from it, or paste entire phrase when needed!

-----Organization of patterns
PR8's style of jamming also relies on changing between patterns. Usually you have NO MORE than 3 seconds (even that's generous!) to change pattern to next one. PR8 waits until current playing pattern finishes before playing new one.
Therefore I HIGHLY recommend careful choosing your next patterns. Look at the following pattern map:

..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..
40  41  42  43  44  45  ..
30  31  32  33  34  35  ..
20  21  22  23  24  25  ..
10  11  12  13  14  15  ..
00  01  02  03  04  05  .. 

If you're playing pattern 22, the quickest patterns to access are 23, 32, 21, 12
Try not to organize patterns in one line (e.g. 00->01->02->03) otherwise going back to first pattern will take you much longer.
Using something like 00->10->11->01 lets you repeat section while still allowing access to other patterns.
[Following the advice above, actually start your first song in pattern10 or 11, that gives you the most freedom of pattern selection.]
-----Space management
You have at your disposal:
8 song 256 bars each;
256 patterns containing COMBINATION of:
6 instruments (out of 128 possible), and
6 phrases (out of 192 possible, 191 if left out phrase00).
I used word "Combination", because PR8 allows you to use ANY phrase on ANY instrument.
NOTE: unlike LSDJ/Pulsar, PR8 keeps all patterns, instruments and phrases shared across your .sav file!
[note: you can leave phrase on silent instrument to aid you to copy notes]
Still, most probably you will run out of different phrases first!
To prevent that from happening:
-Make sure to delete any needless patterns (or they may get lost between used ones);
-If want to use same note placement, consider using new instrument;

BUGS/QUIRKS:
-PR8's lowest available note is A-1. Trying to go octave down beyond A-1 will result the next note being glitched. Nothing dangerous! Just copy functioning note or simply restart to regain normal note back!
-CRITICAL BUG: Same procedure like above, but with phrase number in the pattern: Going octave down from 0E and copying the new value onto other track will CRASH PR8, and trying to access that pattern will RESULT IN CRASH
solution: be aware of it and don't do it.
(I have plan to document how to edit SAV file by hex editor, this should be able to fix your patterns!)
-NOISE(D) shape is NOT affected by Note number, use that to your advantage!
-Combo using SELECT button done to quickly can (un)mute your track/channel (just slow down a bit haha)
-Retrig speed is not defendant on pattern speed!
-Echo during certain pattern tempos cannot be heard (as it layers perfectly with pre-echoed song)
-If speed parameter doesn't suit you, consider different region of emulation

› PR8 Speed Guide by Neil Baldwin:

‹ PR8 Speed Guide by Neil Baldwin:

PR8: Speed = Tempo

Following a question from a PR8 user, here’s a formula that you can use to calculate the BPM in PR8 based on the SPEED setting:

TEMPO = 60 / ((SPEED + 2) * 4) * 120 [NOTE: IT'S FOR NTSC TIMING!]

For the maths-averse, here’s a handy table:

PR8 BPM

01 600.00
02 450.00
03 360.00
04 300.00
05 257.14
06 225.00
07 200.00
08 180.00
09 163.64
0A 150.00
0B 138.46
0C 128.57
0D 120.00
0E 112.50
0F 105.88
10 100.00
11 94.74
12 90.00
13 85.71
14 81.82
15 78.26
16 75.00
17 72.00
18 69.23
19 66.67
1A 64.29
1B 62.07
1C 60.00
1D 58.06
1E 56.25

It won’t cover all eventualities because the calculation is based on 4/4 with 16 steps in a Pattern but it should be useful in most cases.
Neil

› {Advanced}Editing the appearance:

‹ {Advanced}Editing the appearance:

PR8 by default does not offer much customization in terms of colours and looks. Time to change that!
--To change tiles on the screen:
Mesen or Nintendulator and take a look at their included PPU viewer
Looking at the CHR viewer you'll notice that all all characters have Tile Index.
Boot up your favorite hex editor. 90% of the screen is editable from here!
Screen layout starts at 14B45, and every row on screen is 32 tiles, so resize your editor if possible for ease of use;
Replace values of tiles accordingly to your taste!
Last tile on the screen is located at 14F04.
--To change .pal file
This way you can achieve top colour customisation, but it might destroy visual compatibility with other software!
I recommend Nestopia. In video settings you should find palette editor. Code block below represents colours used by PR8:

00 XX XX XX XX XX XX 07 XX XX XX XX XX XX XX 0F 
10 11 XX XX XX 15 16 XX XX XX XX XX XX XX XX XX 
XX 21 XX XX XX XX 26 27 XX 29 2A XX XX XX XX XX 
30 XX XX XX XX XX 36 XX XX XX XX XX XX XX XX XX 

less obvious ones are:
Flashing cursor = 0F->16->26->36->30;
Cursor when holding A or B = 26;
grid cursor indicating edited step = 29;
Instrument buttons =  27,15;
Regarding greens: step indicator = 2A, rest is 29;
Regarding blues: 11 is used by blue (ghost) arrow as an outline;
You can safely ignore rest of the colours, as they are not used with PR8.

› How to use & Quickstart

‹ How to use & Quickstart

DPAD to move cursor around
A to enable/disable parameters
Start to reset everything
(VRC6 and FDS) Select to change pages

Pulse1/2 needs V+T+L(bottom) to generate sound
Triangle needs R+T+L to generate sound
Noise needs V  to generate sound
DMC needs L(top) and enabled D in "Control" to generate sound. (This one is tricky channel, if sometimes gets silent until we turn it on and off in "Control")

Additional notes
-Addresses (blue 4digits) can be looked up on https://wiki.nesdev.com for more details
-Turning off channels in "Control" will not turn them on unless we play with L(bottom) of channels
-DMC with it's 4011 address shows PERFECTLY how much Triangle/Noise drops volume (and how hard it is to control it)
-Swiping Pulse channels(E and S) will make it fade away, need to retrigger the channel to play again

› (todo:)

‹ (todo:)

-update PR8 saves so they have instrument filled up in every slot;
-include binaries for all NES homebrew;
-ask Dwedit to update his save manager to support this version