"Rockman FamiTracker music guide" 
by Mathew Valente [TSSF]
tssf@rogers.com

Change Log December 22, 2008:
-Sorted all the effects/instruments according to game (some are not sorted yet)
-Removed the redundant repeat instrumentation, since I discovered the tracker has 4 effect columns support. You can use V0x to define your own pulse
width setting
-Maximized all the instruments to max volume. If you want the effect to play at the volume they were intended, look at the "ideal volume".
-I was kind enough to figure out the BPM of the originating songs for you.

Change log December 13, 2008:
-Added basic sounds, percussion and some delay effects from Rockman 3 that need to be designed with the same tempo in mind as these Rockman 3 songs.
-Remade a bit of Wily Stage 1 to demonstrate a bit.

What's coming soon:
-perhaps .wav samples of well hit random noise percussion and toms?
-more lead instruments as I attempt to put together some things.

Examples
---------------
I included some example FTM files, along with their NSF counterparts. All Rockman 1-6 example music will
be using directly observed remaking. That is, I will try to remake them as accurately as possible through
what I see on my screen. The Rockman 9 musical examples are NOT directly remade, they're remade from ear.
They are approximations, and made in a Rockman 3-6 style, unless the Rockman 2 style calls for it.
I will NOT be remaking the Rockman 9 soundtrack in FamiTracker format! If you're looking for Rockman 9's soundtrack in NSF, I already remade the entire thing. Go here to get it: http://tssf.gamemusic.ca/Remakes/GIBStuff/tssf_mm9_nsf.zip

How I did this
-----------------------
This was my prodecure when doing this:
-Load up ZSNES. Load SNES 2A03 Emulator. (google search can help you)
-Find Mega Man song, assigned "pause" and "advance a frame" to hot keys.
-Observed the information on screen
-Opened up FamiTracker (ZSNES and FamiTracker don't get along, so at this point I'm merely inputting
information)
-Created instrument with observed information on screen
-Saved, closed FamiTracker, and reload, test instrument.

For noise percussion, I had a few extra steps

-Load WinAmp with NotSoFatSo
-Shut off default 60Hz speed and turn it to 10Hz
-Isolate the noise channel, and listen to the speed of the noise
-Use that noise speed and note it in this TXT file.

As you can see it's a very long process. Should you use any of these instruments, I really wouldn't
mind at least a little credit. :)

****General tips about Rockman Music and its effects****

Style and some tips
--------------------------
Okay, well, there seems to be a destinct style to Rockman songs, one of them is a power 5th chord. This is obvious of course to anyone with basic music theory
knowledge, however it should be noted that most songs like to use this to create a powerful harmony within the music.

Another thing when creating Rockman styled music is to keep in mind which game you wish to mimic. If you're going for catchiness of music, I would recommend
Rockman 3. If you're going for up-beat general awesomeness, go for Rockman 2. In my personal opinion, Rockman 6's music is the least memorable. Although, it
tends to pull some effects out that make you proud of your little 2A03 friend (Triangle "kick" sounds). I'll speak of this later.

Another thing Rockman music loves to use is dotted quarter notes, these can be powerful to your music if used properly and in the right place.

Rockman tends to use both Chorusing and delayed chorusing techniques. It's your choice when to use them. A regular chorus effect can be powerful for a good
catchy melody. It's also interesting to note that Rockman 9's music only ever used Delayed Choruses. (Check out that section to understand what I mean)

Rockman Leads
---------------------
The lead instruments in Rockman 3 and on usually used the envelope effect that a lot of people love to use, and that's an "attack". What it would do is
when the note would start, the volume instance would be louder than it would be a frame after the note sustained (continued on).. Rockman 2 didn't
really do this, however it did use a lot of volume fades, and even note off "release" effects (so did Rockman 3 and up). FamiTracker doesn't support either one unless the instrument
is programmed this way. Hopefully this will change but to acheive these, you either have to do it by hand in the pattern, or you need to create a "Fade out" instrument.
I'll explain how in the next section.

NOTE - There's a WIP version of FamiTracker that supports volume slides..however, since it's WIP, I am not
going to rely on it at this point in time, and will wait until a full release is..well..released. :)

Rockman Leads - Note-off "Release"
------------------------------------------------
FamiTracker, as far as I know, does not support effect column volume fades, which can make simulating a release a little hard. What you would do though, is create
your lead instrument and take note of it's sustain volume value. Then create a new instrument and with it's volume envelope, create it's starting point a point lower
than the other instrument's sustain. For instance: Lead's sustaining volume is 5, your "fade out" instrument's volume would start at 4, or whatever value the intended
volume fade pattern could be. (Rockman 2 was nautorious for going something like 15 15 13 13 11 11 9 9 7 7 5 5 3 3 1 1 0.. If your sustain value was  13, then you would obviously
start your fade value on the new instrument at 11. This is an example. Hopefully you can figure out the pattern)

Fade outs
--------------
This is just quick observation, but it seems like Rockman 1 and 2 use different drivers than 3/4/5/6 do. Judging from the way the whole systems work, it doesn't seem
like Rockman 1 and 2 have very good volume control, which would probably be why a lot of the newer effects weren't used in the old games. You can also
tell because of the way the envelopes fade out, because Rockman 1 and 2's envelopes seem to react slightly different. There are songs where fade outs use
a lower "resolution" than others, fading out at intervals of 2 or more. Perhaps that's a way to create a slight echoing effect? I noticed Rockman 9 does this a lot
as well, however it used this more as an effect than a limitation, because the  volumes were more controled in that game as well. Hm. Anyway keep this in mind
when creating a Rockman styled song.

Pulse Widths
-----------------
As far as I know, most leads that could either use 25% or 75% leads usually used 25%. What's the difference? Audibly, not much, however the 75% might help
"thicken" the sound up slightly..there's just a slight different feel to it that you can't really tell, but can. If you're remaking an NES or Mega Man 9 song from a
recording, it's nearly impossible to tell the difference unless you use both pulses and try them out. Sometimes they can be used to keep things in phase, as well.

It's also interesting to note that despite so many other NES music using different pulse widths for
percussive attacks on their instrumentation, Rockman music has never..EVER done it, not even in Rockman 9.
Well, except the Game Boy Rockman's..but that's only because the sound chip on the Game Boy would retrigger the tone when a new volume instance was called, unlike the 2A03. This produced a LOT of click
and pops..but anyway that's a different story. So, when making Rockman style music, keep that in mind. The
only arpeggiated pulse width settings I know about are the ones in Wily Machine in Rockman 9 during the
siren part.

Vibrato
------------
Vibrato's can be a pain in the ass. Vibratos are one of the only things in Rockman that use linear bend curves, from what I can tell..maybe I'm not observing properly, I don't know, but I swear when the high notes are bending with the low notes, they're bending at the same depth. A Logarithmic bend which is typical of mose Rockman music, bends deeper the higher pitched you go..so this is what leads me to this conclusion. We'll just have to make due with Logarithmic bends, I guess. 

The best way I've figured out to do it is to do it via macro instrumentation, and simply retrigger that note when the vibrato's needed..why? Because FamiTracker's vibrato sucks. There's no getting around it, it sounds like it's bending upward, then back to 0, then back to upward instead of downward, which is really a nasty sound overall. So, I'll include some vibrato settings via macro instrument, and examples on how to use them as well. It's not hard at all..it just makes things a little less clean.

Logarithmic Tom Slides
-------------------------------
All pitch bends are logarithmic. Perhaps because creating a linear pitch table for the NES would have used too much CPU, I don't know.
But all tom slides are logarithmic. This makes making triangle tom slides easy. All you have to do is use a pitch effect, find the value, and loop. Finding the value
can be tricky. Bringing the tom effect you want to mimic into a sound editor and then stretching it to find the beginning and end pitch is probably your best bet.
That's how I did it for my Mega Man 9 remakes. I find the typical tom slide value is "15".. so putting MML on your Tom instrument and setting it to loop at 15 is
your best bet. I've included an instrument for this value.

Linear Tom Slides
-----------------------
I've noticed that some Rockman 3 songs use Linear Tom Slides, however, you don't need to worry too much about how to acheive this. It can be acheived
by simply selecting a starting note and scaling down to the bottom value you wish to use. Confused? It's easy:

Ex: Starting note: A-4 Ending Note: D-4
In the pattern: A4 G#4 G4 F#4 F4 E4 D4
In the instrument editor arpeggiator MML: 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6

Ending the Tom Slides:
------------------------------
Now's time to count how many frames are in the instrument. The last example for a Linear Tom Slide would be 7 frames. Set an "on" for the Triangle at frame 0,
then set an "off" for the Triangle at frame 8, because the 7 frames before had notes on it. Simple. :) Of course if you want to acheive that "NES" sound, you would
push everything one number longer for that beginning dead frame. What's the NES sound?

That "NES" Sound 
------------------------
Sometimes music systems on the NES and even SNES used note-cuts one frame before a new note would start. Without this, playing back to back
notes on an NES wouldn't work unless you've got some sort of envelope going on, as the two notes played in succession would fuse into one long note.
Rockman 1 and 2 used this profusely, while Rockman 4 5 6 and 9 tended to deviate with alternate instrumentation. 
I'll try to include some of these "effects" in some of the instruments, but keep in mind that mixing these with instruments that don't cut the first frame
doesn't work out too well, unless you add a 0 to the MML of each instrument in use (to keep everything in time)..otherwise it will sound sloppy.

Chorusing
-------------
As far as I know, most Rockman music doesn't use the chorus effect, except some music in Rockman 3. To acheive the effect, follow these steps:
Step 1 - Select your instrument, and place their notes on the two square channels
Step 2 - On the first Square channel, do a very fine pitch bend down, or a "fine tune" down to cause the two notes to create a chorusing phasing effect.
(Rockman 6's chorusing effects did this a lot on these channels)

Phasing
----------
On any music system, you run the risk of going out of phase if you have two of the same notes playing at the same time. In theory, this should merely cause
a doubling effect which would cause your tone to be louder, however, it doesn't always happen in practice. To avoid it, you can do quick fine-tune down/up's
on the second channel's notes to cause it to "chorus"..then disable it when the next note plays (should it be a different note all together) Almost every Rockman
did this.

Delayed Chorusing
-------------------------
Some Rockman 2 / Rockman 9 music used delays by playing a lead notational line, and having it "echo" in the second channel. This is great as it gives the music
a lot of character, however it also has some risks. If you don't do it properly, you run the risk of your Square waves going out of phase, causing the two waveforms
to cancel each other out. Why does this happen? Because when you're delaying like that, sometimes you'll have two of the same note, with the same pulse width
square wave playing..but triggering at different times, and that can cause them to go out of phase, just like any waveform. Having this in your music sounds very
unprofessional, and can make your music sound amateurish. To avoid it, simply use the Chorusing effect on the delayed channel, and it should work out great.

** Be careful when fine-tuning for chorus/phasing effects. Using too fine a pitch bend will cause more phasing issues, using too deep a pitch bend will cause
your effect to sound out of tune. Practice makes perfect.**

"Echo" in Instrumentation
----------------------------------
I really wish I knew the equation for figuring out the amount of frames in a quarter note, if you have the BPM, and the Hz value is 60. That being said, I do know
that there are 24 frames in a beat if the bpm is 150. 

So:

Beat Value | frames long @ 150 bpm
1 | 24
1/2 | 12
1/4 | 6
1/8 | 4
1/16 | 2
1/32 | 1

Keep this in mind as it could help you a LOT with creating fade values.. I know it helped me with my Plug Man example.


-------- FamiTracker Instrumentation
-----------------------------------------------
Be weary of some of these effects, as they were designed for specific BPMs of these songs. 
Ideal Volumes are volumes that the effects were originally played at in their originating songs.. lowering your channel volume to this value should make it sound
exactly the same as it did in the game.

Included Instrument banks:


NES Tones (works with all 4 channels. Set pulse/noise with Vxx in pattern):
reg1 - Regular note with first frame set to a volume of max.
reg2 - Regular note with first frame set to a volume of zero, and the second frame to max.


Melodic Effects:

Most Rockman 4/5/6 delay effects used variants of these, so I'm only really going to include these. You can edit them to fit your needs.

retrig2 - Rockman 4 effect. Used in Toad Man's Stage. Also, I believe Plug Man used this effect or a variant of it, as well.
retrig3 - Rockman 4 effect. Used in Pharoah Man's Stage. Subtle but effective.

pulse1 - Rockman 3 effect. Used in Magma Man's stage at 75% pulse width,

ROCKMAN2-
Melodic:
reg2 - Regular note with first frame set to a volume of zero, and the second frame to max. Ideal for Triangle Bass.
wstg1_lead - Rockman 2 Wily Stage 1 Lead.


Percussion:
snare1 - Standard Rockman 2 Snare. Starting note is "5-#". Used a LOT in Mega Man 9.
snare2 - Used in Quickman's Stage. Starting note is "3-#". Also used in Mega Man 9 (Plug Man and Tornado Man) Hard to mimic in S3M, but that's unrelated.
snare3 - Basic noise snare from Wily Stage 1/2 in Rockman 2. Starting note is "9-#".
hhcl1 - Closed Hihat 1 from Rockman 2. Starting note is "D-#"
hhop1 - Opened Hihat from Rockman 2. Starting note is "D-#"
elec - Electric Noise used in Rockman 2's Quickman, and Plug Man from Rockman 9. Starting note is "B-#"


ROCKMAN3-
Melodic:
tri_start - Triangle Start.. Basic, Generic, Nothing special. Same as "reg1"
tri_endf# - Plays triangle until ends on frame #. Sort of equivalent to S3M's "SCx" (which is note cut on pattern-speed-number tick)
boss_lead - (ideal volume: 8) Rockman 3 boss lead. Used in Boss Theme. Slow attack.
boss_lead_vib - (compliments boss_lead) vibrato done by hand because I hate FamiTracker's vibrato effect.
boss_support - (ideal volume: 10) Rockman 3 50% support line.
delay1 - Rockman 3 effect. Used in Needle Man's Stage
delay2 - (ideal volume: 14) - 163 bpm - Rockman 3 effect. Used in the Title music
delay3 (ideal volume volume: 8) - 150bpm - Rockman 3 effect. Used in Spark Man's Stage
retrig1 - (ideal volume: 10) - 180bpm - Rockman 3 effect. Used in Top Man's Stage. (16th note triplet retrigger)
retrig4 - (ideal volume: 12) - 163 bpm - Rockman 3 effect. Used in Boss Theme.

Percussion:
crashlong - (ideal volume: never changed it. Look at the MML, you'll see why) Long crash sound from Rockman 3's Boss theme. Starting Note is "7-#".
kick3 - Noise Kick from Rockman 3 Boss. Starting note is "4-#". Long release (since the boss theme didn't have one)
snare4 - Snare from Rockman 3 Boss. Starting note is "7-#" (used as snare/kick/hihat in boss theme)

ROCKMAN9-
NOTE: Since I could not look at the source music, or see how the music was affecting the music system
in real time, all these instruments are APPROXIMATED. In other words, they're my best guess. It's the best
you're going to get from me, until someone can hack the music system and extract the MML from the actual
game.

Melodic:
tri_start - Triangle Start.. Basic, Generic, Nothing special. Same as "reg1"
tri_endf# - Plays triangle until ends on frame #. Sort of equivalent to S3M's "SCx" (which is note cut on pattern-speed-number tick)
lead1 - Lead Instrument for Wily Stg 4
lead1arp1 - Arpeggio 1 for Wily Stg 4 (16th notes?)
lead1arp2 - Arpeggio 2 for Wily Stg 4 (16th triplet notes?)

Percussion:
elec - Electric noise sound from Rockman 2, first cut frame moved to last frame. Starting note is "B-#"
snare5 - Snare from Rockman 9's Wily Stage 4 intro. Starting note is "5-#"
snare1-cut - Snare from Rockman 2, with a few frames cut off the end
mm9hhat - approximation of Rockman 9's hihat. High pitched, very short cut.
ltrikick1 - This is an approximation of Wily Stg 4's Triangle Kick sound. Starting note is "A-3". 


kick2 - Noise Kick from Rockman 5. Starting note is "2-#"
tom1 - an example tom slide test that I put together, doesn't mean it's good or bad. Use at any pitch for any desired effect.