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FamiTracker
How can I reproduce the effect in the [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd8gwYJA6Y4]Kraken song from Earthbound/Mother 2 on the NES? I made a naive attempt (see ftm below), but I'm not really sure what's going on in the original song - I'm not even sure what notes are being played.
It partially sounds to me like a low-pass filter sweeping its cut-off frequency. Can I simulate a low-pass filter by playing with the pulse width? I'm assuming that as a square/rectangular wave approaches a 50% duty cycle it loses some of its higher harmonics because it's closer to a sine wave. So I was using VRC6 because it has a higher resolution for the Vxx effeect.
It's just acid.[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Enyny7vXGi4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Enyny7vXGi4
I'd suggest jacking up the clock speed and then fiddling with a long strong of duty cycles. Such as |0 0 0 0 0 0, and then a new instrument with a string of |0 0 0 0 0 1 and so on.
Though you really could just go with VRC7 and do the same defining of instruments. There's some post of someone doing just that if I can find it.
[quote=Xyz_39808]It's just acid.[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Enyny7vXGi4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Enyny7vXGi4[/quote]
That guy's playing with more than one knob. How can I tell which effects I'm trying to reproduce, especially when I don't have a video of someone fiddling with the knobs? I'm just not familiar enough with it to pick out what sounds are changing.
[quote=Xyz_39808]I'd suggest jacking up the clock speed and then fiddling with a long strong of duty cycles. Such as |0 0 0 0 0 0, and then a new instrument with a string of |0 0 0 0 0 1 and so on.[/quote]
I guess I'll try that. It's basically applying the concept of pulse width modulation to alter the pulse width effect?
I'd rather do it with square waves if possible, not VRC7. But I'm not even certain I know what's going on in Solemn Wishes either. I guess the "Modulator level" changes with each instrument. Is that equivalent to changing the cut-off frequency?
I ran into this effect when [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jlu786vcgKw]covering "[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AN8N_aTQ1I]Expander." I didn't try to exactly re-create the sound, chalking it up to the result of an 8-bit conversion.
Instead, I altered the duty cycle of notes depending on the degree of low-pass-filter (or whatever is being altered on the beginning of the video Xyz posted) applied. It's not as noticeable, but it felt good to me.
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[url=http://icesoldier.me]Website (includes FTM's of my covers)
Yeah sorry, the vid was just to show you basic acid since it seemed to be a foreign concept to you. But the knob that you are most interested is indeed the filter cutoff. PWM does a swell job of doing this.
OK, so instrument one has pulse width of [ | 0 0 0 0 ] instrument two is [ | 0 0 0 1 ] and so on up to instrument eight. Maybe I'm not doing it right, but it just sounds noisy and distorted using this technique, not like the effect I was trying to get.
Do I even have the right notes? I feel like I must be pretty dense.
That is more or less the right idea. But the clock speed is still way too slow.
Use this one as a template [url=http://www.famitracker.shoodot.net/forum/posts.php?id=1570]http://www.famitracker.shoodot.net/forum/posts.php?id=1570
(since I have no clue how he did that)
Yeah, I guess that was a different version of FamiTracker? I put the clock speed up as high as it would let me.
For those curious, here's my VRC7 attempt.
Which of these methods should I use if I were to do a full-length cover, and how can I improve it? Or shouldn't I do it, because they all sound crappy?
I don't really see the point of trying it at 400hz... if you're unsatisfied with what the hardware can do, why stick with a non-existent transformation of the NES instead of, say, C64 which has a filter?
If you do want to do it NES, I'd suggest something simple, like using two channels and fading them, or just doing sudden shifts in pulse width. (If you wanna use VRC6, I think it has a few extra selectable widths, so that might help smooth it out.) 2A03 example attached.
Edit: Oh you did try VRC6 in your first one. So... yeah.
I used multiple-channels with fading in my cover of On The Run (starts around frame 0C). I also used an array of volume envelopes to simulate tweaking of the filter attack.
The results were moderately successful. I mean, you're never really going to get an 2A03 to sound like a resonant filter, but that doesn't mean you can't do some sort of gradual timbre effect as a substitute.
Yeah, I know there are real ways to do chip tune filters, but I've never gotten into C64 music (I had a Commodore VIC-20) and I'm not ready to right now. I think there's something kinda symbolic about recreating a SNES piece on the NES. Like a "what if" the Kraken battle from Mother 2 were in Mother instead. And I like the idea of pushing the NES hardware in creative ways to produce unintended effects. It's cool to think that there might still be some undiscovered sounds in the 25+ year old chip.
My stab at it. Obviously this isn't exactly an acid effect (it's not an acid effect at all!) but I think it could work out nicely. Sounds interesting, too...
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