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FamiTracker
I first heard about FamiTracker when virt released his Bloodrayne: Betrayal OST, and I figured it was too much over my head (not really understanding NES hardware). I used MPT for a few weeks back in high school about 8-9 years ago to write out a few (very simple) video game covers, but just wasn't good at writing music. I had some good ideas, but just didn't have the understanding, and went off on a journey to make music in Fruity Loops and learning basics on keyboard and guitar.
Anyway, last week I attended a FamiCompo Mini vol. 8 listening party online and was talking to a few people who submitted stuff, and they said that if I knew how to use MPT, I'd be able to pick up FamiTracker no problem. I've always loved chiptunes, and so I just had to give it a try this week.
As a warning, several people dislike my transitions in the last few patterns and find them jarring. I personally like them and find them interesting, but I realize my opinion on this matter is not the popular one. Hope you all enjoy!
It certainly is a key change! I decided to throw it in there because I pretty much never use them and figured I should start playing around with them. That is the part a lot of people find jarring. I personally like it, but I've been working on it for the past few days so my ears are accustomed to it.
This sounded pretty neat! Some parts got a bit repetitive though. Overall, the quirky sound of the vibrato and the pitch sliding gave it a nice feel to it. Plus, the key change sounds great, there's usually nothing wrong with key changes!
I completely agree that parts of it are repetitive. As I was writing the song, I was playing around with more and less repetition for each of the parts, and settled on what you hear. In the earliest phases of writing the song, there was very little repetition and it felt like ideas were getting firehosed at people and seemed a bit overwhelming. To fix that, I went overboard in the other direction and added too much repetition, and then trimmed it down to what you hear now.
Turns out the problem of finding a good balance on the repetition was more difficult than I anticipated so I got it close to where I wanted it and decided to call it finished to devote time to another song.
Thanks for listening and giving me constructive criticism! Repetition is definitely one of my weak points and hopefully by working on more projects I'll get a better sense of how to reach a good balance in my songs!
nothing breathtaking, but hey, it's musically coherent and original to boot, so i would say you are already starting off better than 90% of people. besides, there's no pressure for your first thing to be a masterpiece.
since i can see you're interested in original works, currently what i would do is try to find some inspiration in some canon NES soundtracks, and try as hard as you can to emulate the sound design. this will give you some fresh ideas for composition, and will also help you understand what it takes to make the hardware sound as good as possible. maybe mess around with with 2a03 stuff first, as jumping straight into expansion chips could spoil you're perspective of how to work within limitations.
when programming music for the NES, it's important to have a balance between composition knowledge, and logical sound design knowledge. this way you can write a rocking tune, and make it sound awesome within the strict NES limitations.
That's some really good advice, Mex. I admittedly ran out of channels for what I wanted to do on an NES so I loaded up VRC6 so I could have harmonizing arpeggios, a bass line, and a synth lead.
I do have a question about examining NES soundtracks, though. Is there any way to look at what exactly they're doing, or only by doing your best guess through listening to single channels on NSFs and importing MIDI files into FT? I am a huge novice when it comes to this stuff and really have no idea where to start when it comes to examining stuff at this level.
Just today, I have listened to a bunch of stuff people have posted on here and I've been blown away by some of the awesome sounds people have made out of the 2a03 and using effects I didn't even know existed.
Thanks a bunch for all this advice, Mex. I really would like to get a much better understanding of NES hardware (or any sound hardware, for that matter), and I think using FamiTracker is the avenue for me to learn about this kind of stuff.
there's a really neat hack of famitracker that rainwarrior made with an nsf importing feature. it will allow you to look at more or less accurate volume envelopes and instrumentation of almost any nsf. all you gotta do is convert volume and tracker effect data to envelope data.
you can find a big general thread about it in the famitracker talk board.
and anytime for the advice, i'm sure with a good bit of practice you will have great knowledge of how the NES handles sound.
I like it! Very clean, and it sounds nice. The only thing that got to me was the vibrato commands. Personally, I don't like to use speeds slower than 4, and I usually go even faster. Once I changed all the 433's to 463's, I liked it a lot more.
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[url=http://icesoldier.me]Website (includes FTM's of my covers)
Thanks! I really like the 463 you put in there, I think it sounds really good in a lot of the places the 433 was originally, but I think it may be a bit too fast for some of the longer stretches.
In the song I'm currently working on, I'm actually using several different vibratos based on note duration to keep the vibrato a bit more fresh than it was in this song.
Were I to revisit this song, though, I'd definitely put the 463 on all of the shorter vibratos because it sounds really good when its played in small segments.
I feel like the longer the vibrato lasts, the slower it should be since you have more time to get enough repetitions of the vibrato to make it sound like vibrato.
I personally think that there's sort of a sweet spot for how many times the vibrato can repeat on a note before it starts sounding cheesy and/or annoying. I also think I probably overused vibrato in general in this song, but I guess that's sort of another problem. I am also a noob when it comes to music theory (I understand the circle of fifths and basics behind scales conceptually but do not have any more than extreme basics memorized), so take my opinion with a grain of salt. :P
As a warning, the song I'm currently working on does make use of 433 still (since I actually do like its sound, personal preference), but that is the slowest vibrato and it is used the least frequently. I'm also playing around with the vibrato depth a bit so hopefully I'll get a better hang of using it!
Who here thinks Samuraighost2/Megasoultech should be permabanned? As if it's not enough he copies off of others, he's now pretending he's a different person & trying to hijack someone else's thread.
clerian; it's a great tune & you're off to a great start wit the tracker.
jrlepage; I think it's about time to lock this thread before Samuraighost2 screws around more.
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Technology: the one thing that's hated & cursed at by all engineers, technologists, scientists & technicians!
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