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FamiTracker
Hey all. I've been tinkering around with Famitracker here and there for a couple years now, and it's a really fun program, but I know I'm not any hotshot with it. So a while ago, I decided to start cover of a song from the game "Metal Gear Rising", since I figured it'd be a great way to test everything I know so far. If you're not familiar with the soundtrack, it's pretty awesome. I was curious if I could get some constructive criticism, since I'd really like to improve my skills, and improve this song before maybe uploading it to YouTube or something. Thanks!
Okay, so I might want to take down the snare a note or so, what would I want to do about "punch"? I think I already know some places where I can add vibrato. You can hear it's a fairly dense song, so something I think I'm worried about is too much of so many different things going on at once. What could I possibly do to keep the song dense without making it sound just loud and messy?
Triangle or sawtooth bass, possibly couple a pulse with that.
Adding more punch usually consists of taking a pitched instrument and making it the punch of the hit on percussion. DPCM/Noise usually sounds airy, and not very punchy, so you can expand there.
Also, listen for hats in the original song. It sounded strange, and I realised that there were no hats, and I'm not entirely sure that's so in the original, but, then again, I haven't listened to the original before.
EDIT: Also, remember that having different duty cycles on the pulses makes it sound like more instruments, or multiple parts of one instrument, at times.
Hm... I don't think I can use one of the other channels with a pitched instrument to add dimension to the percussion. Rather, I might want to tinker with the snare instrument itself and use the pitch, arpeggio, and noise duty to get that impact. As for hi-hats, I hear them throughout the original song, and I incorporate those into the cover as well. Where do you hear them missing?
Sort of an ambiguous shot, especially to be done on the VRC6, don't you think?
You're using the wrong type of kick sample, the kick is in the wrong beat, you're missing tons of cymbal instruments of all different sorts, and the snare shouldn't last that long. It also NEEDS a hit, so you might want to look at some other people's approaches at having a pitched channel play both percussion and notes at the same time, it's not really that hard, especially with all the channel cover you'll need to do for this song.
I'd recommend using the N163 for this song, because of how many channels you should need to get everything.
EDIT: Or, if you feel comfortable with working outside of the program's intended specifications, and the fact that it's going to get patched to work differently eventually, meaning your module won't work, you can grab a multichip FTM and work on that.
Eh, while I approached the song with a certain level of authenticity in mind, at the end of the day, I'd rather work within the limitations of VRC6, than to make an overhaul to try to really fill in every nuance of such a dense song. There's a million things going on in every measure, and I'd rather pick and choose the most interesting parts and work with those, than to try and capture all of it within the limited dynamics. Or, put in my own parts, introduce a little flavor into the cover. As for percussion, though, it's definitely not my strong point, er, if I have a strong point. I'm not exactly sure what I'd even do to fix that. Especially in that intro in the original song, you can hear all sorts of electronic percussion. I'd love to do that in the cover.
If you're going to refrain from using more channels, don't be wasteful on them. It's possible to have one channel sound like it's doing multiple things at once, if you use the correct timings, but you're having multiple channels doing one thing.
Yeah, one of the things I did when starting the cover was to look at guitar tabs of the song, because that helped me break the song down. However, this means my two right pulse channels and the sawtooth are generally making things like power chords, which isn't exactly the most optimal use for those channels. Do you have any recommendations for how I could sort of reorganize and utilize those channels optimally? I'm not really sure what "correct timings" would mean in this case. Also, you said that my kick drum is in the wrong beat?
Welp, looking at your critique, I tried out some things, I reworked a little, and I have to say I'm pretty happy with how it came out. While I probably could continue to work on the cover forever and ever, this seemed like a good stopping point to finally put it out there. I think the song was captured well, of course in a way only 8-bit can.