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FamiTracker
I haven't posted anything new in a while, and I went back to tinker on one of my original projects, which is a conversion of the soundtrack from "Pitfall II: Lost Caverns" on the Atari 2600 to the NES.
I think I have everything except the percussion instruments just right. It's tough to do the percussion because as some of you are likely aware, the 2600 game used the on-board square wave generator for the tunes, but also used the 2600's TIA chip to generate the percussion "pops" which sound somewhat like a woodblock as well as the game's sound effects. At any rate, I've tried to simulate this as best as I can (for now) with the noise channel.
Included are the four songs found in the game:
1. Game start / found item
2. Main music (looping theme)
3. Enemy Hit (plays when Pitfall Harry hits an enemy and returns to the cross)
4. "Over the Waves" (plays while holding to the hot air balloon)
As always, criticisms and suggestions are most welcome. Enjoy!
It's been a little while since I've posted something new, or even had an opportunity to create something new. But I have been going back through older projects and I decided to pick this one up yet again and tinker on it some more.
For one, the percussion never actually sounded right, and was WAY off from the original game. Moreover, "Over the Waves" sounded a complete mess to my ears. So, I decided to just overhaul the whole thing and make a brand new cover for [i]Pitfall II[/i], which I have now completed.
Rather than waste creating a whole new thread, though, I've attached the new version here. The older version is up above in the first post for anyone that would like to compare, but I really do feel like this newer version is much, much closer to the original musical score. It's certainly a lot easier on the ears.
Good cover! The lack of note cuts bugs me a little, but whatevs.
from Atariage forums:
"The Pitfall II Atari game by Activision relies on an RC oscillator inside the cartridge to produce audio signal which is pumped into the TIA by manipulating the volume registers on every scanline. Due to slight inconsistencies in manufacturing (part tolerances can often vary by up to 20%), the exact pitch of audio varied from one Pitfall II cart to another."
This brings back memories. I remember playing Pitfall II ... on the 5200. Went generally right, then down underground (far enough to reach water), then left, then up a balloon ... I think things might've went left from there but that's as far as I can recall.
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It's called the DPC chip and it was designed by David Crane himself.
Picture the DPC chip as being a RAM expander that has 3 additional 4-bit wavetables; but the "global" volume for those channels is the same as the second TIA sound channel.
Basically like an N163 with 3 channels and "global" volume by highjacking it from the second TIA channel.
[quote=cak]Prob why emulation is mostly wrong as well.[/quote]
Emulation of it is actually pretty good regarding Stella. And the Harmony cart actually has what's called the DPC+ for intrigued developers. It's basically a DPC with an additional ARM processor for whathaveyou.
