If anyone cares, I've run the NSF through the importer. Obviously, you can't import 46 days' worth of music due to the 256 frames limit, but I've seen enough to draw the following conclusions:
1. FM channel 1, DPCM and Noise seem to follow each other, and all loop at the same time. Furthermore, they are the first set of channels to reach their loop points.
2. Similarly, FM channels 2 and 5 are dedicated to the bassline, and are therefore exactly the same length throughout. They reach their first loop point 8 bars after the percussions set.
3. FM channels 3 and 4 seem to be the only ones that use custom FM instruments, yet they don't loop at the same time. This is bound to cause conflict at one time or another during the tune.
4. FM channel 6 is independent from all other channels, and has its own loop point.
I'll update this post as I find out more, if anyone is interested of course.
Meh, maybe it's impressive that they wrote custom code to give individual channels their own loop points, but only a little. It's not a feature you would normally include in a tracker, but the code difference is probably pretty small; I once wrote a 4k demo where I needed this feature, and it was almost trivial to do this.
Other than that, is there something that's particularly profound about setting a few different loop lengths and just letting it play out?
The real reason I think it doesn't fare too badly (most of the time) is that there's no key change, and most of it is pretty much the same basic harmony. Sometimes it does clash a bit, but this isn't something that looks like it was carefully considered for overlap. It was just written pretty plainly so it wouldn't be much of a problem.
Other than that, is there something that's particularly profound about setting a few different loop lengths and just letting it play out?
Not more interesting than any other minimalism composition. But if you're into that stuff (like the clarinet professor tried out with this), then it's great!
I figured someone would mention Steve Reich, not Terry Riley... different kinda minimalism, really (though I guess there's a similarity, since In C is about random combinations of things, which is sort of what random loop lengths achieves).
Anyhow, the sheer length of the loops here kinda makes it -not- minimalism at all. You need to start with something minimal.
