POKEY'S 15kHz

[emkay]

@ PG

Btw: How can Instruments play at "different" frequency basis, when their overlay adds perfectly?

 

Well, I really should stop taking care of self called musicians that don't hear the missing dependence of notes in a musical part

 

Heck, I'm also using a frequency filter slides in this tune... you don't even hear that in 99% of POKEY tunes.

 

But... it'S FULLY out of tune

Edited November 6, 2015 by emkay

[ctirad]

It is not just out of the tune, it is totally disharmonic cacophony most of the time.

 

I just heard the original sid/mod version and it sounds perfectly correct.

[analmux]

@ emkay

 

Poison and pseudografx were just telling evil jokes. In fact many people like many of your PoKey tests. But most people don't like your talking style, cowboy.

 

It's still rather childish when people are making evil jokes. It's a fact that both the people nagging about emkay, but also emkay himself are joking. It's still unclear who started. Emkay once said that far in the past (> 25 yrs ago) other people were joking him first. I've met him a few times in real. In real life he doesn't have any evil-joke-personality at all. Just having a lot of fun.

[analmux]

It is not just out of the tune, it is totally disharmonic cacophony most of the time.

That's only your taste ...

 

I just heard the original sid/mod version and it sounds perfectly correct.

There are several courses for this difference. In fact many PoKey tunes, written by many people, are undergraded.

[analmux]

[double post]

Edited November 7, 2015 by analmux

[analmux]

And here's a nice PM from pseudografx to me:

 

"Well, emkay is a difficult person. I believe you agree. His effort in finding what POKEY is capable of is respectable, but his comments to others' work are often lacking empathy. that is why I wanted to let him taste his own medicine."

[flashjazzcat]

It is not just out of the tune, it is totally disharmonic cacophony most of the time.

 

I just heard the original sid/mod version and it sounds perfectly correct.

I have to a agree. This is not discouragement but just what should be an empirical observation. If the objective is a deliberately dissonant piece of music, then the effect has been achieved.

 

As to matters of taste: the only subjective matter is whether one enjoys dissonance. The fact the piece is dissonant is not down to taste. I also compared it to the original piece, which at least observed some kind of musical key across all the voices.

[emkay]

LOL

 

The main cause why I was thinking NOT to start the conversion of the tune is exactly this resulting "caco"-mmunication.

Particular the CZ guys have a special problem , I still don't get.

 

@Analmux

 

No problem for me what they write or even think. But, again a thread has been killed. That's the only disturbing point.

[emkay]

I have to a agree. This is not discouragement but just what should be an empirical observation. If the objective is a deliberately dissonant piece of music, then the effect has been achieved.

 

As to matters of taste: the only subjective matter is whether one enjoys dissonance. The fact the piece is dissonant is not down to taste. I also compared it to the original piece, which at least observed some kind of musical key across all the voices.

 

Well, the source is posted. Make it fitting to your taste. No one will stop you. Have fun.

[MaPa]

The first two music video examples are good but the loader one is horrible to listen to even that I'm musically deaf.

[analmux]

Then what do you think what's the cause of the out-of-tune song? Tell us all of you please, MaPa, pseudografx, Poison, ctirad ...

Edited November 7, 2015 by analmux

[analmux]

As to matters of taste: the only subjective matter is whether one enjoys dissonance. The fact the piece is dissonant is not down to taste.

No, this is not the main consequence of this topic. Pseudografx started the fire, just to derail the topic. Isn't it easy to ignore him from now on?

 

About the PoKey version of the "Ocean loader" tune, by emkay:

 

• emkay HIMSELF already agreed that the notes of this tune are not totally correct

• analmux introduced a first solutions (listen loader0.xex): rescaling some parts and use distortion 12 at 1.79 MHz mode for arpeggios

• pseudografx is just spitting on the dissonant tune: hello everyone, look at the shit!

• Poison is just spitting on the dissonant tune: hello everyone, look at the shit!

• ...

 

Sounds clear: the CZ guys are only destructive. These guys didn't give an alternative solution unfortunately.

[flashjazzcat]

So: only people capable of coding their own tunes are allowed to air an opinion on a piece of music. I don't have to know how to play the piano to know that Les Dawson was playing out of tune:

 

 

The thing is, he was doing so deliberately for comic effect.

 

I don't know what prior grudges are supposed to be the catalyst for initial criticism: I'm just remarking on what I hear. Unfortunately this looks like another "here's a proof of our awesome book" topic, where dummies are ejected from the pram the moment things aren't received as expected. I certainly have no axe to grind, and no reason aside from the notes hitting my ears to remark as I have. It's certainly not a problem for me to ignore the entire topic from now on.

[analmux]

? .... that's not the point

[emkay]

ROTFLMAO

 

I really wonder what's wrong there. Instead of a useful discussion, you always get ...

 

Just for the Books: The 1st tunes use a special note rotation/shifting inside the instrument, to have them better in tune (referring to the thread about "noise approximations with POKEY"

I released the loader at that state, because of starting a discussion. In RMT it is a heavy time consuming task, to have melodic parts sound "correct".

 

And the tune is 4 minutes long, instead of the 1st 2 that were only 90 seconds ...

[Shawn Jefferson]

First off, I'm not a musician either.

 

This has been going on for quite some time. Emkay makes comments like:

 

 

I released the loader at that state, because of starting a discussion. In RMT it is a heavy time consuming task, to have melodic parts sound "correct".

 

Unfortunately, the term "correct" is difficult to reconcile with the evidence that we hear. The tunes being done by others in RMT and other tools, sound pretty good to my ears. If someone asked me if they were music I would say yes. The tunes that have been done by emkay are almost always, with some notable exceptions, not what I would call music.

 

Now, if you are trying to use and demonstrate new techniques, that's fine, but it's going to be a tough sell to get other people to use those techniques if they (apparently) aren't useful in making "music." Probably a lot of the issues are communication and language. Using terms like "correct" melodic parts and then pointing to a tune as the solution that is very obviously not what most would call music is definitely part of the issue, in my opinion. I suspect (and hope) that is mostly down to a communication problem.

Edited November 7, 2015 by Shawn Jefferson

[emkay]

I suspect (and hope) that is mostly down to a communication problem.

Not sure . But , if you listen to 99% of POKEY tunes, they were OFF even using 64kHz sounds. This time we talk about 15kHz , and there is NO compareable tune , neither in sounding correctness and note correctness available, comparing to the tunes above. They are ALL worse, compared to the stuff above!

Even the SID file has "jumps" in the melodic parts, playing the pitch incorrect... Those jumps get more obvious with POKEY and the worse resolution. 15kHz is very raw...

Btw: Which tunes on the Atari would you name "music" ?

 

To like "Chip tunes" is somehow "off" already, as the only point is that those chips had been used in old computers. Today they were even not called "retro" ... just "saurus" ...

Then there is the personal taste in sounding and music styles. Particular "music styles" should be left out of those threads, because everyone has one's own taste there.

Edited November 7, 2015 by emkay

[emkay]

Some help for "making the tune better" would be, if someone could tell, how many different pitches every arpeggio the SID original is using. As the third voice is playing in a range where POKEY has the most replay problems. After that corrections, the start of the tune could be better adjusted.

It would be easy to reproduce, when the values could be read out of the SID's registers. With POKEY we don't have the ability to play 3 channels in a full synth style... simple fact.

[emkay]

And, well, Analmux's version shows where's another problem: You cannot adjust AUDCTL on the envelop, thus you cannot use "all goodies" of POKEY to have the "best music available" with RMT. The Arpeggios in "my" version do not really fit, as high notes always yell. Switching to 1.79MHz gives a 4 times better pitch resolution.

[analmux]

Now, if you are trying to use and demonstrate new techniques, that's fine, but it's going to be a tough sell to get other people to use those techniques if they (apparently) aren't useful in making "music."

Who cares? His PoKey techniques are very interesting. Rescaling problems are not easy for emkay. But IF the notes themselves are relatively dissonant, then automatically the interesting PoKey techniques are useless???

 

And @ emkay: ONLY RMT patch 8 gives the solution to use 15 kHz mode for playing deep clean 8-bit bass and bariton, and playing correct distortions 2 and 12 at 1.79 MHz mode, for far more correct high notes. Let's find another SID or MOD tune to make a new try. I don't like this one.

[Shawn Jefferson]

Who cares?

Emkay cares, he's always speaking about how people aren't using these techniques, how no music creation tool is capable of doing it, how the tunes being created with the existing tools don't sound "correct."

 

His PoKey techniques are very interesting. Rescaling problems are not easy for emkay. But IF the notes themselves are relatively dissonant, then automatically the interesting PoKey techniques are useless???

The techniques may be interesting, no doubt (I just don't know enough about Pokey to say one way or another.) But when you are trying to convince others to use these techniques but you can't seem to make them work to make music.... well, you see the issue there?

 

PS. I also have been around long enough to know that it's probably futile to argue about any of this. Emkay's writing comes across as his methods are the only way to make music on the Atari sound good, and the majority here can't hear what he does I guess.

Edited November 8, 2015 by Shawn Jefferson

[snicklin]

I'll just say, keep on experimenting Emkay. The more that you experiment, the more likely it is that you'll find something really great. Some sounds are quite interesting. Put them in the right place in the right song and you've got something good

[+MrFish]

I think these two statements from Mr. Mux summarize the positives and negatives of this thread, respectively:

 

But IF the notes themselves are relatively dissonant, then automatically the interesting PoKey techniques are useless???

 

They obviously aren't useless in the eyes/ears of those giving the likes and positive comments at the beginning, and even those who were complaining about the later work.

 

 

Let's find another SID or MOD tune to make a new try. I don't like this one.

 

This is basically where the problem started. Mario (no offense to Mario intended; just a simple request -- understood) said "here, now make those cool sounds work with this SID tune". It's obvious it WON'T work with that SID tune, at least not well or very easily (maybe not at all with these particular techniques). Emkay was obviously doing the introductory works within some constraints so as to allow for keeping things in ranges that would sound in tune (or maybe just selecting songs that "worked" out ok). So to try and throw some anonymous tune at the technique (especially one that is not quite so simple) created problems a little to big to deal with, and should probably have been avoided altogether. But nothing wrong here for Emkay to make some attempt to accommodate the request.

 

So maybe the best thing is to allow Emkay to go back to what he was doing to start with, and leave this last example behind, as was pointed out.

 

Something to think about: The 2600's TIA has limited ability, in most cases, to produce songs that sound "in tune". A technique that's been employed there is to write the music itself to accommodate the tuning problems (or leave out notes for song conversions, or substitute other sounds or octaves for the "out of tune" notes). So in writing a song, notes will purposely be avoided altogether in order to have some nice product in the end. I imagine certain "ranges" are also avoided.

 

It seems totally reasonable to attempt using some of the same techniques on the Atari 8-bits. You won't be able to take your typical MOD and throw it in there as is of course. You'd have to modify the pitches (not attempt to replicate pitches that can't be replicated, but completely substitute "new" notes) to suit, or leave some notes off completely -- basically creating new songs. Maybe it's even better to forget MODs sometimes or just borrow bits and pieces from them, and focus on creating new tunes altogether from the start.

 

I'm not sure of Emkay's pure composition abilities, so I don't know how helpful a direction that would be for his experiments. But in conjunction with someone who knows how to compose, or even by focusing on simple compositions that allow the techniques themselves to be worked on and displayed, something can be produced worth the time and effort.

 

I'm almost positive the SynthCart by Paul Slocum for the Atari 2600 used selective notes based on whatever key was selected to provide compositional scales that would sound in tune. I've heard quite a few examples of this -- and examples of manual note selection by game writers/coders -- that sounded very good. I think it's an idea worth giving some attention to on the 8-bit, especially when there is so much talk about things being out of tune. For example, in approximating a scale under a given sound/effect setting, you can purposely leave out notes that reach a calculated maximum deviation from the true tempered scaled. This would also help in clearing out the various "ranges" that are going to produce so many out of tune notes that they are rendered nearly of no use, or limited use.

 

Also, why is it necessary to accommodate a chromatic scale when you're only going to be playing notes in an A minor pentatonic (for instance)? Why not work out the best possible pentatonic scale that fits the situation? Pentatonics are so wide open (large intervals) to begin with that you're bound to be able to calculate some very precisely tuned note tables for them. Even "normal" major and minor scales have intervals that will allow you to keep from wasting time evaluating dead space. If you're planning on modulating the song into other keys, then of course it has to be considered. But better to start simple and work your way up to the more complex. The techniques Emkay is using are limiting in-tune notes more, so selecting particular scales for writing here seems even more natural and useful.

 

The musical compositions need to fit the constraints of the instrument they're being played on. Each technique used on POKEY will give you some instrument with particular constraints. Musicians aren't forced to play musical parts that don't fit their instrument. Even Paganini would have an impossible task before him if he was forced to play some of the simplest classical piano pieces on a violin.

Edited November 8, 2015 by MrFish

[+MrFish]

With POKEY we don't have the ability to play 3 channels in a full synth style... simple fact.

 

I'm curious why you don't work with dual POKEY's? Maybe you're trying to see the max you can get out of a stock setup?

[Synthpopalooza]

Or add the SlightSID cart. That way you get the 3 or 4 channels of POKEY plus three SID channels.