Trying to make some PoKEY music!

[rensoup]

10 minutes ago, ivop said:

I think you mean patterns at the RMT level. If they are within the LZSS back reference window, they are compressed. But with long songs, they could be too far apart. Then indeed, it could be beneficial to compress just each RMT pattern. But then your player needs the RMT song data to know when to play which pattern.

Ah yes, everybody wants pattern compression and I believe I mentioned its pros and cons in the RMT2LZSS thread... somewhere...

[ivop]

4 minutes ago, rensoup said:

Ah yes, everybody wants pattern compression and I believe I mentioned its pros and cons in the RMT2LZSS thread... somewhere...

Off the top of my head, notes that extend pattern boundaries.

 

[VinsCool]

46 minutes ago, ivop said:

Off the top of my head, notes that extend pattern boundaries.

 

This is already the case for just the loop function as well, so it's another thing to take in consideration if notes are meant to be sustained between patterns.
If the pattern did not originally have the note data, it will cut to whaveter state it was prior to the pattern, but that is something easy to work around, at least.

[rensoup]

1 hour ago, ivop said:

Off the top of my head, notes that extend pattern boundaries.

oh yeah there's that too but like Vinscool said, it can be worked around... I was thinking compression efficiency:

every time the compression is restarted, the beginning (of the track/pattern in this case) doesn't compress as well obviously. Plus it may require to change LZSS to compress individual Pokey channels instead of having all of them merged together.

[VinsCool]

A bit unrelated to my own music, but this is something I always wanted to see this one visualised from real hardware, thanks to Bayusumardi for the visualisation using my recorded audio  

 

This was why I was hacking Instrumentarium yesterday, since I edited the module inside of it, I had to change some code to have the Two-Tone Filter work where it was expected, and now I know how to manipulate it too, so that could be useful sometime for future projects.
I wanted to record single audio channels, and had to adjust the code in question to not break everything as a result.

 

I attached my hacked files in the post if anyone is interested, I have a lot of respect for the work behind this, so I wanted to learn from all of this, too!

The reason why there is a ominous note playing 1 second before everything in all channels was purely for timing and synchronisation purpose, that's the method I always use when I record audio off hardware and want to get very constant results.

Funnily enough only a moment ago I found out actually Analmux explained all that stuff in that thread: 

It would have saved me some time yesterday, but I feel pretty happy to know that even with no past experience in 6502 machine language, I figured it out on my own and got it working anyway,  
 

There's so many things I want to experiment with, it's all really exciting stuff.

 

 

Instrumentarium Hack for Oscilloscope.zip

[VinsCool]

Currently releasing some more stuff I didn't quite finish to be satisfied but I guess there is a moment where I should let it go so here's a new (old) tune

 

[Original] A Permanent Temporary Solution (Atari PoKEY, Recorded from Real Hardware)

 

Uses some really cool sounds combining "reverse 16-bit" and "high pass filter", that created all these cool harmonic distortions and that really thick bass.
It also looks just as cool under the scope as I was hoping  
The reverse 16-bit frequencies were based on synthpopalooza's table.

This one doesn't use anything fancy, RMT2LZSS conversion simply used unpatched 1.28, since most of the stuff was done manually...  

 

 

A Permanent Temporary Solution Final.rmt A Permanent Temporary Solution Final.xex

[VinsCool]

This one was a request by Tatqoo, so here's my attempt at this cover version.

Dubmood - Ninjafloods Schoolstart (Atari PoKEY Cover, Diatonic Tuning Test)

 I also wanted to experiment a bit more with alternative tunings, and this combination gave me the largest number of notes with 0,0 cents off, and also works nicely with the bass.
It's actually pretty close to the Alternate Tuning I had been doing for a while now, but most likely even better?  

I'll attach the module and executable, as well as the tables.txt I used for this tune specifically.
This was mostly just a test so there's nothing definitive there.
I would like to thank ivop for the spreadsheet I used for the calculations!

Also by some bad luck, and time wear, I broke my laptop headphones jack tonight ? 
That will make some future stuff a bit annoying to do...
 

Ninjafloods Schoolstart Final.rmt Ninjafloods Schoolstart Final Diatonic Tuning Test.xex CustomNoteTables DiatonicPlusFill Test.txt

Edited April 18, 2021 by VinsCool
RIP my laptop

[emkay]

16 minutes ago, VinsCool said:

This one was a request by Tatqoo, so here's my attempt at this cover version.

Dubmood - Ninjafloods Schoolstart (Atari PoKEY Cover, Diatonic Tuning Test)

 I also wanted to experiment a bit more with alternative tunings, and this combination gave

 

That's where I always get twisted. 

Now the notation seems close, the 60Hz speed has it's benefits, It turns out to get the 8 bit resolution pushed through the speaker really obvious.  

The "0 cents" usage misses the compensation of pitch differences on the scale. 

There is also this mystery of the "late portamento" , but this might be a specific RMT issue. 

 

Hope, you get the headphone jack problem fixed quickly. USB sound adapter? 

 

[VinsCool]

10 minutes ago, emkay said:

That's where I always get twisted. 

Now the notation seems close, the 60Hz speed has it's benefits, It turns out to get the 8 bit resolution pushed through the speaker really obvious.  

It's about as close as a decent compromise of 12 equal tones tuning (based on 443,9hz in NTSC or 439,8hz in PAL) and my own attempt from before currently, a large amount of the notes are exactly the same I used, but overall most of everything is adjusted to this different approach.
I can't say for sure this is perfect or worse, since I have not tested anything else yet, but this combination made this cover not sound like dying cats here.

Try the .rmt with the original 1.28 unpatched tables, it will be really apparent a lot of the notes just sound out of tune in comparison  

13 minutes ago, emkay said:

The "0 cents" usage misses the compensation of pitch differences on the scale. 

0 cents refers to the theoretical scale made up from 443,9hz, again, but in Diatonic Major (and Minor) arrangements.
This is so far the one get over half(!) of the notes be really nicely tuned together so far.
Of course this should work in PAL just as well, simply pitched a bit lower globally.

16 minutes ago, emkay said:

There is also this mystery of the "late portamento" , but this might be a specific RMT issue. 

Not sure what you mean there...? All the portamento I did in this cover were very much intentional and worked exactly how they should.
Compare to the original .xm if you want, it should be pretty close to it.

18 minutes ago, emkay said:

Hope, you get the headphone jack problem fixed quickly. USB sound adapter? 

headphones jack is basically dead for good, it was being a piece of shit for the last few days, especially, so I knew it was only a question of getting frustrated to fiddle the cable in and out like a maniac a little too aggressively until it just stopped making contact, and then I ended up snapping the cable bit inside of it, so it's not only broke, a piece of my headphones cable broke inside of it  
I will need an adapter of some sort for sure if I want to make more music, or just experiment with sounds, my laptop speakers suck very much.

[emkay]

About the portamento. 

It seems to start too late in the instrument. 

A Tracker with track/pattern commands for such slides, might be a step earlier.

Here are some tiny changes.

 

 

Ninjafloods Schoolstart tinymk.rmt

[ivop]

10 hours ago, VinsCool said:

I also wanted to experiment a bit more with alternative tunings, and this combination gave me the largest number of notes with 0,0 cents off, and also works nicely with the bass.
It's actually pretty close to the Alternate Tuning I had been doing for a while now, but most likely even better?

I like it a lot! Especially in the arpeggios you can hear how the relative distance between each note is so much better than 12-TET!

 

Quote

I'll attach the module and executable, as well as the tables.txt I used for this tune specifically.
This was mostly just a test so there's nothing definitive there.
I would like to thank ivop for the spreadsheet I used for the calculations!

You're welcome! I do not have the patience and energy to do this myself. It's nice to see how we all work together to better the pokey sounds This new revival of Pokey stuff, after analmux and raster's passing, started with Synthpopalooza IMHO.

 

Quote

Also by some bad luck, and time wear, I broke my laptop headphones jack tonight ? 
That will make some future stuff a bit annoying to do...

That sucks. There are very cheap USB "soundcards" with a headphone jack. Perhaps $3-$5 from China. But that won't help you in the short run

 

Edit: oh, I just now see that emkay also suggested a USB sound adapter

Edited April 18, 2021 by ivop

[ivop]

9 hours ago, emkay said:

The "0 cents" usage misses the compensation of pitch differences on the scale. 

Cents are confusing. What we were used to, the 12-TET tuning tables that were in the books and the magazines, is specifically compensated for with this alternate tuning, based on the Diatonic tuning. Having 0.0 cents difference, means it was compensated very well

 

Quote

There is also this mystery of the "late portamento" , but this might be a specific RMT issue. 

I hear what you mean. Especially the two or three portamentos that start at a wolf note do not sound very well

Edited April 18, 2021 by ivop

[emkay]

16 minutes ago, ivop said:

 

 

I hear what you mean. Especially the two or three portamentos that start at a wolf note do not sound very well

My tiny change saves it a lot

[VinsCool]

12 hours ago, emkay said:

About the portamento. 

It seems to start too late in the instrument. 

A Tracker with track/pattern commands for such slides, might be a step earlier.

Here are some tiny changes.

 

 

Ninjafloods Schoolstart tinymk.rmt 3.92 kB · 5 downloads

I don't hear any difference?
Not sure what starts too late exactly, the portamento commands I did were all intentional, and all I can see you added was an extra step in the instrument 01 adding a command 2 FF, which is pretty much not necessary?
Also an instrument got a "FILTER" step when it did not need it, I'm also confused about the reason this was changed.

4 hours ago, ivop said:

I like it a lot! Especially in the arpeggios you can hear how the relative distance between each note is so much better than 12-TET!

 

You're welcome! I do not have the patience and energy to do this myself. It's nice to see how we all work together to better the pokey sounds This new revival of Pokey stuff, after analmux and raster's passing, started with Synthpopalooza IMHO.

 

That sucks. There are very cheap USB "soundcards" with a headphone jack. Perhaps $3-$5 from China. But that won't help you in the short run

 

Edit: oh, I just now see that emkay also suggested a USB sound adapter

Thank you! I really like how most of the notes in this one really worked well there.
It's so much fun to experiment with all this stuff, and find new tricks each time.
Much respect for everyone who did some really cool stuff, this is what inspired me to also give it a shot.

Regarding the sound... well for now I don't have many options that don't cost some money, but I'll find a way eventually.

4 hours ago, ivop said:

Cents are confusing. What we were used to, the 12-TET tuning tables that were in the books and the magazines, is specifically compensated for with this alternate tuning, based on the Diatonic tuning. Having 0.0 cents difference, means it was compensated very well

It really felt like a "Eureka!" yesterday, I have yet to adjust the bass to this different approach and try out more tunes...

Or actually continue to document the frequencies I wanted to get in a list to then be able to pick up what will work later much faster, since I don't have the best laptop audio output currently...

4 hours ago, ivop said:

I hear what you mean. Especially the two or three portamentos that start at a wolf note do not sound very well

Looks like we all have different tastes, here I thought it sounded pretty good, and mostly accurate to the original .xm tune as well  
 

[emkay]

38 minutes ago, VinsCool said:

I don't hear any difference?
Not sure what starts too late exactly, the portamento commands I did were all intentional, and all I can see you added was an extra step in the instrument 01 adding a command 2 FF, which is pretty much not necessary?

The difference is clearly there. 

Your tune is really great. But the refrain is a "like blocker" . The portamento won't let me in, and the later vibrato seems from a different tune as a result

I did two things, changing the pitch of instrument 1. 

Now it fits better to the later "higher Instrument 2 vibrato " in the refrain.

And the aim only was to have the portamento corrected   , so the refrain keeps the aimed mood

The filter change (later) is done for some sharpness there. 

 

Hope you get it  Perhaps, you might hear the original tune to compare. 

[ivop]

2 hours ago, VinsCool said:

It really felt like a "Eureka!" yesterday, I have yet to adjust the bass to this different approach and try out more tunes...

Yes, this turned out really great!

 

Quote

Looks like we all have different tastes, here I thought it sounded pretty good, and mostly accurate to the original .xm tune as well

There's a note at circa 1:17 and one at circa 2:34 that sound a bit off. But the rest is SO freaking cool Especially the arpeggios, as I said before. They sound so nice in unison, also with the bass, and the melody.

Edited April 18, 2021 by ivop

[rensoup]

17 hours ago, VinsCool said:

This one was a request by Tatqoo, so here's my attempt at this cover version.

Another great rendition of an impossibly boring tune ?

 

Castlevania or Axelay please 

Edited April 18, 2021 by rensoup

[VinsCool]

1 hour ago, ivop said:

Yes, this turned out really great!

 

There's a note at circa 1:17 and one at circa 2:34 that sound a bit off. But the rest is SO freaking cool Especially the arpeggios, as I said before. They sound so nice in unison, also with the bass, and the melody.

Ah yeah, there's just so much I can do with 8-bit resolution  I've personally embraced some of the portamento notes beings a little "off", they worked well that way I think, haha.
I'm really happy of how this sounds like, again, very clean sound, the section with a key change also sounds great to me, it didn't sound out of place like I first expected.
The bass was not yet adjusted to the changes I did to the Distortion A table, but I guess I was lucky that most of my bass remained compatible to it, since it was already tuned to be as close as possible to 443,9 in the first place.

1 hour ago, rensoup said:

Another great rendition of an impossibly boring tune ?

 

Castlevania or Axelay please 

I'm sorryyyy I tried  
That's some tunes ideas... ?

I wanted to try getting more of the tuning and other cool sounds documented better too, so we'll what the future has for us.
Also I sort of found a work around for my sound output, using an app called SoundWire, it streams my PC sound directly to my phone, then my headphones. It's not the best setup but at least I can get decent audio quality on headphones once again for the time being  

[ivop]

16 hours ago, VinsCool said:

I'm sorryyyy I tried  

I actually liked the song. Never heard it before, but it has a nice melody IMHO. And the modulation (to confuse emkay even more ) to a different key works pretty good. It sounds like a major fifth up. That  would explain why it still worked pretty good with your diatonic tables.

 

16 hours ago, VinsCool said:

That's some tunes ideas... ?

Taking request?

 

This is my all time favorite SNES game, and all time favorite SNES soundtrack:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM-A6XN6COQ

 

Better rendition, but without game images:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aNHnshzGG4&list=PL124DAE5BD1B8B7F8

 

Any tune would do

 

[emkay]

18 minutes ago, ivop said:

I actually liked the song. Never heard it before, but it has a nice melody IMHO.

 

odd.

 

asma.atari.org/asmadb/search.php?play=1845

[emkay]

And the "real" original

 

 

[ivop]

11 minutes ago, emkay said:

odd.

Well, you can't know everything

[ivop]

9 minutes ago, emkay said:

And the "real" original

[video]

That's not dying cats, but dying dogs

[emkay]

And for some completeness

 

 

 

[VinsCool]

6 hours ago, emkay said:

And the "real" original

 

 

The Dubmood version is actually a remix of this one, so you are correct

 

6 hours ago, emkay said:

And for some completeness

 

 

 

Hmmm this started well but it quickly became out of tune, the notes of certain parts seem to be on different key, which appears to be what caused the dissonance.