Peruchi Posted August 22, 2022 Share Posted August 22, 2022 On 8/5/2022 at 4:27 PM, Thelen said: I've made some progress... did a complete rewrite of the player/enemy/objects blitterlist, and fixt the scrollbug. Added working whips (3 types) and collision detection... but still a lot of work to do castleataria34.xex 34.58 kB · 68 downloads The treetops have some resemblance to the Ghosts And Goblins arcade version. Real nice! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synthpopalooza Posted August 23, 2022 Share Posted August 23, 2022 OK, I'm game ... I'll try working up some music ... either a single or double POKEY setup ... with double POKEY I think I can get 98% close to how it sounds on the NES. Really hoping this gets produced ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synthpopalooza Posted August 23, 2022 Share Posted August 23, 2022 So I have found this: https://downloads.khinsider.com/game-soundtracks/album/castlevania I will use these as a reference but I thought I'd try just doing the first level music. I will work up both single and double POKEY ... tho with single we're limited to three channels as fourth has to be SFX. For double POKEY, three 16-bit channels (First one will be either $Ax or $Ax two tone to get that NES triangle wave, the other two set for either $Ax distortion, or $Cx if we want to get those NES pulse waves), one 8-bit for the percussion, and one 8-bit for game sfx will work out beautifully. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thelen Posted August 23, 2022 Author Share Posted August 23, 2022 10 hours ago, Peruchi said: The treetops have some resemblance to the Ghosts And Goblins arcade version. Real nice! Thanks, all these kind words will keep me motivated to work on it 🙂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thelen Posted August 23, 2022 Author Share Posted August 23, 2022 2 hours ago, Synthpopalooza said: I will use these as a reference but I thought I'd try just doing the first level music. I will work up both single and double POKEY ... tho with single we're limited to three channels as fourth has to be SFX. For double POKEY, three 16-bit channels (First one will be either $Ax or $Ax two tone to get that NES triangle wave, the other two set for either $Ax distortion, or $Cx if we want to get those NES pulse waves), one 8-bit for the percussion, and one 8-bit for game sfx will work out beautifully. Hi Synthpopalooza, Would be great if you can do some music (and indeed keep one channel for sfx)! Looking forward te hear something 🙂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synthpopalooza Posted August 23, 2022 Share Posted August 23, 2022 This is an example. In this case I converted some Metroid music to double POKEY using 16-bit channels. The above leaves 1 channel free for game SFX. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted August 23, 2022 Share Posted August 23, 2022 3 hours ago, Synthpopalooza said: double POKEY Would be rather fitting for something VBXE. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synthpopalooza Posted August 23, 2022 Share Posted August 23, 2022 18 minutes ago, MrFish said: Would be rather fitting for something VBXE. Yes and it's going to sound better. 3 8-bit channels on POKEY isn't going to do it justice. Besides I think a lot of VBXE users have probably done the POKEY upgrade as well .. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synthpopalooza Posted August 23, 2022 Share Posted August 23, 2022 So some perliminary thoughts on the first level music: The bass doesn't go below A#2 here. This means I can set two tone mode plus 15khz in the first POKEY, using the $Ax distortion two-tone triangle wave at the bare minimum interval (13 semitones from carrier tone) to get the NES triangle wave bass. Then two 16-bit C distortion channels for the pulse waves. One 8-bit noise channel at standard 64khz for percussion, and last channel reserved for game sfx. Bob's your uncle ... Cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thelen Posted August 24, 2022 Author Share Posted August 24, 2022 On 8/23/2022 at 2:59 PM, Synthpopalooza said: This is an example. In this case I converted some Metroid music to double POKEY using 16-bit channels. The above leaves 1 channel free for game SFX. I've listened to your Metroid example and the original NES one : It's almost just like how it sounds on the NES, good job! If the castlevania track is being played on jsut 1 Pokey - Is it then 'good enough'? (I should upgrade my hardware quickly now ) 18 hours ago, Synthpopalooza said: The bass doesn't go below A#2 here. This means I can set two tone mode plus 15khz in the first POKEY, using the $Ax distortion two-tone triangle wave at the bare minimum interval (13 semitones from carrier tone) to get the NES triangle wave bass. Then two 16-bit C distortion channels for the pulse waves. One 8-bit noise channel at standard 64khz for percussion, and last channel reserved for game sfx. Bob's your uncle ... I don't know much about making - but sounds good to me 🙂 Thanks so far, cool! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synthpopalooza Posted August 24, 2022 Share Posted August 24, 2022 3 hours ago, Thelen said: If the castlevania track is being played on jsut 1 Pokey - Is it then 'good enough'? (I should upgrade my hardware quickly now ) Well, obviously there will be limitations. In this case, we're stuck with three channels at the standard 8-bit resolution plus one for SFX. This means no percussion track, and in this case, all three channels will have the standard $Ax square wave ... the level 1 tune in this case will be transposed up one half-step, because the tune's bass goes down to A#2, but POKEY's lower limit in standard 8-bit mode is $FF=B2. So it won't sound exactly like the NES, more Atari-ish I guess lol. But if you like, I can do up both, for a comparison. As a matter of pure interest, the situation is somewhat better on the 7800, where you got the TIA for sfx. I've done a lot of POKEY stuff on that platform, so in this particular case, there's the choice of the three square waves plus percussion, or lose the percussion and have a 16-bit channel plus two 8-bit channels, for either the bass or one of the NES pulse leads. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted August 24, 2022 Share Posted August 24, 2022 4 minutes ago, Synthpopalooza said: As a matter of pure interest, the situation is somewhat better on the 7800, where you got the TIA for sfx. Commando on the 7800 is a good example of this. Time for someone to do an 8-bit TIA mod. I'm not sure how difficult it would be, though, since it's not just a sound chip. I wonder if it could be wired for sound only. It would come in handy for some of these 2600 -> 8-bit conversions too... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synthpopalooza Posted August 24, 2022 Share Posted August 24, 2022 20 minutes ago, MrFish said: Commando on the 7800 is a good example of this. Time for someone to do an 8-bit TIA mod. I'm not sure how difficult it would be, though, since it's not just a sound chip. I wonder if it could be wired for sound only. It would come in handy for some of these 2600 -> 8-bit conversions too... I also did a rendition of the NES top gun music on the 7800 for a homebrew, with the TIA used entirely for percussion as well ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted August 24, 2022 Share Posted August 24, 2022 4 minutes ago, Synthpopalooza said: I also did a rendition of the NES top gun music on the 7800 for a homebrew, with the TIA used entirely for percussion as well ... Have a link? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miker Posted August 24, 2022 Share Posted August 24, 2022 cv_lv1.wav Here's my trial of level 1 with some kind of percussion. Unmodified RMT and also no basses (except that freaky A#0 missing in 64kHz pure tone-table). Enjoy. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted August 24, 2022 Share Posted August 24, 2022 @Kjmann also did some versions with and without percussion. Castlevania.xex Castlevania (Drums).xex 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synthpopalooza Posted August 24, 2022 Share Posted August 24, 2022 (edited) What I have so far ... the first couple of bars No percussion yet ... Altirra 4.10 and double POKEY, downmix to mono, or real HW please cv-area1.asm cv-area1.obx cv-area1.s Edited August 24, 2022 by Synthpopalooza 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted August 24, 2022 Share Posted August 24, 2022 19 minutes ago, Synthpopalooza said: Altirra 4.10 and double POKEY, downmix to mono... To be clear, you need the latest Altirra 4.10 test version in order to set stereo audio to a mono mixdown. Sounds good @Synthpopalooza Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synthpopalooza Posted August 24, 2022 Share Posted August 24, 2022 The only issue is there is a little bit of instability with the mod 3 C distortion tones in the second half of the tune ... here's the setup: AUDCTL1=$78 (double 16-bit) AUDCTL2=$50 (16-bit on 04 and 05 only) 00 and 01: $Ax - bass 02 and 03: $Cx - saw lead 04 and 05: $Cx - saw harmony 06: $8x - percussion, standard 8-bit channel (planned) 07: free for game sfx The lead uses the $Cx distortion non mod 3 tones, which in high register makes a sharp saw wave. The second half is $Cx, but with mod 3 tones to make the sound softer. I tried using two-tone mode on that bass sound to make it a bit closer to the NES triangle wave, but without success. Might need some investigating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synthpopalooza Posted August 25, 2022 Share Posted August 25, 2022 Giving up for the night ... here's what I got as far as, lol ... cv-area1.asm cv-area1.bat cv-area1.s 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synthpopalooza Posted August 25, 2022 Share Posted August 25, 2022 7 hours ago, miker said: cv_lv1.wav 2.59 MB · 105 downloads Here's my trial of level 1 with some kind of percussion. Unmodified RMT and also no basses (except that freaky A#0 missing in 64kHz pure tone-table). Enjoy. Rather what I was thinking of for the one pokey version ... transpose that up a semitone and you can use B2=$FF as the lowest note in the bass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thelen Posted August 25, 2022 Author Share Posted August 25, 2022 9 hours ago, Synthpopalooza said: Giving up for the night ... here's what I got as far as, lol ... Very Nice!! 16 hours ago, miker said: Here's my trial of level 1 with some kind of percussion. Unmodified RMT and also no basses (except that freaky A#0 missing in 64kHz pure tone-table). Also very nice!! Would it be a good idea to use @miker 's version for the single Pokey and the version from @Synthpopalooza for the dual Pokey? I'm very pleased by you guy's helping me out with the music!! Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synthpopalooza Posted August 25, 2022 Share Posted August 25, 2022 I agree ... my single POKEY attempt would likely not be as good .. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kjmann Posted August 25, 2022 Share Posted August 25, 2022 If you all would like, you can use my versions or reference them for the notation of the song. Just let me know and I'll upload the RMT files if it will help. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miker Posted August 25, 2022 Share Posted August 25, 2022 2 hours ago, Thelen said: Very Nice!! Also very nice!! Would it be a good idea to use @miker 's version for the single Pokey and the version from @Synthpopalooza for the dual Pokey? I'm very pleased by you guy's helping me out with the music!! Thanks! Could be. But first I have to check if it's available, and not planned to use somewhere. Meanwhile, try @Kjmann's version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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