Hardsynth

[drac030]

Well nobody said that emkay or I think that.

 

I am very happy because of that - it is just that you both seemed to point it out, that "Pokey tunes play 1-2 octaves too high" in context of the "Chuck Rock" being out of the tune, that it finally drew my attention.

 

So I think you missed the point: If you play Mozart 2 octaves too high then it could still be in the right frequency ratios, but it's plain ugly, simple as that, and that's what counts.

 

Yes, that is what counts, exactly that. But still, any tune played too high, or too low, by an interval of an integer number of octaves, won't sound _so_bad_ (I mean: listening to it won't be such a great pain), as a tune that stays in the right octave, but is out of the tune.

 

Do you fully understand how Pokey generates (filtered) sounds and how RMT deals with it? Please can you do an RMT song with the advanced filter settings, and make a tune that's correctly tuned?

 

You already wrote that above: "The way of generating this kind of sound on Pokey is by no means easy". I agree, this is not easy. But the difficulty is, to use your own words, "not that what counts".

 

For example, if I played a violin in your presence, you certainly would say that the sounds were horrible. Then you certainly wouldn't accept anything like "but you know, this is very difficult" as a valid excuse. The thing that is interesting to you as a listener is that the concerto is crap and hardly audible, no matter how difficult it is to the musician to produce this. The difficulty does not count - playing any good music is difficult - and additionally it is not so that everyone could do that - since apart of work and will invested, you also must have some talent and of course the so called EAR.

 

What matters in this, is the result. The music is out of tune? So it is the musician's fault. If playing is too difficult for the musician, he can possibly become a fish reseller or something, instead.

 

It is true that there are not so many fine Pokey musics appearing last years, but at the other hand no complex waveforms can qualify a music as "masterpiece" or (at least) "fine" music, if the sounds are _simply_ out of the tune. And this is the "Chuck Rock" case - it is hardly audible just because of that.

Edited March 12, 2006 by drac030

[emkay]

It is true that there are not so many fine Pokey musics appearing last years, but at the other hand no complex waveforms can qualify a music as "masterpiece" or (at least) "fine" music, if the sounds are _simply_ out of the tune. And this is the "Chuck Rock" case - it is hardly audible just because of that.

 

Well... the chuck Rock tune sounds out of tune to you.

Why don't you just show us, what is "in tune" for you.

RMT is easy to handle and I have explained all necessary in the past.

It's up to you, to use TMC.... It must be possible to use "my" settings and you directly have the final sound, pokey can produce.

 

I'm pretty shure, that you simply declare the tune "out of tune" because pokey doesn't sound, as you await it should sound.

[analmux]

Yes, that is what counts, exactly that. But still, any tune played too high, or too low, by an interval of an integer number of octaves, won't sound _so_bad_ (I mean: listening to it won't be such a great pain), as a tune that stays in the right octave, but is out of the tune.

 

hmmm, just a matter of taste I think. To me it's as important that music is played in a more audible or balanced octave. But I share the view that Chuck Rock is out of tune too, but at least i'm working on it now to correct it.

 

For example, if I played a violin in your presence, you certainly would say that the sounds were horrible. Then you certainly wouldn't accept anything like "but you know, this is very difficult" as a valid excuse.

 

this might be so, compared to other maestros that play the violin very good, but in this case there are too few people that played pokey the hardsynth-way before. so maybe you'd better compare it to someone who made an instrument that never was there before, like a new instrument (though made of already existing materials: compare to 'pokey's abilities'). and it's not a matter of making excuses here, just pointing out difficulties, we are doing this for a hobby.

 

The thing that is interesting to you as a listener is that the concerto is crap and hardly audible, no matter how difficult it is to the musician to produce this. The difficulty does not count - playing any good music is difficult - and additionally it is not so that everyone could do that - since apart of work and will invested, you also must have some talent and of course the so called EAR.

 

as if we are showing stuff here that should be played in concert halls

most songs in this thread were supposed to show pokey's potential, not to show a brilliant piece of music.

 

What matters in this, is the result. The music is out of tune? So it is the musician's fault.

 

You're just drawing conclusions too fast. No, has it ever occured to you that maybe the instrument plays a role too? when playing a detuned piano then even the best pianist of the world couldn't play beautiful music on it. So, detuning is not because wrong pitches are intended to be played, it's often RMT's fault. But totally separated from that argument, i agree that you'd need someone that can correct the faults of RMT by using their trained ears.

 

It is true that there are not so many fine Pokey musics appearing last years, but at the other hand no complex waveforms can qualify a music as "masterpiece" or (at least) "fine" music, if the sounds are _simply_ out of the tune. And this is the "Chuck Rock" case - it is hardly audible just because of that.

 

yes, I agree. it's better to play the standard squarewaves instead of ugly noises, but in this thread a lot of interesting sounds have been brought to life, and maybe Chuck Rock doesn't use the most interesting sounds of them all. But Pokey music can get a lot richer using techniques like this, discussed a long while here.

 

maybe have a listen here: http://www.phys.uu.nl/~bpos/mp3/ to all the mp3 files starting with 'emkay'

(all are recordings made on my real hardware, not emulators)

 

esp. "funnystep" or "violinofdoom" are to me masterpieces in showing pokey's potential.

 

i think we should be glad that two-octaves-too-high-squarewave-bleeps turn out to be not the only thing the pokey can do (without special softwaretricks like sid emulator or digidrums e.a.), and if you want good music you'd have to visit a concert hall.

[analmux]

okay, maybe the Chuck Rock tune is tuned better now, this way:

 

@ emkay

 

instrument 6 was slightly bad-pitched: I corrected this in the pitch-table:

 

picture 1 was the original; picture 2 is my correction.

 

NOTE: this is the best possible pitch-correction: the deviations that are left cannot be removed (pokey resolution!)

[emkay]

okay, maybe the Chuck Rock tune is tuned better now, this way:

 

@ emkay

 

instrument 6 was slightly bad-pitched: I corrected this in the pitch-table:

 

picture 1 was the original; picture 2 is my correction.

 

NOTE: this is the best possible pitch-correction: the deviations that are left cannot be removed (pokey resolution!)

 

 

Naah.... It's a problem of the (all) POKEY tracker(s).... Simply change the filter offset to gain adjustment between the 8-bit resolution. But VBI programming is to slow for this.

[emkay]

Well... It's really hard to make a demonstration, if the "ground" for it isn't really given.

@Mux, can you check the sound on the real thing?

 

It's a try of pushing the pitch by using filter offset changing, but, as the listener may recognize, it breaks clearly the sound. And the result is different from emulation to emulation to real pokey...

It could be done in one VBI, with counted cpu cycles ...

[drac030]

Well... the chuck Rock tune sounds out of tune to you. Why don't you just show us, what is "in tune" for you.

 

Because the fact that I was born with an ear for music doesn't necessarily mean that I had to become a musician.

 

I'm pretty shure, that you simply declare the tune "out of tune" because pokey doesn't sound, as you await it should sound.

 

If you are "sure" of this, then you're wrong. As I pointed out several times, detecting that a music is out of the tune is not a question of waveforms (= instruments). Should your statement be any correct, then most of contemporary pop music would be initially declared out of the tune, because almost every new song uses different instruments, most of them sounding unusual. This is not true. Bring any unusual instrument (be it a clavicord or whatever) to a person who has an ear, and tell a real musician to play - then you must expect that the music will be declared as out of the tune because the listener never heard the intrument before. Nope, it is not so.

 

The more I read your posts like that one, the more I am sure that you're tone-deaf, emkay. It is natural then, that you have difficulties to understand what "out of the tune" is. Fortunately, if someone was not born with the musical ear, then it still can be trained.

 

hmmm, just a matter of taste I think.

 

Well, I don't hink so. A C-note transposed to a higher octave is still a clear C-note. The music transposed so may sound not very well, but it won't be "out of the tune".

 

this might be so, compared to other maestros that play the violin very good, but in this case there are too few people that played pokey the hardsynth-way before. so maybe you'd better compare it to someone who made an instrument that never was there before,

 

See above. I must have been really tone-deaf and apart of that listened only to Pokey tunes and nothing else, to declare that something is out of the tune just because the instrument sounds unusually. But, fortunately, it is not so.

 

as if we are showing stuff here that should be played in concert halls?

 

Say I added two to twos and the result is five. You come and tell me "hey, this is wrong, 2+2 is FOUR". And then, when I reply "oh well, am I showing stuff that should be demonstrated on a mathematical congress?", you certainly wouldn't accept this as a valid excuse. The same with music: being "in tune" is a very basic parameter that makes a difference between a pleasant music and an annoying noise. No matter how complex the waveform is, if the sound is out of the tune, this is a noise, not music.

 

most songs in this thread were supposed to show pokey's potential, not to show a brilliant piece of music.

 

I understand that you're experimenting, but having some results of those experiments you decided to make demonstration songs. I think it is natural, than a demonstration song (moreover, an actual conversion from a tolerably-well-sounding module) should sound well as a whole, and not only demonstate waveforms possible to get on Pokey, paying little respect to the music (the universal one) as an actual _art_.

 

If you tend to think that chipmusic is separate from the actual music and the norms of the latter do not apply to the former, then you'll be wondering ad infinitum, why people are not receiving the songs so enthusiastically as you expect. I am sure that many appreciate the effort, and many expect that your experiments bring finally some great results. And it is not only me, you can read a suggestion somewhere above (made by tmh/f2) that you should already stop experimenting with waveforms and produce something nice - I am pretty sure that this is just a very polite attempt to say that the rest of the tunes (except dragon) is not audible.

 

has it ever occured to you that maybe the instrument plays a role too? when playing a detuned piano then even the best pianist of the world couldn't play beautiful music on it

 

Unfortunately, this is not the case. You seem to tend to believe that this is the piano (POKEY) that is guilty because it is "detuned". Pity many songs sound correctly ("in tune") on this piano, even if the instruments are unusual (trivial examples are Softsynth and SID Player). I easily believe that this may be a fault of RMT, but then, if you know that it produces faulty sounds, then why you just don't reject the RMT and switch to anything else?

 

esp. "funnystep" or "violinofdoom" are to me masterpieces in showing pokey's potential.

 

Potential in generating waveforms, yes, maybe.

[emkay]

 

Unfortunately, this is not the case. You seem to tend to believe that this is the piano (POKEY) that is guilty because it is "detuned". Pity many songs sound correctly ("in tune") on this piano, even if the instruments are unusual (trivial examples are Softsynth and SID Player).

 

 

Sorry, but you better should have read this thread completely before writing something.

 

OFCOURSE, Softsynth and SID Players are "correct". Thy are defined correctly from scratch. Hitting a "C3" brings a "C3" to the ears and the manipulations are almost realtime. The cost is a huge amount of cpu resources.

Vice versa, we have 50Hz only manipulations and if you press "C3", you gain a "C5"+ "several pokey and software issues".

 

And, please, don't tell me, there is one A8 tune with 4 channel usage that is not out of tune.

Edited March 13, 2006 by emkay

[drac030]

Sorry, but you better should have read this thread completely before writing something.

 

No, you're missing your own point here: to recall, you wondered why the "Chuck Rock" is not "so" positively received. I told you, why. To make this statement I don't need any information about the technique used, or not used, to generate the tune, or whether it is difficult or not. It was enough to listen to the module to say that it is horribly out of the tune (sounds are "false", as I used to think of this), and _this_is_most_probably_why_.

 

And, please, don't tell me, there is one A8 tune with 4 channel usage that is not out of tune.

 

 

I'd say, that if you are able to detect by ear that all Pokey tunes are out of the tune, then you have a very good ear; but consequently you should also obviously know, that "Chuck Rock" is _horribly_ out of the tune and it is a pain to listen to. But from your posts you didn't seem to know that, this is why I guess that you're deaf; and if so, discussing what of existing Pokey modules is out of the tune and how much, is rather pointless, right?

 

And BTW. I think that I already wrote in this thread everything that I wanted to write - sometimes even more than once - and it was an attempt to anwser to your question. What will you do with this information, is completely up to you. EOT.

[analmux]

Sorry, but you better should have read this thread completely before writing something.

 

No, you're missing your own point here: to recall, you wondered why the "Chuck Rock" is not "so" positively received. I told you, why

 

as if you know why

 

at least let me say this: Chuck Rock is out of tune, but also (to my ears at least) Dragon is out of tune, so the reason you pointed out is not true (at least for me)

[drac030]

Sorry, but you better should have read this thread completely before writing something.

 

No, you're missing your own point here: to recall, you wondered why the "Chuck Rock" is not "so" positively received. I told you, why

 

as if you know why

 

at least let me say this: Chuck Rock is out of tune, but also (to my ears at least) Dragon is out of tune, so the reason you pointed out is not true (at least for me)

 

I never said the dragon wasn't out of tune, you have to read more carefully. But as I said above, from my side this is EOT.

Edited March 13, 2006 by drac030

[emkay]

To make it short: If you like the music style of chuck rock, it is really funny to listen to it, same as with the AMIGA original.

Dragon has a nice mood. Even if the tune is not "440" Hz tuned in, the instruments makes it more serious to the ears. And that's the point.

Really no chiptune is really in tune. And most Synthesizer tune are a bit pitched out of tune to make them interesting.

Only a pure PIANO, pure Flute, pure Trumpet, pure Guitar sounds only good, when fully tuned in.....

Some musicians tune the base-note of the instrument to their voice, to make it sound better...

Some musician put the base note a bit higher, to give the instruments "drive" some put it down, to give more relaxing to the sounds... and so on....

[emkay]

OK.. another example for the timing issues... for some compensation of the click sounds, this time the tune uses double vbi speed.

The instruments of the main voice use 1 filter timing correction setting...

[sack-c0s]

what I might suggest about 'mayonaise' is that its a smashing pumpkins song (from the album 'siamese dream'). As folks keep editing my version is still my interpretation and way of doing it underneath it all.

 

Maybe going back to the original song and listening to it may be an idea if you haven't already, and doing your own take on it.

 

Because you are channel limited on 8-bits its a case of grabbing the elements that leap out at you most and prioritising those for use in the tune and filling in anything else with the space you have left and in this case what is in the RMT cover of the song is what jumped out and grabbed me - maybe you'll hear the song differently and provide a different interpretation?

 

 

I don't want to be harsh on Emkay because he's trying to push the envelope (pun intended) but for what its worth the chuck rock tune was alright in bits, but it did have a couple of bits which were really out of tune and actually painful to listen to on the mp3, but overall I really did like the dragon tune. I think its a tuning issue with the instruments somewhere down the line as previously suggested. I get the feeling with emkay its more about creating the instruments as opposed to the actual music and he might benefit from joining forces with someone who is driven by creating the tunes themselves. Not intending to be negative - I think he's more handing us the tools to do stuff than the tunes themselves.

 

maybe he could post some info on how flexible the control is in terms of tuning along with his instrument sets so the more musically-driven can take them and add their input? IE which instruments are very rigid due to the way they're created, which ones do you have a lot of control of, etc.

 

But I definately want folks to keep posting the mp3s because I will admit I have dismissed some tunes as awful then heard the mp3s from hardware and realised it actually sounds good. seeing as my machine is buried at the moment and the floppy drive is playing up its tricky for me to try everything myself. Keep throwing the ideas out - good or bad. often 2 or 3 bad ideas merge into a really good one.

 

 

damn we need the atari equivalent of reSID

Edited March 14, 2006 by sack-c0s

[emkay]

I get the feeling with emkay its more about creating the instruments as opposed to the actual music and he might benefit from joining forces with someone who is driven by creating the tunes themselves. Not intending to be negative - I think he's more handing us the tools to do stuff than the tunes themselves.

 

 

Exactly the right feeling

Some tunes simply fit to the used techniques, some not. Those who don't fit, need a "redo" from scratch, and that is what I am not capable to do. (I wrote this a zillion times in this and the "ears beleeding" thread )

 

Btw:

 

A small change on the "dragon" .... is it better or worse to the first release? I tried to use some timing correction at 50Hz VBI speed ... so the "release" of the instrument fits better to the start, but there is still a small break ...

[mathzeer]

Your last version of Dragon (dragona) is (even) better than the first one, in my opinion. Not only the release of the instrument fits better to the start as you stated, but moreover it fits beter to the further parts of the song. The release of the instrument is softer now, so a bit more busy melody in the further parts became more "clear", more audible. I hope you get what I mean:).

[emkay]

Your last version of Dragon (dragona) is (even) better than the first one, in my opinion. Not only the release of the instrument fits better to the start as you stated, but moreover it fits beter to the further parts of the song. The release of the instrument is softer now, so a bit more busy melody in the further parts became more "clear", more audible. I hope you get what I mean:).

 

 

Yes. I understand

the "release" aims better into the rest of the song.

At least it might make it more audible, that filter usage at 15kHz with timing correction gives a way better resolution for creating music than 8 bit and "standard filter usage of the past".

[mathzeer]

How did you created the sound of bassdrum in dragon? Could you describe or make available to download as an rmt intrument? I've never thought that it is possible to get such a deep bassdrum sound from pokey. I'm curious about it.

[emkay]

How did you created the sound of bassdrum in dragon? Could you describe or make available to download as an rmt intrument? I've never thought that it is possible to get such a deep bassdrum sound from pokey. I'm curious about it.

 

It's simply using 15kHz instead of 64kHz.

 

 

OK... here the latest RMT of this tune.

 

 

 

The real Name "Demon's Revenge" should be used if the tune really is finished. :-)

 

If you have further questions, feel free asking

[emkay]

Someone knows a software "frequency" analyzer?

I mean a tool that takes a "wave" or "wave-file" , examins the main audible-frequency and showing it?

I think it's the only way to have pokey music fully tuned in, without having a professional musician at hand...

 

...

[Rybags]

There are software oscilliscopes you can download which use Line-In on the PC's sound card.

 

Been meaning to try one of them myself.

 

Or, just use almost any .WAV file editor.

 

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ - Audacity is very good - free, plus you can zoom in on the captured waveform.

Edited March 18, 2006 by Rybags

[mathzeer]

Someone knows a software "frequency" analyzer?

I mean a tool that takes a "wave" or "wave-file" , examins the main audible-frequency and showing it?

I think it's the only way to have pokey music fully tuned in, without having a professional musician at hand...

 

As far as I understand, you need a kind of frequency analyzer and tuner in one. If you're familiar with VST hosts or if you decide to use Audacity as Rybags suggest, you can use the following (free) VSTs:

 

1. http://www.more-k.com/ktuner/ktuner_download.htm - K-Tuner "is an audio frequency analyzer, mainly designed for tuning musical instruments";

 

2. http://homepages.tesco.net/~graham.yeadon/gvst/gtune.htm - GTune "is a chromatic instrument tuner which operates much like its hardware counterparts";

 

3. http://www.samplerchan.com/ - CTuner "is a guitar (and other instrument) Tuner plug-in".

[Tezz]

MK Someone knows a software "frequency" analyzer?

I mean a tool that takes a "wave" or "wave-file" , examins the main audible-frequency and showing it?

I think it's the only way to have pokey music fully tuned in, without having a professional musician at hand...

I did this a couple of years back in 2004, I mentioned to Raster (on this forum i think) that perhaps some new dynamic instruments could be created also by examining the wave forms too. I run a professional recording studio and I ran the Pokey output through a tuner to check it out. The tunings are noticably out, a slight de-tuning is very audible to a musician, but the de-tuning here is more than slight! The difficulty I found working with RMT was that the de-tuning was not consistant across the keys so for instance the C,D,E would be OK but the G,A was not so the usual fine tuning of the instrument would not help. I guessed that there must be a need to enforce more presise timing in the routines or that maybe I was making a mistake in the way that the instrument was created? I never did much in the way of Sound programming with my Atari back in the day I found it a dark subject. Edited March 18, 2006 by Tezz

[Rybags]

It should be easy to check music "tune" with Audacity alone, assuming RMT is being used.

 

Since it allows turning off voices in the editor, you can capture just 1 voice, or a filtered note at a time. Then zoom into the captured wave and check the delays between the peaks. I only have the SB Vibra, but it still allows sampling at 48000 Hz, which is sufficient for just about any music.

 

Another interesting thing is the decay in the square waves, like some people have mentioned before - there is a noticable difference between real and emulated POKEY sound.

[analmux]

It should be easy to check music "tune" with Audacity alone, assuming RMT is being used.

 

Since it allows turning off voices in the editor, you can capture just 1 voice, or a filtered note at a time. Then zoom into the captured wave and check the delays between the peaks. I only have the SB Vibra, but it still allows sampling at 48000 Hz, which is sufficient for just about any music.

 

Another interesting thing is the decay in the square waves, like some people have mentioned before - there is a noticable difference between real and emulated POKEY sound.

 

yes, that's right. The real pokey works with decharging capacitors. the voltage falls back to zero in an exponential decay. that's why especially the lower notes suffer from this (they get very hollow). The decay brings the voltage back to zero before end of the wave is reached (using lower notes in the 15kHz mode)