[spycht]

BACK IN MY DAY ALL WE HAD WAS FM SYNTHESIS. WE HAD TO OSCILLATE OUR WAVEFORMS MANUALLY, UP HILL. BOTH WAYS. IN 75 FEET OF SNOW.

This shit had me ROFL this morning.  Just so you know.
Do you have any music posted anywhere?  I'm not sure I've heard any of yours and I'd like to.

[nodsamadhi]

so, any of you folks got a favorite plugin or method for making nice crunchy 8bit video game sounds?

[psycherhexic]

ableton.

[Ascension]

This may be pretty elementary, but maybe someone else can benefit from it. I just thought about this the other day.

I don't usually take a lot of consideration as to what note to use for a sound besides where it's placed in the scale (higher or lower side), but I also realized it's good to consider where it is in the scale relative to other notes. By this I mean if you want to make that sound progress up the scale consider how many semitones you will have to move it up each time. Basically if you have to move it up more semitones to the next note in the scale consider if you want that drastic of a change in the sound.

Maybe something good to keep in mind?

[zensphere]

so, any of you folks got a favorite plugin or method for making nice crunchy 8bit video game sounds?

Simple waveforms (tri, saw, square) gently f*cked wit, run em through a bit reducer… voila.

But I'm no expert on the 8bit.

[destroysound]

so, any of you folks got a favorite plugin or method for making nice crunchy 8bit video game sounds?

this is relevant to my interests

as far as emulation goes, the absolute far-and-away killer plugin is plogue chipsounds. it does cycle-accurate emulation of a number of popular and obscure vintage chips. it also does the best SID emulation I've ever heard, partly owing to the fact that it uses samples of the SID's oscillators in SID mode. it is not free, however. http://www.plogue.com/?page_id=43

there are also a number of various other plugins that attempt to emulate various chips (QuadraSID, various NES and SID VSTs, etc). my advice is just to skip them and go straight for chipsounds.

there are also quite a few plugins that aren't modeled after a particular chip but put out some of that 8-bit grit. lots of people swear by magical 8 bit plugin, it's kind of wonky for mastering purposes though. http://www.ymck.net/english/download/index.html

uB's Medusa and Kraken VSTs are square wave synths. i haven't got a chance to use them very much but they looked nice when i looked at them. http://milkcrate.com.au/ub/Kraken.zip http://milkcrate.com.au/ub/Medusa2.zip

one of my personal secrets as far as effects is the incredible BJ Lofi plugin from long, long ago. it's a bitcrusher, but it is far from the sterile bit reduction of most plugins. to put it simply, this thing is possessed by a ghost. i don't know what kind of crack was being smoked when it was being coded, but it puts out the most awesome tape-distortion and feedback effects. http://www.madtracker.org/plugins.php?author=Bojo+Software

i've actually got homebrew hardware that allows me to MIDI slave my gameboys to my PC. there is really no substitute for the actual thing (although Plogue Chipsounds comes damn close). a lot of the distinctiveness of the sound of old chips comes from the programming hacks and tricks that people used back then (modulation tables, etc).

for the devoted, you might also consider a hardsid: http://www.hardsid.com/

[edais]

This may be pretty elementary, but maybe someone else can benefit from it. I just thought about this the other day.

I don't usually take a lot of consideration as to what note to use for a sound besides where it's placed in the scale (higher or lower side), but I also realized it's good to consider where it is in the scale relative to other notes. By this I mean if you want to make that sound progress up the scale consider how many semitones you will have to move it up each time. Basically if you have to move it up more semitones to the next note in the scale consider if you want that drastic of a change in the sound.

Maybe something good to keep in mind?

Yep.  Even if it's just some subtle harmonics being emphasized, you should figure where they are and either notch them out, or use them to your advantage.  I think my music theory workshop will be mainly on the importance and utilization of tonality…how to centralize it and how/when to break away from it…or something like that.

[zensphere]

^you're still gonna talk about modes in trance music though, right?

I was (am?) looking forward to that.

[psycherhexic]

^ditto.. but to be honest everything “theory” interests me at the moment.

thanks for dropping knowledge on true 8 bit shit destroysound! though I'm on mac.. and I think those were pc only? sept the plogue! that thing sounds interesting!  $75 if 10 of us get it lol..

still I would assume I could get similar sounds with ableton suite and komplete 6.. even I eventually had to turn to reaktor  :-

no?

[psilopsyben]

so, any of you folks got a favorite plugin or method for making nice crunchy 8bit video game sounds?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UeuvPtf5Cs

use a game boy.  🙂  This guy is amazing live.

[edais]

^you're still gonna talk about modes in trance music though, right?

I was (am?) looking forward to that.

Sure!  I don't know how in depth I can get with it…I can go on about modes but I only know of certain ways to utilize them to get certain sounds.  For example, Scott has said he uses I think Mixolydian or Phrygian a lot, while a lot of typical “morning” melodies will use either the base tonic major scale or locrian mode.  Goa utilizes the harmonic minor (Aeolian mode with a raised seventh) a lot, etc.  There's more too… lets see what else I can come up with.

[zensphere]

I like to use phrygian and aeolian quite a bit…

modes are fun

[psycherhexic]

well go on then.. with a brief description  ::)  ppa ppa pa pleeease!

[destroysound]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UeuvPtf5Cs

use a game boy.  🙂  This guy is amazing live.

Hahaha. Every time I've seen Baseck live, it has cumulated in him getting naked, piss drunk and passing out in a pool of either his own or someone else's vomit. Good times.

I've got a homebrew MIDI sync box for my gameboys, like I said. Works great. Looks like this:

You can build one yourself, there are people out there who will flash the rom for you, all you have to do is assemble it. Not a bad weekend project if you're into this nerdy stuff.

still I would assume I could get similar sounds with ableton suite and komplete 6.. even I eventually had to turn to reaktor

Yeah, certainly, you can always get nice crunchy tones by using simple square and saw waves and running them through various distortion, rectification or bit-crushing effects… but like I said, much of the feel of video game music comes from the usage of table-based sequences of commands that modify a sound. Basically, a table is just a set of commands that gets executed every tick or whatever. You can use them for arpeggiation, modifying the pulse width, etc. So I mean, you can fake this by using fast arps, manually programming quick changes in pulse width, volume, etc, or whatever.

The main thing is just to limit yourself to as few channels as possible, use very fast arps in place of chords, and use pulse wave modulation frequently.

though I'm on mac.. and I think those were pc only? sept the plogue! that thing sounds interesting!  $75 if 10 of us get it lol..

Yeah, the price kind of sucks now. I got mine the first week when it was on sale for $75.

[zensphere]

^it looks invisible!

But I am still curious…

d/led chipsounds. Excited to give it a go round.

Bidule is fun too!

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