27 replies to this topic

[m00dawg]

I've been trolling YouTube for a while now and am about to throw in the towel and just start running Adlib Tracker in DOSbox just to get my fix Before I do that though, anyone know of some good tunes using exclusively (or at least mostly so) FM synthesis, ala OPL3? My sammichFM is 60% complete and until I can make my own FM tunes, I need a quick fix

Since this is a thread about posting music more so than requesting it, to keep the music submission Gods happy, here is an early cut of one of the songs that will be on a forthcoming album a friend of mine and I are doing as a tribute to surf music and chiptunes (thus simply called 'chipsurf'). It uses the NES for most of the computer generated music, though my sammichSID makes a cameo in a few of the songs. The rough cut is using FamiTracker's emulation (via outputting to WAV) but the later version uses a real NES using my CMoy inspired pre-amp to clean up the NES output and the PowerPak to play the songs (and to emulate some of the sound chips found in NES carts we sometime used):

http://victimcache.com/?p=6

I don't think our current album will feature the sammichFM since are pretty far into it and introducing it may change the sound too much from the other songs, but we plan on using it for the next album (and I'll be throwing down for my own solo work for sure).

[Hawkeye]

Great stuff, using the NES is nice! I hope you post a link to where we can at least preview your album, when it´s done.

Regarding your fm request: not exactly opl3 anymore, but also from yamaha (1998) and one stunning monster of a fm beast, especially the voice formant stuff - wouldn´t that be cool for the next midibox fm? ;-)

Edited by Hawkeye, 19 April 2011 - 16:59.

[m00dawg]

Wow some of those pads are NICE! Wonder what is being used under the covers? I heard some FM related things in there but there's also other stuff going on there that sounds more like subtractive synthesis and maybe audio patches?

As far as the NES, yes I'm sure we'll have previews and things. We're actually sort of behind in that regard. Tsunami Gaiden is 99% mastered (and it sounds much better than the version we have up, in my opinion of course) and another one about 75% mastered. There's about 4-6 more in the works currently in various stages. We haven't figured out how to do the marketing/release model yet. I like the idea of "pay what you think it's worth" stuff that you can do on BandCamp (including paying $0.00 if that's your thing) but I dunno. We're focusing on finishing the album first and then we'll decide what to do.

I think we'll have full length songs on Last.FM is my guess and if you want a higher quality you can do the name your price thing or something. The whole album will likely be put up somewhere too since that will include various bumps and transitions.

The audio mod was pretty fun to do and not terribly difficult. You can find info on that here. It's not near as cool as MidiBox stuffs but it cleaned up the audio path a great deal. One can argue I'm bypassing some of what gives the NES character, but the buzzy audio that is heard when running it past the PPU just was not suitable for recording. And either way the sound of the 2A03 was what I wanted the most.

[Shuriken]

That's indeed a very nice sound. I wonder how much is the formant synthesis and how much is fm sound.

[Hawkeye]

It is "only" an 8-operator fm chipset (16+16 voices) and a lot of nice fx. Probably one of the best FM synths available, but unusable from a user interface perspective (there are good software editors though).

Great to hear about the preview option for your album - i think it is always nice to offer this to people, it attracts more people and a lot of people are willing to pay for it. Keep up the good work!

Bye,
Peter

[m00dawg]

Haha "only"? Well now I wonder what could possibly surpass that (other than just going the software route, which is cheating ). Either way that's wildly impressive if that is just FM + effects because some of those sounds didn't sound at all like the typical FM I'm used to. Man those pads were like audio silk.

Edited by m00dawg, 19 April 2011 - 19:10.

[Flemming]

Man those pads were like audio silk.

Im pretty sure you listened to the audioclips from TK on the MBFM page @ ucapps?

I feel like you; FM instruments are often ½lame modeling instruments, but the MBFM can be a really angry mofo. Listening to TK's clips makes me think VERY differently about the possibilities in this little bugger

[Echopraxia]

I'll try to post some mostly mbfm tracks later today or tomorrow.

[m00dawg]

I did indeed listen to some of TK's samples. Some of them I like but it gets experimental really quick when you start getting into the parts where he's using the SSM filters. I agree, though, it seems like it will be nicely versatile.

[JRock]

I've been to busy to record the MBFM. seems like as soon as I built it I started building a modular synth.... I'll get to it soon (I hope)

[m00dawg]

Well I stopped making my MidiBox-SID to make my sammichFM so I kinda know where you're coming from!

[Antix]

Hi,

Here the TX81Z
the FM engine is similar and the sound too



Regards

Antix

[m00dawg]

MMM tasty! That sounds more like what the sammichFM can generate too? I didn't hear any crazy layering like the FS1R Hawkeye posted?

I wonder what commercial solutions are available today (new, not vintage) for FM synthesis these days. My Virus has an FM knob but that's the extent of it, and I haven't been able to generate FM-like sounds all that well. I suppose that's because I'm not understanding the implementation enough on my Virus to know how to modulate the right things *shrug*

[Antix]

Well,

I think that if you want FM then MBFM can do it for you.
If I remember well more modern FM synths like FSR1 can modulate operators with PCM waves so can create
more complex sounds.( so the pad in the video seems audio silk )

Now I have both TX81Z and MBFM and it seems to me the sound are very similar ( effectively they have the same operators number , the same waveforms and probably the same modulation algorythms )

As I will finish my control surface I am very motivated to port the sound of my TX81 on MBFM for a comparison.

Regards

Antix

[m00dawg]

Here's a quick and dirty demo I threw together. I put it together in about 10 minutes so don't expect much Could be a neat song though! For now I just wanted to see why sort of polyphony one can get. The sounds were all from the default bank. Enjoy!

[Shuriken]

Im pretty sure you listened to the audioclips from TK on the MBFM page @ ucapps?

I feel like you; FM instruments are often ½lame modeling instruments, but the MBFM can be a really angry mofo. Listening to TK's clips makes me think VERY differently about the possibilities in this little bugger

Yeah those samples are great. That's also the reason i build one. But havent finished it yet. Still need to make a CS.

[m00dawg]

So far I have found my own control surface has been the hardest to design of all the other extras I was adding to my MB-SID project. Measure, re-measure, re-measure, still get it wrong I finally have that done so now the second challenge is routing all the wires to the headers. After that, maybe I can finally order the aluminum panel, boards, and start soldering.

[Echopraxia]

All of these feature MBFM. If its not MBFM its Nord Micro and MP-7. Comments welcome. First one was not recorded very well. All sequenced with MBSEQv4


Listen on Soundcloud.com



This second one actually has a little MBSID too.
Listen on Soundcloud.com

Edited by Echopraxia, 23 April 2011 - 09:02.

[Echopraxia]

Soundcloud converter gave the intro some weird digital wind whooshing sound underneath.
http://soundcloud.com/echopraxia/concjump

Edited by Echopraxia, 23 April 2011 - 08:55.

[Hawkeye]

Nice - is the intro of the third one (up to second 25 or so) pure MBFM? Makes me want to have one, too!

Edited by Hawkeye, 23 April 2011 - 15:41.