[dtg84]

Thought I would try to experiment making some classical-esque doodles with the NES, and here is the result: Listen on Soundcloud.com

I want to work on more of these, maybe with the goal of releasing a small EP of NES Etudes? Thoughts?

[jojjelito]

J.S Bach sitting in front of a tracker on a GameBoy-stylee What was really the contents of that Espresso I just had? Well done!

[Hawkeye]

Great use of the NES! Liking it a lot! That sounds inspiringly classic and it gets really psylike @around 02.00 - cool
Greets,
Peter

This post has been edited by Hawkeye: 23 November 2011 - 22:53

[m00dawg]

Sounds awesome! Indeed those metallic drums sound fantastic! Curious what you used for the NES bits?

The only suggestion I have is to perhaps adjust the snare a bit. Actually, you could go with minimalist percussion for the song and I think it might sound pretty good. Either way, the snare sounds just a tad off beat to me?

Regardless, it's a bangin' tune!

[dtg84]

m00dawg, on 23 November 2011 - 23:51, said:

Sounds awesome! Indeed those metallic drums sound fantastic! Curious what you used for the NES bits?

All the NES bits are using WayFar's MIDI NES technology. Triggering the actual NES via MIDI...

m00dawg, on 23 November 2011 - 23:51, said:

The only suggestion I have is to perhaps adjust the snare a bit. Actually, you could go with minimalist percussion for the song and I think it might sound pretty good. Either way, the snare sounds just a tad off beat to me?

The snare was the 808 snare which appears in the sample channel of the MIDI NES. Maybe I should just remove the snare all together? Maybe give it a faster decay? I'll work on it.

This post has been edited by dtg84: 24 November 2011 - 00:45

[m00dawg]

Oooh nice MidiNES! I'd love one of those things one of these days! We use Famitracker and render NSFs which we play on the PowerPak.

Anyways, as far as the snare, indeed if you can work on the decay it might be better. Could just be me too, who knows ;P If those were off the MidiNES, they actually sound damn good! I thought you were using a separate drum track over it.

[dtg84]

m00dawg, on 24 November 2011 - 00:59, said:

Anyways, as far as the snare, indeed if you can work on the decay it might be better. Could just be me too, who knows ;P If those were off the MidiNES, they actually sound damn good! I thought you were using a separate drum track over it.

Actually, the MIDI nes 808 snare was resampled with Ableton's Simpler instrument, where i used a lo-pass filter to get rid of some of the high-end grit (although that is probably what i should be going for). The hats are also just some 808 hat sample (not from MIDI nes). I think i did this because the DCM channel only has mono output, so i could never have more than one drum playing at the same time. Also, for the portion where the key shifts to the relative major, i layered the snare with a generic 808 style clap. Maybe this is what is not working. I will massage it a bit though, and make the hit a bit more nuanced.

This post has been edited by dtg84: 24 November 2011 - 03:35

[dtg84]

m00dawg, on 24 November 2011 - 00:59, said:

Oooh nice MidiNES! I'd love one of those things one of these days! We use Famitracker and render NSFs which we play on the PowerPak.

That sounds like a more authentic method... I suppose since I sequenced and arranged everything in Ableton rather than one of the various trackers it isn't "real" chiptune music, but hey, I guess I fooled some of you!

[dtg84]

jojjelito, on 23 November 2011 - 22:47, said:

J.S Bach sitting in front of a tracker on a GameBoy-stylee What was really the contents of that Espresso I just had? Well done!

Heh. Thanks. Although (full disclosure) I did not use a tracker - I used Ableton (I know, I lost some nerd cred just now).

[m00dawg]

dtg84, on 24 November 2011 - 02:19, said:

That sounds like a more authentic method... I suppose since I sequenced and arranged everything in Ableton rather than one of the various trackers it isn't "real" chiptune music, but hey, I guess I fooled some of you!

Nah I would disagree. It's coming from an NES so you're still stuck with the limitations of the hardware (which, in my opinion, is what makes true chiptune music brilliant). Whether you are using a tracker or sequencer doesn't matter in my opinion.

In fact, I've been wanting to build a ArduinoBoy for my GameBoy, which lets you send MIDI data to your GameBoy. Coupled with mGB, you can send MIDI note data basically making it function similar to MidiNES. Trash80 came up with both the ArdunioBoy and mGB and it seems pretty cool (though I wonder how easy it is to modulate things like you would with LSDJ).

While I'm a bit off topic, to try to re-rail the train, wasn't someone sort of close to the MidiBox community working on something to control the 2A03 directly as well?