Sega's Quartet - Stage 1 BGM on PC engine (Deflemask Cover)

[Michirin9801]

^Here's the video

My second-ever song made using Deflemask was a cover of the stage 1 theme from Sega's arcade game Quartet, 'meh game, great soundtrack! But that was almost 2 years ago, I've learned a whole lot about not only the tracker itself but also about making music since then, so the original cover hasn't stood up very well against the stuff I've made afterwards, so I figured it was a good time to remake the song, this time really taking advantage of what the PC engine soundchip can do! (In other words, better waveforms, lots of phasing effects and reverb)
Enjoy! ^^

[ccovell]

The beginning still doesn't have the same trippy effect as the original, but I like the galloping bass overall.

By the way, if you want to hear a PCE soundtrack made by the original creator of the Quartet tunes, Katsuhiro Hayashi, check out Final Lap Twin.

[Michirin9801]

The beginning still doesn't have the same trippy effect as the original, but I like the galloping bass overall.

By the way, if you want to hear a PCE soundtrack made by the original creator of the Quartet tunes, Katsuhiro Hayashi, check out Final Lap Twin.

Oh I've played Final Lap Twin ^^
But I don't exactly remember the music >w>

[ParanoiaDragon]

Sweet, nice job!  Used to play this in the arcade, I always enjoyed it.

[esteban]

The beginning still doesn't have the same trippy effect as the original, but I like the galloping bass overall.

By the way, if you want to hear a PCE soundtrack made by the original creator of the Quartet tunes, Katsuhiro Hayashi, check out Final Lap Twin.

Ha! I did not know that.



Question #16 (8 points): Which of Katsuhiro's Hayashi's compositions *best* completes the sequence below?

Quartet.

Final Lap Twin.

____.

[ccovell]

Question #16 (8 points): Which of Katsuhiro's Hayashi's compositions *best* completes the sequence below?

Quartet.

Final Lap Twin.

_______.

Terraforming.

[elmer]

Wow, I don't remember this game at all, and that Sega Master version of it looks pretty "blah", but your cover of the tune sounds excellent! 

BTW, you've put one heck of a lot of detail into the track ... it's coming out a lot bigger than your other tracks ... taking approx 6KB when converted, vs approx 5KB for something like your "Thunder Force IV" track. 

[Michirin9801]

Wow, I don't remember this game at all, and that Sega Master version of it looks pretty "blah", but your cover of the tune sounds excellent! 

BTW, you've put one heck of a lot of detail into the track ... it's coming out a lot bigger than your other tracks ... taking approx 6KB when converted, vs approx 5KB for something like your "Thunder Force IV" track. 

Holy F*** 6KB? You mean that this would take like, 75% of the system's work RAM? And that's WITHOUT Samples??
If so, oh wow, I need to hold off on something, but I don't know what exactly >w>
I bet it's that 1 channel harmony + reverb where I update the volume and pan in every single row, but I don't wanna let go off that, it's such a good effect and it achieves reverb without me needing an extra channel >^<';

And yeah, the game is very much 'bleh', the soundtrack is disproportionately good in comparison...

[elmer]

Holy F*** 6KB? You mean that this would take like, 75% of the system's work RAM? And that's WITHOUT Samples??
If so, oh wow, I need to hold off on something, but I don't know what exactly >w>

Hahaha ... nope, it's not something to worry about, it's something to be proud of! 

You're adding complexity to the track data with all of the stereo panning and effects, and that makes the whole thing a *lot* more interesting on the ear than just plain note data.

It's the kind of thing that the "pros" do to make their tracks sound good, and you're doing a great job of recreating it!

The memory usage isn't a problem ... you're confusing the Work RAM space with the ROM space.

Music data will go into ROM space on a HuCard game ... and we've got up to 1MB of that.

If the tune was aimed at a base CD with System Card 1 or 2 (and only 64KB of Work RAM), then you might think about simplifying things a bit (although I'd still say that it was a good use of space).

For the Super System Card / DUO / DUO-R / SuperCDROM, we've got 256KB of RAM, and at that point, 6KB isn't going to hurt.

[Michirin9801]

Holy F*** 6KB? You mean that this would take like, 75% of the system's work RAM? And that's WITHOUT Samples??
If so, oh wow, I need to hold off on something, but I don't know what exactly >w>

Hahaha ... nope, it's not something to worry about, it's something to be proud of! 

You're adding complexity to the track data with all of the stereo panning and effects, and that makes the whole thing a *lot* more interesting on the ear than just plain note data.

It's the kind of thing that the "pros" do to make their tracks sound good, and you're doing a great job of recreating it!

The memory usage isn't a problem ... you're confusing the Work RAM space with the ROM space.

Music data will go into ROM space on a HuCard game ... and we've got up to 1MB of that.

If the tune was aimed at a base CD with System Card 1 or 2 (and only 64KB of Work RAM), then you might think about simplifying things a bit (although I'd still say that it was a good use of space).

For the Super System Card / DUO / DUO-R / SuperCDROM, we've got 256KB of RAM, and at that point, 6KB isn't going to hurt.

So you mean the song wouldn't be loaded into RAM (or at least not in its entirety) on a HuCard game? Or that it would be streamed directly from the ROM into the audio output?

Because you know, when I actually get to working on a game for the PCE (notice how I said "When" and not "If") I want to make songs with just as much (if not more) complexity than this, and still be able to pull off a f***ton of parallax scrolling using BG layer splitting, animated tiles, sprites as background objects and line interruption to change the solid colour behind the BG and make an Amiga-esque gradient, all at the same time in a HuCard game (If at all possible, but it should be, Magical Chase did all of that)
And support for that thing I've mentioned a while back, you know, of using the CD ADPCM to play sampled percussion on a HuCard game and free up a PSG channel to play something else, so that people who play the game on a system with the CD add-on can get the better version of the soundtrack, but the people who have just the base TurboGrafx-16 or PC engine/Core Grafx can still play it no problem!

You know, I wanna eventually make something that will make the Super Nintendo blush and the Genesis cry! ;3
(Btw, how feasible is it to get more ROM space like SF2 did?)

[elmer]

So you mean the song wouldn't be loaded into RAM (or at least not in its entirety) on a HuCard game? Or that it would be streamed directly from the ROM into the audio output?

I suspect that you *may* be thinking that HuCards (or most old cartridge) systems are like modern computers, and need to load things into RAM in order to run them.

The PCE CD is like that ... but HuCards/cartridges aren't. We just read and execute data directly from the HuCard/ROM.

Since there is up to 1MB of ROM space on a HuCard ... allocating 6KB (or more) of it for a tune is a pretty-small price to pay for good music.

And nope ... we don't "stream" audio like deflemask data or MML data directly to the audio output. It's not like sample data, were we *do* effectively do that.

The sound driver interprets the converted deflemask note data and timing, and changes the PSG registers every 1/60s ... in (hopefully) a very-similar way to how it's done in the emulated PCE that's inside deflemask.

Does that make any sense? Have I managed to explain it OK? 

Because you know, when I actually get to working on a game for the PCE (notice how I said "When" and not "If") I want to make songs with just as much (if not more) complexity than this ...
...
You know, I wanna eventually make something that will make the Super Nintendo blush and the Genesis cry! ;3

That's an excellent goal ... I hope that you get to make it! 

Sure, all that stuff is possible on the PCE, and most of it doesn't even cost that much CPU time.

It's mostly just a case of having enough passion and belief in the project, and finding the right folks to help you make it, and to complement your skills with theirs. 

(Btw, how feasible is it to get more ROM space like SF2 did?)

Well, the Turbo Everdrive v2 has 4MB of memory space on it ... so it's definitely achievable.

The problem that you'll run into are manufacturing costs if you try make a HuCard larger than 1MB.

Actually, to be honest, I'm not even sure if anyone is making 1MB HuCards these days ... but someone here will know.

And to be even-more honest ... my own love for the machine is not for its HuCards, it's because the PCE was the first CD-based system, and that just changed the world!

So for me, PCE/SGX with CD & ArcadeCard is the combination that I personally love.

Although games like Legend of Xanadu 1 & 2 showed just how incredibly awesome a SuperCD game could be, and how you didn't need CD-Audio to create a spellbinding atmosphere. 

[Michirin9801]

I suspect that you *may* be thinking that HuCards (or most old cartridge) systems are like modern computers, and need to load things into RAM in order to run them.

The PCE CD is like that ... but HuCards/cartridges aren't. We just read and execute data directly from the HuCard/ROM.

Since there is up to 1MB of ROM space on a HuCard ... allocating 6KB (or more) of it for a tune is a pretty-small price to pay for good music.

And nope ... we don't "stream" audio like deflemask data or MML data directly to the audio output. It's not like sample data, were we *do* effectively do that.

The sound driver interprets the converted deflemask note data and timing, and changes the PSG registers every 1/60s ... in (hopefully) a very-similar way to how it's done in the emulated PCE that's inside deflemask.

Does that make any sense? Have I managed to explain it OK? 

Yeah I was kinda-sorta thinking like that, but not exactly, it's hard to explain... But no, I totally understand what you mean, thanks for explaining ^^

Because you know, when I actually get to working on a game for the PCE (notice how I said "When" and not "If") I want to make songs with just as much (if not more) complexity than this ...
...
You know, I wanna eventually make something that will make the Super Nintendo blush and the Genesis cry! ;3

That's an excellent goal ... I hope that you get to make it! 

Sure, all that stuff is possible on the PCE, and most of it doesn't even cost that much CPU time.

It's mostly just a case of having enough passion and belief in the project, and finding the right folks to help you make it, and to complement your skills with theirs. 

Yaaay~
You already know that I'm no more than an artist, but I'm an artist with a (relatively) tight grip on what the PCE can and cannot do, I've done my homework, I know how all those tricks are done, I have plenty of ideas on how to work around the system's limitations, but what I don't know is how to actually go and code'em because I know jacks*** about programming, but knowing that they can be done without much of a hassle on the CPU is very comforting!

Now it's all a matter of actually finishing that 'other' project before I can start working on this one, and hoo boy I can't wait!

The problem that you'll run into are manufacturing costs if you try make a HuCard larger than 1MB.

Actually, to be honest, I'm not even sure if anyone is making 1MB HuCards these days ... but someone here will know.

I hadn't even thought about that >w>
And to be honest, I prefer not to think until necessary...

And to be even-more honest ... my own love for the machine is not for its HuCards, it's because the PCE was the first CD-based system, and that just changed the world!

So for me, PCE/SGX with CD & ArcadeCard is the combination that I personally love.

I completely understand and even agree with you on that, but my love for the machine comes from the fact that I love the whole 'pushing the limits' aspect, and the PCE is the perfect middle-ground for that, because it's the system that is both limited enough to be noticeable and impressive when its limits are pushed, but also advanced enough to have some really amazing graphics and music!

You see, two of my favourite games for the system are Magical Chase and Soldier Blade, because those games manage to have some really spectacular graphics, sound and gameplay, they manage to really show off what the system can do and stand up very well against its more technically advanced competition (if not surpassing them, at least in spots) and that's without the need for an expensive add-on! Anyone who bought the system 'could' experience these incredible games on the base hardware! Without extra memory, without fancy CD audio, it was all being done by the raw PCE, and being done damn well!

I mean seriously, did I mention Magical Chase pulls off 3 OVERLAPPING BACKGROUND LAYERS?
Now THAT's what I call impressive ;3