Lightning Strikes... the PC-Engine?! (Thunder Force IV Chiptune Cover)

[esteban]

I am happy with the state of PCEworld

[fragmare]

What's that you say?  PSG drums?  I just got done trying my hand at making some from scratch, and they turned out pretty nice.  I might need them for this new chiptune i'm working on, so I decided to stop and go make some all-purpose PSG percussion.  I just arranged it into a little drum tune to make it easier on the ears while i test it out.  The tom turned out excellent, I think! 

https://soundcloud.com/user-716572978/huc6280-psg-drum-test

Try having a higher-pitched kick in the very beginning of the snare instrument and then switch to noise in the very next row

I was thinking about trying some stuff like that, but I thought Deflemask didn't like switching the PCE into noise mode in mid-play of a note (or vice versa).  Now I'm gonna go experiment with that...

[Arkhan]

I was thinking about trying some stuff like that, but I thought Deflemask didn't like switching the PCE into noise mode in mid-play of a note (or vice versa).  Now I'm gonna go experiment with that...

the percussion mode in Squirrel does stuff like this so you can define drummy sounding noises.  It's pretty good about it.

[Michirin9801]

the percussion mode in Squirrel does stuff like this so you can define drummy sounding noises.  It's pretty good about it.

I'm sorry to say this, but the one thing I didn't like about Squirrel were the drums >w>
Like, when I listen to a song that was made with Squirrel, everything else sounds just fine, but the drums... Oh dear...
I personally think you can make better PSG drums with Deflemask, that said though, you could make a LOT better drums in it if only they implemented the Noise Mode Envelope I've suggested a while ago, that way you could make a snare that changes between wave and noise on every tick for example, making for a really good reverby snare! I've heard a song in a game that did a snare like that recently, but I don't remember which one, I was looking for it but I couldn't find it, if I find it I'll update this post...

[Arkhan]

I'm sorry to say this, but the one thing I didn't like about Squirrel were the drums >w>

What's wrong with them?  You can make the drums yourself in Squirrel just like in Deflemask. 

You're just hearing the ones I made and liked, that others have borrowed instead of making their own.   

I only use the "percussion" mode for a hi-hat noise, and snare.   The kick is just a tonal kick.   I prefer tonal kicks over noisey ones.

They definitely sound better than what is in many commercial games that aren't using samples, so I think "oh dear" might be a bit overkill.

[Michirin9801]

What's wrong with them?  You can make the drums yourself in Squirrel just like in Deflemask. 

You're just hearing the ones I made and liked, that others have borrowed instead of making their own.   

I only use the "percussion" mode for a hi-hat noise, and snare.   The kick is just a tonal kick.   I prefer tonal kicks over noisey ones.

They definitely sound better than what is in many commercial games that aren't using samples, so I think "oh dear" might be a bit overkill.

I figured you could...
And yeah, they probably are better than some commercial games with non-sampled drums, but not all of them... I think Ys IV, Xanadu 2, Cratermaze and Magical Chase all did PSG drums that please my ears more, but that's more of a matter of taste than anything...

[Arkhan]

Yeah, see, I don't like Cratermaze's snare or whatever you even want to call it.     There's not alot of body to it.

That kind of tight, punchy, filtery drum would have got lost in the shuffle with Atlantean, because there's constant sound effect crap going on. 

all the bewbewbew and fdjsdasjgojfgoi explosion noises kind of take over most of the time, lol

[fragmare]

Okay, these should sound improved a bit.  Same link as before:

https://soundcloud.com/user-716572978/huc6280-psg-drum-test

I could make them sound a bit deeper and punchier, but I'm tuning them to match a game that's not very punchy on percussion to begin with (next cover project).  I did the note>noise thing with the snare and it sounds MUCH better now.  Thanks, Michirin!    I also have the kickbass set up on macro with -12 arpeggio, so it can hit C-0, which is disabled in Deflemask for some godforsaken reason......... <cough>

Anyway, should sound a little better now.  Still tweaking it.

[elmer]

I personally think you can make better PSG drums with Deflemask, that said though, you could make a LOT better drums in it if only they implemented the Noise Mode Envelope I've suggested a while ago, that way you could make a snare that changes between wave and noise on every tick for example, making for a really good reverby snare!

This is one of those times that I've got to support Arkhan and say that Squirrel should already be able to produce exactly the sound that you're wanting to get from the proposed changes to Deflemask.

It already has the switch-between-tone-and-noise-every-frame capability.

But ... like most of my incessant griping about MML, it's probably the text-based interface to everything that's putting you off, rather than the capabilities of the actual System Card Player.


BTW ...

If you guys actually want to create some drums using the proposed changes, they're already implemented in Huzak.

It's currently using the Arp Macro value to change the noise frequency using DefleMask's normal 12-step note-to-noise values, rather than the 0..30 Fixed Arpeggio range that we talked about ... but that's a 5-minute change, if you want me to do that.

The only thing to watch out for would be that the Arp Macro will *always* use that 0..30 range when the channel is in Noise Mode. There's no switching between methods in a song.

I don't see that as a problem, but it would mean that you'd have to redo *all* of your existing drums, which I think you're probably planning to do anyway.

If you want to play with that, I can spend a day or two setting up a simple drag-n-drop system that where you would save the .dmf from DefleMask, and then drag-n-drop the .dmf file onto a batch file, which would run the converter, create a ROM, and launch it in Mednafen.

Is that something that would interest either of you, right now?

Remember, there's currently no vibrato or detune or volume slides implemented, yet, so you are limited in what you can do.

[Michirin9801]

Okay, these should sound improved a bit.  Same link as before:

https://soundcloud.com/user-716572978/huc6280-psg-drum-test

I could make them sound a bit deeper and punchier, but I'm tuning them to match a game that's not very punchy on percussion to begin with (next cover project).  I did the note>noise thing with the snare and it sounds MUCH better now.  Thanks, Michirin!    I also have the kickbass set up on macro with -12 arpeggio, so it can hit C-0, which is disabled in Deflemask for some godforsaken reason......... <cough>

Anyway, should sound a little better now.  Still tweaking it.

Now that's a whole lot better ^^

Yeah, see, I don't like Cratermaze's snare or whatever you even want to call it.     There's not alot of body to it.

That kind of tight, punchy, filtery drum would have got lost in the shuffle with Atlantean, because there's constant sound effect crap going on. 

all the bewbewbew and fdjsdasjgojfgoi explosion noises kind of take over most of the time, lol

I respect your opinion, but the thing about your drums is that they probably sound better in Atlantean than they sound in other soundtracks, I imagine they were made with Atlantean in mind...
To help illustrate my point, imagine that I took the drums from Xanadu 2 and put them in Bloody wolf... I think the Xanadu 2 drums are A LOT better than those from Bloody Wolf, but they'd get drowned in Bloody Wolf's music because it's a lot louder and more 'hype' (for lack of a better word) than Xanadu 2's PSG songs, you know what I'm saying?

But ... like most of my incessant griping about MML, it's probably the text-based interface to everything that's putting you off, rather than the capabilities of the actual System Card Player.

Which is probably why everyone else just used Arkhan's drums for their music instead of making their own PSG drums which would likely fit their songs better...

BTW ...

If you guys actually want to create some drums using the proposed changes, they're already implemented in Huzak.

It's currently using the Arp Macro value to change the noise frequency using DefleMask's normal 12-step note-to-noise values, rather than the 0..30 Fixed Arpeggio range that we talked about ... but that's a 5-minute change, if you want me to do that.

The only thing to watch out for would be that the Arp Macro will *always* use that 0..30 range when the channel is in Noise Mode. There's no switching between methods in a song.

I don't see that as a problem, but it would mean that you'd have to redo *all* of your existing drums, which I think you're probably planning to do anyway.

If you want to play with that, I can spend a day or two setting up a simple drag-n-drop system that where you would save the .dmf from DefleMask, and then drag-n-drop the .dmf file onto a batch file, which would run the converter, create a ROM, and launch it in Mednafen.

Is that something that would interest either of you, right now?

Remember, there's currently no vibrato or detune or volume slides implemented, yet, so you are limited in what you can do.

YES! I WANT THAT!!
It's better that I can test that already so that I can have my Huzak drums done, and then I can simply compose my songs with normal Deflemask drums and then switch them with Huzak drums when it's done!
By the way, the noise mode envelope is Wave 32 in the wave macro isn't it?

[elmer]

Is that something that would interest either of you, right now?

YES! I WANT THAT!!
It's better that I can test that already so that I can have my Huzak drums done, and then I can simply compose my songs with normal Deflemask drums and then switch them with Huzak drums when it's done!
By the way, the noise mode envelope is Wave 32 in the wave macro isn't it?

Yes, you use the Wave Macro setting 32 to switch Noise On, and anything else to switch Noise Off and select the wavetable.

Would you like it with the full 0..30 range of noise settings in the Arp Macro, or just stick with the current 12-out-of-31 steps?

I really look forward to hearing how good you can get those drums to sound! 

[Michirin9801]

Would you like it with the full 0..30 range of noise settings in the Arp Macro, or just stick with the current 12-out-of-31 steps?

I want the full range, I need to hear what the all the noise frequencies sound like so that I can start experimenting with them and seeing what I can do...
That's gonna be fun ^^

[elmer]

Would you like it with the full 0..30 range of noise settings in the Arp Macro, or just stick with the current 12-out-of-31 steps?

I want the full range, I need to hear what the all the noise frequencies sound like so that I can start experimenting with them and seeing what I can do...
That's gonna be fun ^^

OK! 

Here is the list of frequencies again, and the list of the 12 notes and their Noise Frequency settings that DefleMask is currently using.

Note that DefleMask is actually outputting frequency $1F for note A, but that's actually an illegal value, so I changed it to $1E, which is the highest frequency.


; ***************************************************************************
;
; HK_INDEX2NOISE - Table of deflemask's note index to noise frequency.
;
; The order is C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B.
;
; N.B. Changed deflemask's $1F to $1E, because $1F is an illegal value.
;
; 00=$00  1804 Hz  :  08=$08  2432 Hz  :  16=$10  3729 Hz  :  24=$18  7991 Hz
; 01=$01  1865 Hz  :  09=$09  2543 Hz  :  17=$11  3996 Hz  :  25=$19  9323 Hz
; 02=$02  1929 Hz  :  10=$0A  2664 Hz  :  18=$12  4303 Hz  :  26=$1A 11188 Hz
; 03=$03  1998 Hz  :  11=$0B  2797 Hz  :  19=$13  4661 Hz  :  27=$1B 13984 Hz
; 04=$04  2072 Hz  :  12=$0C  2944 Hz  :  20=$14  5085 Hz  :  28=$1C 18646 Hz
; 05=$05  2151 Hz  :  13=$0D  3108 Hz  :  21=$15  5594 Hz  :  29=$1D 27969 Hz
; 06=$06  2238 Hz  :  14=$0E  3290 Hz  :  22=$16  6215 Hz  :  30=$1E 55938 Hz
; 07=$07  2331 Hz  :  15=$0F  3496 Hz  :  23=$17  6992 Hz  :
;

hk_index2noise: .db   $04, $0D, $0F, $12, $15, $17
                .db   $19, $1B, $1D, $1E, $01, $03

[Michirin9801]

Note that DefleMask is actually outputting frequency $1F for note A, but that's actually an illegal value, so I changed it to $1E, which is the highest frequency.

Oh crap, I've been using that frequency for my Hi-Hats...

[elmer]

Note that DefleMask is actually outputting frequency $1F for note A, but that's actually an illegal value, so I changed it to $1E, which is the highest frequency.

Oh crap, I've been using that frequency for my Hi-Hats...

Don't worry ... it's not really a problem, as such, except for playing the .hes on real hardware. 

I think that Mednafen clamps the value anyway, so that you hear the same frequency that you would when I feed the "fixed" value to either Mednafen or the real hardware.

But what I haven't looked at, is whether that means that *all* the values should be 1-less compared to what you hear in DefleMask.

It would be nice if the project was Open Source so that we could see things, and fix things, and then "push" them to Delek so that he could decide what to accept or reject ... but that's not the case.

At least, at the moment.

Let's hope that he eventually has the time and energy to come back to the DefleMask forum and keep moving the program forwards.

He has already said that if he ever loses interest, then he'll make it Open Source.

We just need to have a bit of patience, and in the meantime, I'll do what I can.