Thanks for all the tips/advice! What's that about the Note OFF command boosting stuff? This is the first track where I used a lot of Note OFF commands because I figured it was more "proper form" than using the note cut or simply controlling the volume manually (which is how i was doing it before). So you're saying i should go back to my previous method? I didn't notice any kind of next-note boost, but I did notice a lot of the HuC6280 popping between notes/waveforms using Note OFF. I tried to manually envelope some of the OFFs with volume commands to cover up the popping, but I'm not sure it really had much of an effect. :/
I think you're thinking of a different boost than I am... Here's the thing, the bigger the difference in volume between the end of the last note and the beginning of the next one, the more noticeable the next note is going to be, so when you cut out the bass right before the next note you're getting the most difference in volume it can possibly have, in other words, the bass is going to sound stronger and more noticeable than it would if you didn't cut it out before playing the next note, that said though, it's not gonna magically make it sound like an FM bass or anything...
What you're doing right now with the OFF commands is pretty much that, but the Note Cut effect is pretty much the exact same thing as an OFF command, except you can control in which tick of the row you put it on the effect will actually trigger, so you can cut out the bass the very tick before the next note instead of 2 or 3 ticks before it, so yeah, the Note Cut effect is a better way of doing the same thing...
As for the DMF file being wasteful and unoptimized... yea, i'm guilty lol. It's not meant for any kind of game or demo, it's just meant to get all the notes and timings matching 100% 1:1 to the original. Even the 5 channel/LQ-sample versions of the tunes I make are not really optimized in any way. They're just meant to show how it would sound if they *were* game-optimized. You'll even notice I never even bothered to deflate some of the effects columns on channels that don't even use them. I guess my point is, I have zero interest in *actual* optimization of a tune unless I have something, in specific, I'm optimizing it for (like a game project).
As for the same note playing across multiple channels, I know I could consolidate them and bump the volume up a little and it would sound identical... but there's sort of a reason I'm trying so hard to stick closely to the source material. You see, the reason I'm doing all this isn't SOLELY for making stuff that's pleasant to listen to, though I'm happy you folks think it is. I'm also striving for ALL of my DMF files to serve as sort of 1:1 HuC6280 note/timing tablature for some of the all time classic video game tunes. Or at least as close as i can get with the 6 channel versions. That way, if other chiptuners would like to rearrange the track in Deflemask, they basically have a 1:1 tablature of the source material to work from, right there in front of them. That's why, when you gave me the timemark of the note error, I was so quick to fix that. And, also, some of it is to simply satisfy my own curiosity as to what this music would sound like on the PCE if composed the exact same way. Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment and just like to impose an extra, artificial layer of restrictions upon myself lol
Yeah I can see where you're coming from, but I still think taking a few liberties here and there and optimising the song would go a long way, not only to make the music sound better, but also to free up a channel or two so that you could squeeze in more details and
♥~sweet sweet reverb~♥ (sorry, it's the SNES fangirl in me talking)That doubling up the waveforms looks interesting, I'll definitely have to experiment with that!
It's a pretty useful trick to coming up with new instruments!
Like I said, I'm not a chiptuner or a musician. Never will be. I'm just some guy who's a perfectionist and has sufficient patience to transcribe these tunes to the HuC6280 like a devout monk. I almost don't feel as if it isn't my place, or within my skillset at this point, to start taking any "artistic liberties" with this stuff. Not yet anyway.
I am, however, a decent pixel artist, and will draw you a mean 9-bit color sprite or background tile.
You know, you're in a very similar position right now that I was 2 years ago, I used to be strictly a 2D artist and spriter, I've been drawing for over 10 years now (100% self-taught) so I do think I have enough experience to call myself a 'decent' artist, however I was in need of a musician to make music for my game project really bad, I asked around everywhere I knew at the time, with no good results, so I had to force myself to get into music even though I knew jacks*** about it, and for a few months I've used a rubbish DAW called Musagi with a Mega Drive VST, and I could make some bleh music with it, but then I started using Deflemask, and it was so much better, I could make music in it a whole lot faster, and with much better results, and not only that, I could also use a soundchip that I desired a whole lot more, which was the PC engine's HuC6280! (Unfortunately my game's still using Mega Drive music, which isn't nearly as much fun to make, and it's too late to change it now for several reasons)
But still, with only 2 years of experience I was able to become pretty okay at covering other people's music (But I'm still terrible at coming up with original stuff)
The point is that making music (with Deflemask at least) isn't just a lot of fun, but it's also a really good learning experience!