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Non-NEC Console Related Discussion => Chit-Chat => Topic started by: Michirin9801 on July 28, 2017, 07:19:49 PM
Title: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on July 28, 2017, 07:19:49 PM
It's been a few months, and a few hundred posts, I think I already have enough of a presence in this forum to warrant promoting my work on its own thread...
So, I've just uploaded a PCE cover of Detana!! TwinBee's Stage 3 theme that I made in Deflemask, check it out:
"But doesn't this game already have a PCE version?" Well, I already demonstrated my dissatisfaction with that version's soundtrack on the PCE Pixelization thread, so I took it upon myself to cover my favourite song from the game on the PCE using Deflemask, I hope you like it ^^
I also made this playlist here which has all of my PCE covers, but it starts with my old stuff which really hasn't held up well, if you wanna listen to the good stuff skip to song 25... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULyo2ep-wVA&index=1&list=PL3XuRfmrTeVmukSHi70qofOt_0hZJja_m
Or even better, you can check out my albums on Bandcamp and help support my work ;3 https://michirin9801.bandcamp.com/ (They have more than just PCE though, but PCE is the bulk of my work)
Whenever I make new songs I'll post them here in this thread instead of making a new one for each song, I think that's better...
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: turboswimbz on July 29, 2017, 05:10:17 AM
Thanks for sharing! these are great.
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: elmer on July 29, 2017, 07:23:49 AM
Another excellent PCE tune! Thanks! :dance:
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: esteban on July 29, 2017, 07:58:35 AM
Everyone should give these songs a chance... they are splendid.
:)
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: elmer on July 29, 2017, 09:53:16 AM
If you want to hear Michirin9801's wonderful songs playing on your PC Engine, here are the PCE ROMs for the tracks that don't use samples (i.e. 90%+), playable on your PCE with my Huzak driver.
I got permission to post these a while back, but somehow never got around to doing it.
These include a few bug-fixes from the original February versions that you got if you bought the album off of Bandcamp ... which is something that I would urge everyone to do in order to help support Michirin9801's wonderful music!
If you want to hear Michirin9801's wonderful songs playing on your PC Engine, here are the PCE ROMs for the tracks that don't use samples (i.e. 90%+), playable on your PCE with my Huzak driver.
I got permission to post these a while back, but somehow never got around to doing it.
These include a few bug-fixes from the original February versions that you got if you bought the album off of Bandcamp ... which is something that I would urge everyone to do in order to help support Michirin9801's wonderful music!
If you want to hear Michirin9801's wonderful songs playing on your PC Engine, here are the PCE ROMs for the tracks that don't use samples (i.e. 90%+), playable on your PCE with my Huzak driver.
I got permission to post these a while back, but somehow never got around to doing it.
These include a few bug-fixes from the original February versions that you got if you bought the album off of Bandcamp ... which is something that I would urge everyone to do in order to help support Michirin9801's wonderful music!
Amazing! I actually kinda like the original TwinBee but only from stage 3 onwards. The first few levels the music isn't up to the rest
Thanks ^^ You mean the original PCE version of the Detana!! TwinBee soundtrack? Or the very first TwinBee game? Well, I like the PCE version of the game's OST as well, but I always thought it could have sounded a heck of a lot better, that's why I made this cover...
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: turboswimbz on July 30, 2017, 01:28:20 AM
yes, but I didn't think about using the PCE to play them until Elmer posted. / didn't look at the downloads. I just clicked the link and started listening. ](*,) I got too excited. =P~ like the time I went shopping for new shoes and forgot socks and had to wear those fake liners from the store. the heels on the dress shoes still slide with my socks. . . #-o
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on July 30, 2017, 05:54:23 AM
Yeah, I know how it is...
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: turboswimbz on July 30, 2017, 07:48:48 AM
back on track and out of curiosity, how long does it take you to make one of these on average?
It varies greatly from song to song, how much free time I have and how I listen to it... Some songs take upwards of a whole month, others I can finish in just a couple of hours, this one in particular took 2 nights... If I can listen to a song in programs such as Hoot, JCOM-spc or NEZplug, where I can turn on and off sound channels and listen to each channel on its own, it makes my work a heck of a lot easier because then I can just transcribe the song channel by channel, and in cases where the song uses more channels than the PCE has I have to either drop some channels, or somehow play more than one thing on the same channel so that I can fit everything in, this song had 8 channels originally, but I still managed to fit everything within 6, and that's because channel 5 is mostly just playing detuned reverb so if that channel was cut out to play sound effects little-to-no musical detail would be lost!
But sometimes I just can't listen to each channel on its own, like when it's a CD song where everything is already on a single channel, or when it's a song that just isn't available on any of the aforementioned programs, then I just have to listen to it whole and figure out what goes where, which makes it quite a bit harder, but if the song is simple or easy enough I can still do it just fine, heck the easiest songs I've ever covered (These two: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amZdOyf135g and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mumE3EWRW2w) I didn't even need to listen to each channel on its own even though I could! They were just easy... (Both of which were finished in a day too)
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on August 14, 2017, 05:53:11 PM
New song out today! It's a cover of one of my favourite songs from one of my favourite soundtracks in gaming! I hope you like it ^^
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: turboswimbz on August 22, 2017, 02:43:13 PM
LOVE IT! :clap: :clap: :clap: I always thought the PCE and SNES sounds were quite comparable. I feel like the SNES sounds don't always get enough credit. FF3 is clearly one of the more engaging soundtracks to me from the time.
Side Notes:
Speaking of the SNES I always enjoyed the top gear soundtrack on the SNES as well as its predecessors the Lotus series on the Amiga.
LOVE IT! :clap: :clap: :clap: I always thought the PCE and SNES sounds were quite comparable. I feel like the SNES sounds don't always get enough credit. FF3 is clearly one of the more engaging soundtracks to me from the time.
Side Notes:
Speaking of the SNES I always enjoyed the top gear soundtrack on the SNES as well as its predecessors the Lotus series on the Amiga.
Glad you do ^^ You know, "SNES sounds don't get enough credit" is a phrase that I don't see often, but I think I have to agree... I'm one of those people who thinks that the SNES has the best sound out of any game system (the PCE is my close 2nd favourite, perhaps tied with the Game Boy Advance?) so calling it anything short of "Amazing" is too little credit to me, but hey, it's all a matter of taste right?
I bloody LOVE Final Fight 3's soundtrack, it's so layered! There's like, at least 3 different melodies playing at the same time through most of the soundtrack, and they all somehow stay harmonised and catchy as heck throughout! The composers for that game were geniuses!
And I too love Top Gear's soundtrack ^^ Haven't played much of Lotus Turbo Challenge, other than the Mega Drive port, which IIRC didn't have music during gameplay, but if or when I get into Amiga emulation it will be one of the first games I'll try! I've tried covering the faster version of Burn Rubber from Top Gear 2 on the PC engine before, but I haven't finished it, and if I were to finish it I'd most likely re-do it from scratch because it's been so long ago and I could do it so much better now... Btw, Top Gear 2 is my favourite racing game!
Smeared Graffiti rocks the PCE. And PCE rocks Smeared Graffiti.
PUT YOUR HEADPHONES ON. NOW. LISTEN. NOW.
Thanks mate ^^
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: turboswimbz on August 24, 2017, 01:42:08 PM
2 is REALLY good but I love top gear 1 a little more although I think 2 is probably a little better. it was one of the few games I had growing up and I played it way more than anyone should have. I have never played the Amiga version, but when I found out most of Top gear was remastered lotus challenge tunes I had to go back and listen to all the soundtracks.
I also must say that overall the SNES and PC Engine are tied as far as sounds go for me. Also, i think the fact that the top gear sound tracks don't get credit as some of the best is also a little bit unfair. yeah, the RPG's and platformers may have some really great soundtracks but for a racing game top gear, 1 and 2 are among some of the best IMO.
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on August 24, 2017, 02:27:29 PM
2 is REALLY good but I love top gear 1 a little more although I think 2 is probably a little better. it was one of the few games I had growing up and I played it way more than anyone should have. I have never played the Amiga version, but when I found out most of Top gear was remastered lotus challenge tunes I had to go back and listen to all the soundtracks.
I also must say that overall the SNES and PC Engine are tied as far as sounds go for me. Also, i think the fact that the top gear sound tracks don't get credit as some of the best is also a little bit unfair. yeah, the RPG's and platformers may have some really great soundtracks but for a racing game top gear, 1 and 2 are among some of the best IMO.
Oh I get that, I love Top Gear 1 almost as much as the 2nd game, I might have even played it more, it's simpler and more approachable than Top Gear 2, and it's better for shorter play-sessions, but the 2nd game is for when you wanna get serious about it you know what I mean? In the 2nd game there's a career mode where you can earn cash to tune up your car and make it better as the races go so that you can keep up with your opponents who are also getting their cars better and better...
To put it simply, the 2nd game is deeper, it also has the advantage of taking up the entire screen in single player mode as opposed to having the screen split at all times, but the first game also has its own advantages, like having one more song to play throughout the races so there's less repetition (not like you'd get bored of listening to either of those amazing soundtracks) and having cars which look different from one-another whereas in the 2nd game every car model is the same, the only changes are in colour...
To be fair though, having only one car model has made them able to use the memory they had to make more sprites of that one model as opposed to less sprites of multiple models, and because of that the animations are better in the 2nd game, also the "Draw Distance" of the 2nd game is also way better, the Pseudo-3D road goes really far into the screen and you can see the curves approaching from way in the distance and it looks great!
As for the soundchips, other than my own nostalgia towards the SNES, what really settles it as my favourite is the fact that it's the perfect middle-ground in between chiptunes and 'real' music, the SPC700 is an 8 channel sampler, it's got enough channels to be able to make a full-bodied song and still have one or more channels left to play sound effects without clipping-off parts of the music, and because it's a sampler it means that it can play literally anything you can cram within 64KB! (Including instruments synthesised on the PCE or MD, which means you could potentially re-create any PCE/MD soundtrack on the SNES with little-to-no noticeable loss in detail or quality, but not many people did that because they could sample 'real' instruments instead, or instruments from a more sophisticate synthesiser)
The PCE is great too, it's my 2nd favourite for a very good reason, yeah it's got less channels, but the channels it does have are already enough to make a soundtrack just as full-bodied as any SNES soundtrack (as proven by me and by plenty of PCE composers from back in the day) it can play samples as well (albeit in a much more limited fashion than you can do on the SNES) and it's VERY easy to make awesome music for it! Although that's more thanks to Deflemask than anything, the SNES doesn't have a dedicated tracker, although I can make music for the SNES which will run in real hardware using OpenMPT, I've already stated time and time again how OpenMPT isn't great, and that Deflemask is SO much better in pretty much every way... But it's not just that, 5 bit wavetables are an extremely easy-to-understand-and-use method of sound synthesis, it's as simple as drawing whatever waveform you want and playing it on whatever note you want! The lower bit-depth makes it even easier to work with (albeit more limiting) because there's much less room for error when you only have a 32 x 32 grid to work with, but even with such limited synth they've managed to compose absolute masterpieces such as the Soldier Blade, Magical Chase and Xanadu 2 soundtracks~ (2 of which don't even use samples, they're all PCE synth)
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on August 30, 2017, 07:47:18 PM
Happy Birthday Miku-Chan~♥
August 31st 2017 marks the 10th anniversary of the release of the Vocaloid Hatsune Miku! (Yeah, it's really been that long) Some of you are probably already familiar with this cover as I've posted it here in this forum first, I took a pretty long time to post it to YouTube because I had other plans for it, I was gonna make an animation featuring a certain idol character who is relevant to the PC engine dancing to this tune with some of her many many friends... I didn't get very far in it because real life happens, and Miku's 10th anniversary was fast approaching and I felt that I needed to do something to commemorate it! (I still haven't forgiven myself about not having commemorated Suzumiya Haruhi's 10 years, I just couldn't let it happen again to something that's this important to me)
So I've decided to post the song to YouTube with footage of the original dance recorded from the 2nd PSP game in order to commemorate the occasion, as well as make some art of Miku having her birthday cake~ (You can see it here in its full glory if you're interested: http://fav.me/dbliypg)
I realise that most of you probably don't care much for this girly weeb s***, but this is the thread where I post my music covers, and I'm posting a cover right now...
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Necromancer on August 31, 2017, 03:17:05 AM
Anyone that doesn't smile at a cute girl dancing to sweet Turbob chip tunes can kiss my ass.
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: xelement5x on August 31, 2017, 05:53:44 AM
I'm glad you posted it, there is plenty of Miku activity going on right now from other folks I know.
Happy Mikuversary!
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: esteban on September 01, 2017, 04:27:48 AM
I had no idea about what the f*ck a "vocaloid" was until my daughter explained it to me in the not-too-distant past.
... ... ...
However, since this is PCE-related, I am interested in it.
Because PCE.
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on September 01, 2017, 04:56:04 PM
I had no idea about what the f*ck a "vocaloid" was until my daughter explained it to me in the not-too-distant past.
... ... ...
However, since this is PCE-related, I am interested in it.
Because PCE.
Weirdly enough, this cover of a 2008 Electronic J-Pop song has already garnered more attention than the Final Fight 3 cover I did, and much faster to boot, in a retro-gaming forum... Now that's something I didn't expect...
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: esteban on September 01, 2017, 07:08:32 PM
I had no idea about what the f*ck a "vocaloid" was until my daughter explained it to me in the not-too-distant past.
... ... ...
However, since this is PCE-related, I am interested in it.
Because PCE.
Weirdly enough, this cover of a 2008 Electronic J-Pop song has already garnered more attention than the Final Fight 3 cover I did, and much faster to boot, in a retro-gaming forum... Now that's something I didn't expect...
Exactly: it's surprising what gains "traction" or is "popular" and finds an audience quickly.
I guess there aren't enough Final Fight fans to compete with The Vocaloids...which makes sense, I guess?
:)
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on September 02, 2017, 03:31:30 PM
Another cover from Super Adventure Island II, I think this is one of the more famous songs from the game, and rightfully so because it's AMAZING! Unfortunately the SNES-to-PCE conversion wasn't as smooth this time around because this song uses ALL 8 CHANNELS on the SNES! That certainly doesn't help... I've tried my best to preserve as much of the original's integrity with this cover, but you tell me whether or not I did a good job...
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Black Tiger on September 02, 2017, 05:00:37 PM
I'm not familiar with the original version, as I'm not a fan of the SAI games, but you did a hell of a job with the sound and without checking the SNES version, the composition/performance sounds great.
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: esteban on September 02, 2017, 10:34:29 PM
Excellent song choice!
PCE is not insulting the greatness of this song, but building on its legacy.
SAI PCE II
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on September 03, 2017, 06:17:29 AM
I'm not familiar with the original version, as I'm not a fan of the SAI games, but you did a hell of a job with the sound and without checking the SNES version, the composition/performance sounds great.
I've covered this beautiful song from Ys 1 which unfortunately went unused until the later remakes... I hope you like it ^^
I didn't know the history of this song (being neglected initially and then finding some love)... but what really intrigued me was this bit (from TubeYou description):
Quote
However this is not my favourite version of this theme, that would be the DS version! Legacy of Ys books 1 and 2 is probably the worst version of Ys 1 and 2 in almost every way, but it does shine on the sound department, that version sucks but it somehow manages to have my favourite version of Ys 1 and 2's soundtracks, beating out even the CD quality TurboGrafx-CD versions and the FM-tastic PC-88 originals!
Now I must go and listen to these other versions of the song (especially the DS version, of course).
I remember being overwhelmed many moons ago (when I found out that Falcom was still in business) with the number of commercial "arrangements" that were available... you can imagine how I feel now that a billion additional remakes/updates/versions of Ys have been released in the past 15 years.
Nonetheless, I gotta listen to all these goddamn PSP and DS and GBA and XaviX soundtracks that I've ignored for so long...
...but there are so damn many... <--a good problem
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: turboswimbz on September 22, 2017, 04:19:39 AM
Your ear for music and these songs once again has me amazed. A very nice retrograde conversion of the song.
Elaborating on the you tuber comments of Esteban,
I have found the best soundtrack version to be the Complete version on steam which lets you switch between the updated and 88 soundtrack. However the more I really listen to the DS versions I really like them.
And yeah that DS version of departure is the best:
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on September 22, 2017, 04:34:51 AM
I've covered this beautiful song from Ys 1 which unfortunately went unused until the later remakes... I hope you like it ^^
I didn't know the history of this song (being neglected initially and then finding some love)... but what really intrigued me was this bit (from TubeYou description):
Quote
However this is not my favourite version of this theme, that would be the DS version! Legacy of Ys books 1 and 2 is probably the worst version of Ys 1 and 2 in almost every way, but it does shine on the sound department, that version sucks but it somehow manages to have my favourite version of Ys 1 and 2's soundtracks, beating out even the CD quality TurboGrafx-CD versions and the FM-tastic PC-88 originals!
Now I must go and listen to these other versions of the song (especially the DS version, of course).
I remember being overwhelmed many moons ago (when I found out that Falcom was still in business) with the number of commercial "arrangements" that were available... you can imagine how I feel now that a billion additional remakes/updates/versions of Ys have been released in the past 15 years.
Nonetheless, I gotta listen to all these goddamn PSP and DS and GBA and XaviX soundtracks that I've ignored for so long...
...but there are so damn many... <--a good problem
Umm, I don't think Ys was on GBA at all... Missed opportunity if you ask me >w>'; The PSP version has 3 soundtracks, 2 of them are from the PC versions from 2001 and 2009, and the 3rd (my favourite of the 3) is the PC-88 original...
As for the DS, believe you or not, there are TWO DS versions of the Ys 1 & 2 soundtracks, there's one which I believe to be from a CD, which doesn't exactly sound like what you hear in the game, and then there's the in-game versions, which is the one I'm referring to when I say "The DS version of the soundtrack is my favourite" The version turboswimbz posted is the proper in-game version!
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Black Tiger on September 22, 2017, 04:44:25 AM
Sounds great! :)
What I'd love to hear is the ending music of Ys 1 that wasn't included in I & II PCE.
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on September 22, 2017, 05:15:15 AM
What I'd love to hear is the ending music of Ys 1 that wasn't included in I & II PCE.
Thanks ^^
That song is nice, but if I cover it I'll probably base it on the PC-88 version...
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on September 24, 2017, 03:05:17 PM
I wonder how much attention a cover from an old and not-very-good Dragon Ball Z fighting game is going to garner in this forum... Not a lot I imagine... We'll see!
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: esteban on September 24, 2017, 05:12:30 PM
Even though I have never watched Dragon BallZ, I think it has a ridiculously tremendous fan base.
Also, don't forget: Dragon. Ball. Z.
See?
Clearly, a YUUGE AUDIENCE awaits you...
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on September 24, 2017, 06:21:55 PM
On YouTube? Yeah maybe... On this forum in particular? I'm unsure about that... I mean, I know there are a lot of anime fans over here, but from what I've read in other threads, you guys seem to be more into the 80s stuff, and even though this is also an 80s show, it only got localised into English in the late 90s, so it was us millennials who got to grow up with it... And that's because this is a cover from a game adaptation which was only released in Japan and France, and the game itself was not that great >w>'; The music is pretty damn good though! I mean, I wouldn't have covered it if it wasn't ;3
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on October 01, 2017, 06:49:16 PM
Who's ready for some Spriggan music? ;3
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: turboswimbz on October 02, 2017, 01:48:17 AM
AHhh this one is beautifully done. :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:
I really do enjoy the SNES like sound
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: xelement5x on October 02, 2017, 05:36:10 AM
I agree, very well done. We've been getting some awesome covers recently, keep up the good work!
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on October 02, 2017, 07:50:35 AM
I agree, very well done. We've been getting some awesome covers recently, keep up the good work!
Thank you very much ^^
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on October 04, 2017, 07:24:00 AM
Have you ever heard a Game Boy song and thought: "This belongs on the PC engine"? To me, this is one of them, so I did the sensible thing and covered it on the PCE ;3
I normally cover songs from systems that have more channels than the PCE, so I'm always juggling what to keep in and what to leave out, even if I often manage to keep everything in and even leave room for delay/reverb, but since this time I've covered a song from a system with less channels than the PCE I was able to not just keep everything in, but also take a few creative liberties and add some stuff in, like for example, power-chording the sawtooth leads and having detuned reverb throughout the entire track!
I hope you like it ^^
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: turboswimbz on October 04, 2017, 07:47:11 AM
Sounds Very Nintendo .
I enjoy your take on this. I had to go back and listen to the original. I really like that you didn't just copy pasta and tried to interpret it in a new way while sticking close enough to the original.
I give it 8.8 out of 10 swimby points. (swimby points redeemable only at the swimby store)
P.S. I actually quite like some the 90's and newer Anime series. :wink: the 80's one have some stuff I really like.
AS for that DBZ cover... Damn I love the classical influences...wonder how well a classical like score would sound on the SNES. :-({|= :-k
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Necromancer on October 04, 2017, 08:05:18 AM
Very nice. It's so far improved that I'd never have guessed it was based on a GB game.
AS for that DBZ cover... Damn I love the classical influences...wonder how well a classical like score would sound on the SNES. :-({|= :-k
It would probably sound great! The Dragon Quest soundtracks on the SNES are probably the closest things I know to classical soundtracks on the SNES, and they're amazing!
Have you ever heard a Game Boy song and thought: "This belongs on the PC engine"?
Yeah, Tetris..... but someone pooped on the idea. :(
Tetris would definitely sound nice on the PCE, but when I asked that the kinds of songs I had in mind were the ones which take more advantage of the GB soundchip and make good use of the DAC channel, like this soundtrack does!
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: turboswimbz on October 04, 2017, 08:29:40 AM
It was meant as such. as you know I highly enjoy the SNES and GB sounds. (the N64 and some of the latter systems are not so great in the sound departments.)
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: ParanoiaDragon on October 04, 2017, 07:21:55 PM
Actually, the entirety of the GBA version of Mega Man & Bass sounds a lot like the Turbo. I wouldn't mind hearing some PCE renditions of some of those songs!
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on October 05, 2017, 02:57:39 PM
(the N64 and some of the latter systems are not so great in the sound departments.)
You know, I feel that consoles lost their sound-identity on the 5th generation, when everyone moved on to CDs and Hi-Fi samplers with way more channels than they'd ever need... It was in that generation that consoles started all sounding pretty much the same...
I mean, if you're savvy enough and you hear an NES song, a SNES song, a PCE song, a Mega Drive one and/or a Game Boy one, among others, you can tell just by listening to them what system they're from, even if you've never played the game! These older more limited systems all had their own unique sound which was tangibly different form one-another... That's one of the big reasons why I'm such a big fan of the GBA sound, it was pretty much the last game system which had its own sound-identity, if you hear a GBA song you KNOW it's a GBA song, because seriously, what other game system mixes bit-crushed samples with GB chiptunes? None! And when used correctly, this kind of sound can be absolutely delightful~
Actually, the entirety of the GBA version of Mega Man & Bass sounds a lot like the Turbo. I wouldn't mind hearing some PCE renditions of some of those songs!
And speaking of GBA sound, one thing I don't really like on the system is when devs get lazy and don't even take advantage of the GBA's sampler capabilities, you know, when they just make their entire soundtracks using only the GB soundchip which the GBA carried over for backwards compatibility, and use the direct sound only to play sound effects... That was very much the case with Capcom on the GBA, a lot of their games just sounded like original GB games with MAYBE some sampled drums...
I've played Mega Man & Bass on the GBA, but I haven't gone very far in it, and I don't really remember its soundtrack, but I'll give it a listen sooner or later, if it's good I might consider covering something from it, but don't quote me on that...
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: ParanoiaDragon on October 05, 2017, 07:05:18 PM
I won't hold you to it. Another soundtrack that I love, that most people complain about, is Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance. That also has more of a PCE sound to it, some great tunes in that game! Quite frankly, the Turbo can probably do a much better job at the Harmony of Dissonance tunes.
From Mega Man & Bass, one's I'd love to hear Turbo-ized are:
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: turboswimbz on October 06, 2017, 02:05:40 AM
That's actually a good point. I think from that early 2k's on, sound in general has suffered quite a bit. Everyone takes for granted the music quality CD's, DVD,s and now digital formats have given us, as well as the speaker and sound technology in Cars, TVs and other devices. We've feel in love with mobile phones and computers which do sound poorly, and so everyone has gotten kinda lazy. Sound isn't used nearly as effectively in any medium IMO including movies these days and it's a shame. Some great music, TV, Movie, and Game sound still exist don't get me wrong but as a whole I feel like it's a real step down. I rarely feel emotion from sound these days.
Getting back on point though a bit. Sound was just a small part that made 4th generation and earlier consoles different and appealing to me. The experience of a Genesis is different from a SNES is different from the personal computers, even though they contained many of the same games and styles. I think music had a lot to do with that. Today a game on steam feels too similar to a PS4 game to me. There is no variety, there is no reason (for me at least) to own a PS4 over a computer or Wii or Xbox. (save maybe a few exclusives).
sorry That was a long post but, ehhh I stand by it. Just my 2 cents.
P.S. Those Castlevania tracks would be awesome PCE-ized.
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on October 06, 2017, 02:54:52 PM
Gotta give it to you ParanoiaDragon, the Megaman & Bass soundtrack is quite a bit better than I remembered ^^ And the Harmony of Dissonance soundtrack isn't bad, it's rather solid composition-wise, it's just that the instruments they've used are mostly sampled from simple waveforms, you know, a type of sound the Turbo can easily reproduce, except they're not very high-quality samples... To be fair though, they're clearly using more channels on HoD's soundtrack than the Turbo has to offer...
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: ParanoiaDragon on October 07, 2017, 08:03:32 PM
Thanks, yeah, I prefer the music in the GBA version of Mega Man & Bass rather than the SNES version.
Harmony of Dissonance does sound like it uses more instruments, though, that makes me think of Impossamole, which also seemed to use more instruments somehow. I don't know if whoever did the music on that one somehow overlapped multiple sounds on one channel or what, or maybe it's just my imagination.
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on October 08, 2017, 08:07:12 AM
Harmony of Dissonance does sound like it uses more instruments, though, that makes me think of Impossamole, which also seemed to use more instruments somehow. I don't know if whoever did the music on that one somehow overlapped multiple sounds on one channel or what, or maybe it's just my imagination.
There are a few tricks to cram more than one "instrument" on a single channel, for example, you can take two different waveforms, half their heights and add the results together, the resulting waveform would be those two waveforms playing the same note together on the same channel at half the volume, but that of course means that they'll also be tuned the same and have the same pan and volume envelope, so they won't exactly sound like two instruments... But that's not all you can do, if you also half the length of one of the waveforms and repeat it you can have the two waveforms playing at an octave apart! Granted, that also means that it will be playing at half the sample rate, but still...
This is better explained in this image I've made a long time ago: (https://orig00.deviantart.net/9553/f/2016/143/4/2/adding_waves_together_by_michiharuruko-da3l2xj.png) (H stands for Height and L for Length)
And here's an example of me using this trick to put 2 square waves on the same channel and changing the octave of one of them by changing the waveform: https://orig00.deviantart.net/ad66/f/2017/281/1/7/2_octaves_in_1_channel_by_michirin9801-dbpxmmz.wav
This can be pretty useful if you need two notes an octave apart... It will never sound as good as just putting two instruments an octave apart on two different channels, but since extra channels are at a premium on the PC engine... I think you get the idea...
And no this trick will not do chords, notes can only be offset by an octave, if you want to put a chord on a single channel you'll have to resort to either arpeggios or samples, but I generally dislike arpeggios and samples take up too much CPU time and memory, but speaking of samples, that's another way of playing two instruments on the same channel!
A sample can be basically anything you can fit within the available memory, and Sunsoft's Batman has proved two things on the PCE, that you can loop samples, and that if you use too many samples at once, making an interesting game is barely feasible, (at least at the time and with their code)
So, if you're gonna do sampled percussion for example, you can have not just a sample for each of the drums, hats and cymbals, but also some samples for drums and hats/cymbals playing together, which takes up more memory, but is very much doable! Here's the thing though, the most CPU-friendly frequencies for PCM samples are 7KHz and 16KHz, and hats and cymbals sound rubbish at 7KHz, so most of the games that use sampled drums at 7KHz either don't have hats or do them with white noise, which you can't play together with a sample... I reckon a lot of them do have sampled crashes though... So if you're gonna do them, do them at 16KHz, and pray that the coder doesn't mind having half the CPU time to code the rest of the game >w>';
You could also have sampled chords, but you'd need a different sample not only for the different chord notes, but for the different types of chords, so if you were to do it that way, your compositions would have to be highly pre-meditated...
I'm sure there are more ways to fiddle around with samples, I mean, there's some software-mixing tricks that I'm not gonna get into because I'm not a coder, I'm just an artist, but going back to the wavetable synth now, another trick you can do to fit more than one instrument on the same channel is simply clever timing of the instruments! Basically, you're not gonna play two instruments on the same channel at the same time, but the channel will indeed play two instruments, and alternate between the two at key times, I like to use this trick to do reverb on a single channel, but that only works when I'm playing a lot of notes in quick succession, I can pick the time halfway in between two of the notes to reverberate the note previous to the last one by playing it again at a lower volume and panned differently, like this: https://orig00.deviantart.net/cbdd/f/2017/281/5/2/1_channel_reverb_by_michirin9801-dbpxtcg.wav
I've also used a bit of a more extreme version of this trick in my Hatsune Miku Po Pi Po cover, that song has an instrument that updates at 480Hz as opposed to the usual 60Hz, which is the Kick, but here's the thing, that Kick is playing on the same channel as the Bass! The way I did is is that for 16 480Hz ticks (2 60Hz ticks) an overdriven sine wave will play and lower its pitch by 4 notes on every 480Hz tick, and on the very next tick after that it switches to the bass if the bass is playing, and switches off the channel if the bass is not playing... Here's a little sample of it: https://orig00.deviantart.net/bda9/f/2017/281/9/8/po_pi_po_channel_1_by_michirin9801-dbpxuqu.mp3
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: turboswimbz on October 08, 2017, 09:58:42 AM
thanks, Mich. for this wonderful look into the some of the process you go through with limited channels and such. I appreciate the chance to see it and have it explained a bit.
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on November 02, 2017, 02:56:08 PM
Thought I was done covering music from Valkyrie the Power Beauties? Well think again!
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: turboswimbz on November 03, 2017, 09:11:35 AM
It's very nice, Not my cup of tea but I appreciate it none the less.
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on November 03, 2017, 06:58:39 PM
It's very nice, Not my cup of tea but I appreciate it none the less.
Oh don't worry, there will be more in the future, with varying styles, so there's bound to be something that you'll like better ^^
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on November 04, 2017, 03:08:45 PM
Another soundtrack that I'll probably never stop covering is Carat Magical Blocks for the PC-98! I just REALLY LOVE these songs, they're so cheery and happy-go-lucky, just the way I like it ^^
I hope you like this cover as much as I liked making it ;3
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: turboswimbz on November 05, 2017, 02:20:54 AM
Excellent, So energetic!!!
This is another one that reminds me of the upbeat mix up of PCE/SNES sounds of my childhood. Not quite as vibrant as the 98 version (man those 88-89 games had some very cleverly done chiptunes) but amazingly done in the same vein. I quite like the background bits in this version.
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on November 19, 2017, 05:38:02 PM
"Michirin covered a song from a mainstream game? What gives?!?!" Yeah, I just felt like it you know? It's a good song, and I felt I could do it justice on the PCE... Whether or not I've managed to is up to you...
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on November 26, 2017, 03:35:37 PM
New cover from an old favourite, hope you like it!
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: ParanoiaDragon on November 26, 2017, 05:12:58 PM
Wow, love it! I also enjoyed Boomer Kuwanger, but my reply to it must've not gone thru for some reason.
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: turboswimbz on November 27, 2017, 07:53:55 AM
Really cool. I like it quite a bit.
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on December 09, 2017, 08:50:04 AM
Here's a song I've covered from a SNES fighting game that's a bit of a 'hidden gem' if you will... I hope you like it!
Also, glad you like my songs turboswimbz and ParanoiaDragon ^^
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: esteban on December 09, 2017, 10:37:43 PM
The opening tune (Cyberblock Metal Orange) is my fave, I think.
But the Bomberman 5 (SNES) track remains catchy as hell.
So many great songs....
Thank you very much ^^ Glad you guys like my covers!
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on December 24, 2017, 06:54:24 AM
I hope you like this! Merry Christmas!
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on December 25, 2017, 05:18:22 AM
In order to commemorate the release of the Super Mario Land 2 DX Colour romhack, which you can check out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykXVUJ3tBuY I took it upon myself to covering one of my favourite songs from the game on the PC engine! I hope you like it ^^
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Michirin9801 on December 29, 2017, 09:13:20 AM
Here's some more Miku music on the PC engine, enjoy!
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: Gredler on January 12, 2018, 11:45:43 AM
Lesteban gifted me your album on BandCamp today - thanks sir! Great tunes, fun to listen to - great job!
Title: Re: Michirin's PCE Music Thread
Post by: roflmao on January 12, 2018, 02:00:33 PM
I am a huge fan of your work. I picked up your best of vol. 1 about a year ago along with Cybertech Custom Covers and just now picked up Vol. 2. Your music gets a ton use in the car and at work. :)