Methods of Music Reproduction

NewRisingSUn

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Methods of Music Reproduction

« Reply #40 on: March 13, 2006, 11:29:14 PM »

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What??

No need to get upset....

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Do you mean that a pulse wave is proprietary or exclusive of "dance hardcore" music and useless for anything else?

I'm not arguing against pulse waves in general, but against the musical usefulness of having 4096 steps. I asked you, and you replied with "ravy leads" (Rave = softer Techno) and "Techno basses", so naturally, that's what I responded to.

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And it's clearly better to have a real-time, 4096-step variable width pulse which can also be filtered, ring-modulated, etc. than 3 or 4 fixed width square waves.

Well, that's what I asked about: better for what? You're merely repeating the assertion. But let's see your recent examples:

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or instance, two of the most famous C64 tunes, the Ocean loader by Martin Galway and International Karate by Rob Hubbard make intensive use of evolving & filtered pulse waves and they aren't "hardcore techno" at all.

Ok, the "Ocean Loader" is not "hardcode techno", but more like some Eurodance piece. Reminds me of "Blümchen".

"International Karate" is not Techno, granted, in fact, I have no words for those arpeggios at all, because they make my ears bleed.

Ghouls 'n' Ghouls's music does sound nice, probably because it closely resembles NES music in style, although the instruments are even a little softer, which is nice; I guess it uses 3xtriangle for many pieces. Song 2 in particular sounds like "The Immortal" on the NES, at least at the beginning, until those silly arpeggios start kicking in again. I'm not going to comment on the sound effects, since they can always be reproduced in PCM on the NES.

But thanks for the pointer; now I already got two SIDs I actually like (out of maybe 500 I listened to) --- Donald Duck's Playground, and Ghouls 'n' Ghosts. Cheesy


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shad0wfax

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Methods of Music Reproduction

« Reply #41 on: March 14, 2006, 08:28:08 AM »

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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quote:
What??
No need to get upset....

That's an exclamation of surprise, not of anger of anything

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Obviously, those are examples of good applications of the wave. But they aren't the only ones, neither those sounds are only suitable for hard techno. You can use hard leads or techno basses in pop music, funk, electro and many more.

But this is a less imporant point. The central issue is the musical usefulness of that feature. My answer would be simply: musical expression. The possibility of changing and modulating the widht of the pulse wave in real time adds a great possiblity for making dynamic and evolving sounds, and hence adding more musical expression. And expression is one of the main features everybody is looking in musical instruments. I know of nobody who complaints, for instance, of a piano for changing its timbre when played softly or hardly, or anyone who rejects a synth for having a TVF or a TVA. The more possibilities, the more flexibility and expression. A variable width square can do everything a fixed-width square can do, but also a lot more. And I'm speaking also in musical terms.

Of course, it's OK if you don't like the sound character of the SID or if you prefer the tone of the NES' sound chip; or if you don't like the fake chords many songs use (to obtain a chord using a single voice and hence to make the most of SID's three channels), but that's not a reason against the SID itself.

Finally, I have a doubt that I'd like you to answer: Does the NES' sound chip have envelope generators (something like the 4-stage ADSR TVA's of the SID)?

EDIT:

Here there are some examples of good use of dynamic/evolving sounds:

Gauntlet III (Tim & Geoff Follin), Compleeto! (Anders Andréen), Cybernoid (Jeroen Tel), Chordian (Jens-Christian Huus), DNA Warrior ( Thomas Petersen), Eliminator (Jeroen Tel; track 2 is a version of Mike Alsop's Gyroscope), Zamzara (Charles Deenen), and Sys4096 (Techno!!!). Also, good examples of SID's PCM capabilities are BMX Kidz (Rob Hubbard) or Savage (Jeroen Tel).


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Laust

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Methods of Music Reproduction

« Reply #42 on: March 14, 2006, 01:33:20 PM »

Remember, emulated SID doesn't always do the real thing justice. These are real recordings

Also, to help illustrate the difference between the old SID (6581) and the revised version (8580), here are two recordings which have the tune playing on a 6581 in the left channel and a 8580 in the right one. (Nice voice effect on Strobosphere as well - no samples):

http://gallium.prg.dtu.dk/~lbn/qssids/Agemixer_-_Strobosphere2_6581r4L_8580R.ogg
http://gallium.prg.dtu.dk/~lbn/qssids/Dane_-_400_6581L_8580R.ogg

The effect can be quite mesmerising and is excellent as "pseudostereo".

And finally, maybe this is more in line with this forum (or close enough!)


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NewRisingSUn

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Methods of Music Reproduction

« Reply #43 on: March 14, 2006, 04:44:24 PM »

Yikes.

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Of course, it's OK if you don't like the sound character of the SID or if you prefer the tone of the NES' sound chip

I guess it's a combination of both. First, it always seems to me that the SID sounds rather thin; it's very rare that a tune delivers the same kind of "punch" that the NES easily gives. Second: it seems that the SID's possibilities result in a certain composing style, one that I don't like. You're right --- I absolutely loathe those fake arpeggio-chords; when people like Jeroen Tel do them on the NES, I don't like them either. Notice how Japanese composers never use them.

While those distortion and filters and stuff might be "musically expressive", I find they add to the perception of "electronic sound" --- to me, it's easier to get a "suspension of disbelief" from the "pure" waves of the NES. Of course, the 2A03 also sounds electronic, but I never have that immediate association of "techno/disco" that I have when listening to SID music. I think the most obvious example of this is "Commando" for the C64. While the NES version can be seen as an cheap imitation of military marching music, the SID unequivocally sounds like some electronic remix.

And of course, two additional sound channels. I especially like the NES' DPCM channel, because that one can create a lot of "punch". C-64 bass drum samples may sound nice, but they never sound really "bassy" to me. Not on SIDPlay2, and not on those real recordings.

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Does the NES' sound chip have envelope generators (something like the 4-stage ADSR TVA's of the SID)?

Gee, I don't know, because I've never programmed the NES myself. Looking at the documentation, it seems to have a simple envelope decay unit. While there are games that use complex envelopes, maybe they're doing them manually by just writing to the volume register. But the NES has a sweep unit, which creates nice sound effects.

Maybe it's just the hype around the SID that makes me rather unappreciative of it.


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shad0wfax

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Methods of Music Reproduction

« Reply #44 on: March 14, 2006, 08:44:01 PM »

There's a very good article about the SID in the Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology_SID

This article explains very well the reasons why the SID was the better computer sound chip of its time. Basically, while all the others were only devices capable of producing sound, the SID was a real synthesizer inside a chip (and arguably the best computer sound chip until the release of Paula, the Amiga's sound chip, in 1985).

There are also very interesting facts explained in this article. For instance, the original 6581 was developed by Bob Yannes (who later founded the Ensoniq company) in a very short period (about 4 months), so the actual specs of the chip were quite different from the theoretical ones, explained on the manual. Among other quite weird things, the original SID chip produced an audible 'click' sound whenever the volume level was changed, due to a design flaw. When changing volume levels very quickly, this flaw could be used to play 4-bit PCM sampled sound (because the SID has 16 volume levels), hence creating the SID's "fourth voice", which is used to play PCM samples. This "bug" was corrected in the new 8580 SID chip, hence making sampled sound almost inaudible in the new chip.

In sum, the 8580 was a "corrected" version of the SID in order to match its theoretical specs. While achieving this, most musicians prefer the old SID because of its more dirty and distorted sound (suitable to make emulations of distorted guitars) and the PCM capability.


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Cloudschatze

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Methods of Music Reproduction

« Reply #45 on: April 11, 2006, 06:43:20 PM »

Quote from: Laust

Can anyone actually provide proof that the Innovation card made it past the concept stage?

How's this?

Or this?

(I actually tracked down, and called Jon. Unfortunately, he didn't have the card any longer. Go figure. Wink

)


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Laust

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Methods of Music Reproduction

« Reply #46 on: April 11, 2006, 10:08:07 PM »

Nice to have it confirmed... So where's the landfill or warehouse with the rest?


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Cloudschatze

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Methods of Music Reproduction

« Reply #47 on: April 11, 2006, 11:53:21 PM »

Quote from: Laust

Nice to have it confirmed... So where's the landfill or warehouse with the rest?

Funny you should mention that...


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