Dermot's chiptune covers

[Dermot]

Sky Yoshi: Yes, so many. ^__^_^^_^__^_^^_^__^ Isn't it great? :D

Dr. Merio: I have two covers left to post. But yeah...what with often lacking common sense, I guess I'm a little awkward at this whole thing, posting one cover per post, but I guess I enjoy laying out a buffet. (I guess it would have been a lot worse if I were posting a unique thread for every one, right?) Maybe I'll post the last two later or something. I probably need some sleep anyway.

[Dermot]

This was quite the exercise in VRC6 channel cramming. I stuck the least critical instruments of the song in the triangle wave and the sawtooth. Also, remember the not-so-portable Sunsoft-bass-style DPCM timpani I made for my Space Armada cover? I made a more complete, more portable DPCM timpani for the cover of this song. All in all, this song was hell to volume balance.

I have been noticing something about DPCM. When the frequency register is anything below 15, the sample lowers in pitch, but it also gives a just-audible hiss as the sample ends. Does anyone know how to reduce this effect? Or is it just part of the beast?

Download: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/109 ... %20NSF.zip

(EDIT: Updated to reduce the echo problem.)

[Dermot]

I promise, this is my most recent cover. My next chiptunes are not done yet. There are also chiptunes I didn't share here, but that was intentional because I no longer think they sound good enough to share as-is.

The Veldt is extremely heavy on mixed percussion. Kind of a nightmare to contemplate at first. Then I realized a fairly elegant solution: Take the part of the percussion that repeats constantly without variation, and make a DPCM drum loop out of it. DPCM samples can only be so long, so I made four samples, and play them repeatedly in A B C D A B C D sequence. There isn't supposed to be a single moment in this cover where a DPCM sample is not playing.

Download: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/109 ... %20NSF.zip

(EDIT: Did a major overhaul. I added an additional bass voice to help make it sound fuller, and I streamlined instrument fades, and I fixed some errors - you know what they say about finishing a project too fast.)

[Shywolf]

I have been noticing something about DPCM. When the frequency register is anything below 15, the sample lowers in pitch, but it also gives a just-audible hiss as the sample ends. Does anyone know how to reduce this effect? Or is it just part of the beast?

This is what happens when the DPCM plays silent (and/or near-silent) parts of samples at lower pitch settings. There's a technical explanation for it, but I don't really know it. Anyways, you can reduce the effect by deleting your samples' silence in the editor. E.g.:

trimthis.png (76.76 KiB) Viewed 1071 times

I needed to trim slightly more than that^ to remove the hiss, but you get the idea.

Nice cover btw.

[Dermot]

Shywolf: Thank you. I see. Very good to know. :) I'll keep that in mind.

[Sky Yoshi]

Dermot >> Uh... that's Ok but...

[Dermot]

Sky Yoshi: Too many to listen to?

[Sky Yoshi]

Dermont >> Yup! it's good but... it's too... I mean... AGH! I hate these English!

[kfaraday]

oh wow! that ronald's theme transcription is spot on lol

[Dermot]

Sky Yoshi: I'm sorry. Would it be better to put them all in one .zip file?

kfaraday: Thank you! ^_^ I did that because it was the catchiest chiptune I'd ever heard. Besides that and the Battletoads GB complete soundtrack, I've done other replica covers too, but haven't posted them here yet. I will now.

Ice Hockey (1988 North America) (replica): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/109 ... %20NSF.zip
Metroid - Escape (replica): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/109 ... %20NSF.zip
Metroid - Norfair (replica): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/109 ... %20NSF.zip