"I'm excited to share this! Oh, in case you couldn't tell: the tune plays twice and then fades out. I wrote a detailed description about the process behind creating this tune, but it exceeded the allowed amount of characters in a YouTube description. So here's a pastebin: https://pastebin.com/vhfbn3zj To download this tune: http://bit.ly/MaxYMiser607 It can be played on Atari ST using SND Player, or on Windows using JAM. Be the first to give the correct answer in the comments to earn 7 CP (http://folk.simpsite.nl/cp): how many samples are used in this song?" https://youtu.be/vrBx-s7KhJQ And as I do have enough characters here, here's the intended description. First, the backstory. Shortly before the start of this academic year, my housemate was leaving for a world trip. He wouldn't be back in a while, so we had found a date to say goodbye. After we went out for dinner, I let him hear my then just released composition: Concrete Inspiration. He found it interesting, but missed the story. I just made whatever sounded nice, and didn't have anything in mind it should be about. I don't mind this, as I think music doesn't necessarily need a story. I think most Amiga and Atari demo tunes don't have one, but are made just to sound cool. However, I thought it might certainly add something! I then got the idea of making a series of MaxYMiser tunes based on video game environments. I have done two before: Back to Nature and Cave of Wonders. I made these for a game Haiko was making back then and still enjoy listening to them from time to time. For these I used a lot of recorded samples. I wanted to use environmental samples for this project too! It would be a lot more difficult, though, as the Atari wasn't made to play PCM samples. Nevertheless, MaxYMiser's got quite some support for it. I started out by looking for uncopyrighted bird sounds I could use. It was a bit of a challenge, but I did find some! Two of these are from the same clip, and the third is a different bird. I could have gotten a few more, but I thought three would be enough, and easier to work with. In the end, some people find that the birds get annoying after a while, but I still quite like them. :) After feedback from my mother I tried making the birds be in sync with the music more, and that improved it. I also used the samples in creative ways a couple of times. ;) At first I had an issue with the bird samples: when one played, a 'pbt!' sound would sound at the start. :P I tried to get rid of it by mastering the samples differently in Audacity, but to no avail. I then e-mailed gwEm, and he helped me out: I could edit the starting place of the sample in MaxYMiser itself. That worked, I could cut off the 'pbt'. :) Finding a good djembé sound wasn't as easy as expected, but not too hard either. When I had one, I decided to play it on 3 fixed frequencies, and play around with that. If you pay attention to the rhythms, you'll notice that not a single djembé pattern repeats throughout the song! I thought it would be more realistic if I kept making up new rhythms, to resemble improvisation. At the very end, when I had already listened to the tune on my physical Atari, I decided to increase the volume of the djembé sample a bit, as even if I'd pay attention it would be hard to hear it, during most parts of the song. Now you certainly can, but it's not so loud that it distracts from the melody. The main structure of the song is inspired by the theme. So yes: the 'story' was very helpful here! It starts out as 'a plain new day', with the pad starting out on its own and then doing some harmonies. Then, however, the fun gets going: this plain is almost as lively as a jungle! For the main melody, I wanted to make use of something I had heard about in a video by 8-bit Music Theory: a repeated phrase getting shorter. To make up the phrase itself, I used my piano, and found out this fun and flexible melody. I made some variations, and tried the idea of making notes glide down instead of holding straight: this makes the song sound a bit goofy, but playful, and that fits the vibe I wanted to create. When I had first made the repeating phrase getting shorter thing I thought it sounded a bit strange. However, when I had forgot about the original phrase a little, and listened to it again, it actually sounded quite natural! When I let my new housemate (the other's younger brother) hear it, he didn't even notice the technique until I pointed it out, and even then it sounded so natural that he didn't quite grasp it (I'd probably need to note (hah) it down). After this, I wanted a bridge, but only the djembé rhythm came naturally. At this point I paused work on the tune, and got busy with university. When I picked it up again I analysed the existing bass and second channel patterns to make up something new in the same spirit. I also decided to make a new bass sound, to set it apart more. This utilises the buzzer, which meant I could not lower its volume. Because it was too obtrusive otherwise I made it a very short stab, and I think that works out. I made something up for the third channel, as I didn't want to have a lead melody here. However, what I came up with was too dark for my theme, and this is when the story helped me for the second time. I considered the theme of a bright grassland with birds and got the idea of a high-pitched sustained arpeggio. It turned out to be a very good addition! Another thing I struggled with was making the tune sound happy, while still having a bit of tension: I wanted some of those B's in there at the end of the first half, before resolving. After the short bridge I decided to throw the entire melody in again, because I thought it fit, and repetition is good. I think that, especially for video game music, I tend to make too little use of repetition. I kept channel 2 the same as well, but decided to mix up the bass. I think the bass melody isn't quite as good as the first time, but it's interesting, and it's cute that it is the only YM channel that dares to try something different. After this repeat, I decided to round off the song by going back to the slow speed used at the start. I got the idea to use chords, and sure enough, they worked great with the instrument I'd made. I have fairly little knowledge of or experience with chords, but I could make up these simple ones. ;) I actually made the last four first, and then decided that should be the very end, and made the four just before that, that resolve back to the start instead of to the end. I'm really happy with how this sounds. :) Because this is intended to be a video game tune, it was important to me that it looped well. I think it does. The only thing I'm unsure about is that at the end the first bird sample is played twice, which is the case at the start as well, making it be played four times in a row. However, I also thought it was nice to end in this way, and certainly to start in this way. So hopefully it's fine. :) Lastly: the drawing. I've written enough, and the music is always the focus, so I'll keep this short. ;) My brother Folk helped me a little at the start, but I did most of it on my own. When I was done, I had a nice scene, but a lot of emptyness in the middle, which didn't look nice. I realised that I should put a bird there. However, I didn't think I could draw a bird. But my cousin Skimuilo was over, and I decided that we should try together, if we could find a nice example of a bird on Google. We did! I did the drawing, of course, but he helped in several ways: he gave suggestions, he corrected small mistakes and, most importantly, he motivated me to keep going. If he wouldn't have been with me I probably would have given up after the head, as I thought the body would be too difficult. :P But didn't it turn out great? :D
"Here's the second tune of my Environments series! The tune plays twice, and then fades out. This was quite a tricky one to make! I wasn't content with the main melody at first, but it managed to grow on me in the context of the larger composition. I had great difficulty with the 'very cool part', though. I made those first two patterns improvising and they turned out great, but I wanted to make two more, and not cut it off short. However, everything I made destroyed the flow. Eventually I decided to keep the second and fourth pattern the same, and only make the third unique. The third is still the weakest of the three, but I think it keeps the flow, now. While working on this tune I also figured out some technical stuff, and got reminded that there's still some technical stuff I háven't figured out. In the end I thought I didn't need to use it here, anyway. The cool new instrument at the beginning (it reminds me of a bass guitar) was actually inspired by discussion I had on the atari forum: someone said my samples might be too loud, and I said I always made them 'too' loud on purpose because otherwise you wouldn't hear them above the rest. He replied I could lower the volume of the YM instruments, but I argued that that wouldn't work if I used a Buzzer. So I decided to use a Buzzer. 😃 I was going to use it to simply replace the SID at first, but then I thought I'd do something cool with it for the repeat of the cool section. And it turned out really nice. At first I only repeated the first two patterns of the cool section, but because the bass thing was so cool I wanted to do more with it, so I extended it to the full four. The final pattern was one that I'd written before even figuring out how to do the cool part, but I did end up changing it a bit. Most importantly, making the loop nicer, instead of the tune completely ending and starting over. After all, these tunes are meant to be able to be used in a video game. The water drops were a challenge to do, making them fun and quirky, but also make sense. By the way, they're not at all in tune with the rest of the song. Finally, I had a full mental description of how I wanted to do the graphic, and it turned out better than I had hoped it too. The drops were a challenge to make, and I think they could be better. They're obviously way too large for actual water drops, but I did that so I could give them more detail, and put more focus to them. Oh, also, for the first time ever (as far as I recall), the first photograph I made was the one I used. I didn't even make any other, as this one's perfect. I couldn't think of a CP question for this video, so I thought of something else: to get 7 CP, post the name of a cave-themed musical piece from an actual video game. It doesn't matter which, as long as nobody else has posted it before. " https://youtu.be/HW7ipz2rd50
Just listened to Bubbles of Hope and Despair, gotta say it's a lovely piece of calming minimalism. As for Rocks And Drops I can just imagine a retro cavern level as I listen to it. Bravo!
Thank you. I'm currently looking for an affordable Windows alternative to GarageBand, as for certain types of music I feel like I don't have the right software. GarageBand on iOS is okay, but sometimes it's nicer to work on a pc. For the retro music I don't think I'll ever abandon the Atari ST tracker, but I am also interested in composing some Game Boy music, for some variation.
"For part 3 in the Lux Environments series, we imagine a desert environment. The tune plays twice and then it fades out. A download link is at the bottom of the description. For this I decided to use a flute-like instrument for the lead, with some vibrato and a lot of tone slides. I used noise to simulate wind, and for the percussion I looked for some Arabian samples. It was actually rather hard to find what I wanted, but I ended up using a free pack with lots of loops. It didn't have one-hit samples, but some of the loops had isolated hits in them, which I could take and use. I took inspiration from Alberto José González when I made the bassline, and added arpeggio chords to it. I think that worked out really well! The melody is catchy too. However, the tune seems a bit boring, in some way. I intend to study the chord structures in all my MaxYMiser tunes to date and some tunes I love from other musicians, hoping to learn something from that to make my next (snow-themed) composition more interesting. I did at least make the tune a lot less boring than it was, by, among other things, removing some patterns at the end (it used to take considerably longer until the melody restarted), and moreover by having the modulated repeat of the melody taken on by a different instrument, and on a much diverted rhythm. This adds a lot of fun, especially as the second voice does stick to the normal rhythm. While this song might not be one of my best, I did do some new things (for me): the arpeggio chord style, the use of noise and most importantly the use of a second voice. It was fun to make too! Hopefully you'll like it. I'm rather happy with the graphic too. I was afraid it might not be close to as good as the previous two Environments graphics, but it turned out better than I thought. The only thing I don't particularly like is the tumbleweed, but I wanted it in, to have at least some visualisation of the titular wind. The cactus looks nice, the trees around the oases and the flowers on the stones are cute, I LOVE the reflection of the moon in the lake at night, and I think the stylisation of the letters is quite cute. Interestingly, I used up all 16 colours for this drawing. I don't think I've done that before (except for Spiegelbeeld). Be the first to answer the following question correctly in the comments to earn 7 CP: how many trees are there in the drawing? The tune can be downloaded from http://bit.ly/MaxYMiser607" https://youtu.be/hivgEBQy3lw I also did find an alternative to GarageBand, and made something with it a while ago! I forgot to share that here. "For some time I'd been looking for a cheap "GarageBand alternative" or "DAW". People were saying that there wasn't one, but then Andrew Huang uploaded a video talking about free music stuff, among which multiple DAW's available on Windows. I tried Cakewalk before this but couldn't get into it, and a third option would've been Ardour, but I quite liked LMMS. After a few days of tutorial-reading I decided I should try to make a track with it. I got the idea of remaking my first composition, without altering the melody, just creating a build-up and resolution for it. I made this, and enjoy it. I hope you do as well. My mother didn't think the noise added to the track, but I like it! I also made it myself, it wasn't a preset. This is a track and video made in half a day; I'm hoping to put out an LMMS track which took more time and effort later! To earn 6 CP, be the first to answer the following question correctly in the comments: At what time does the organ start playing notes? (I also configured the organ sound myself, by the way!)" https://youtu.be/wmu9of8KIso I have been working on a long track in LMMS recently, and it's shaping up nicely.
"After I got acquainted with LMMS in April, I intended to create a full minimalistic track in the summer. And I did! I enjoyed working on it, and made swift progress. It turned out rather long (my longest track ever) despite me not actively trying to make it longer; I simply kept having ideas. Many months passed between completing the tune and rendering this video, because I needed video footage to use. I didn't want to just record LMMS like in my first LMMS work. At some point I got the idea of using my Mandelbrot Explorer application to create an interesting image, and zoom and pan around that. Nice idea, but it didn't work in VEGAS. I then tried it in Blender (which took me a while to figure out), but it didn't work there either; until I asked help on a forum and eventually got it working. Because of this, I probably didn't spend enough time on actually tracking the movement in the animation as I should have, because I had already estimatedly worked as long on the video as on the piece, and I just wanted to finish it. So hopefully it's good enough. If people like the idea, I might at least be able to reuse this type of animation for future minimalistic pieces! I won't analyse the track here. I can say that it is very repetitive, but you can probably notice that yourself. I do still quite like listening to it, months after finishing it, although it doesn't always keep my attention. Which I think is fine, because music that stays in the background most of the time is good for studying. When listening to it again, I do notice several things of which I forgot how I did them. Fortunately I've still got the project file, so if for a future project I want to recreate effects I should be able to. If you're interested in the Mandelbrot visualisation, check out http://www.folk.simpsite.nl/mandelbrot-explorer The current version has an issue that should be fixed, but if your pc is set to English you won't be affected by that." https://youtu.be/TCLiE18iFus
"Here's a tune that tells a story! (twice in this video ) This is Frost, Fright and Fairies, composed for Atari ST in MaxYMiser. It is the fourth part of my Lux Environments series, where I imagine a standard video game environment and make a tune set in it, using samples fitting for the environment. Of course I had to do a Snow theme! And naturally, I wanted to try use samples of footsteps in the snow as percussion. I wasn't sure if I would be able to find good, free to use samples, but I was pleased with what I could find! Before I started any composition inside MaxYMiser I laid out the chord progression. I showed this to one of my housemates, and he made one improvement (the E chord at the end of the sad violin part used to be a C, I think). But I didn't know what a story this tune would tell, yet... however, as I was working on it, and was building up the snow sounds to get more intense as I'd generally build up percussion, I got the feeling that the protagonist of my tune was running away from something. Then I got the idea: what if he would crack through the ice?!? So I made it happen. After this I started work on the violin part. I also asked my housemate if he had an idea for how I could save the protagonist, and he suggested a fairy. But when I resumed composing, I lost all my work. I save often, but this time the entire save got corrupted, and I didn't have a back-up, having done all work up to that point within a week (I have a backup system while composing now!). Needless to say, I wasn't very motivated to continue working, as I'd have to redo the beginning first. I think it took me up to two months until I finally continued. I actually started with the sad part, which went really well, then I remade the beginning, and then I finished the tune. I should note that the only thing I hadn't lost were the PCM samples (which I am very glad of!), and a demo of the first 15 seconds or so that I had shared in a Discord server. This demo was actually a bit of a frustration, as it contains quite a cute bass sound, and I have not been able to remake that. I'm pretty happy with the final bass sound, but I think the one in the demo was better! Anyway: after I finished the theme, I wanted to submit it to battleofthebits's Winter Chip competition, and before that get feedback from the housemate. He actually liked it so much that I had very little feedback to go on. The only things he recommended were making the modulations at the triumphant part more subtle and lengthening the pause between the crack through the ice and the sad music. I did so, and then remembered the possibility of 'livewire' effects, which I used to make the violin fade out smoothly (I'm actually not quite sure I'm happy with that, but I'm done with the tune), make the crack of the ice do a stereo sweep, and master the treble and bass of that crack. The reason that I am uploading this after winter ends is that I still had to make the DEGAS cover art, and this took some time (moreover, I could only work on it while at my parental home, and before the COVID-19 regulations, I wasn't there much ). I am very happy I did remake this tune, as I think it might be the best I've done yet! Here are 10 firsts for this tune, for me: - Picked chords ahead of time - Made advanced vibrato effects - Used 3 voices for the melody, in places - Used chromatic descent - Told a full story with the music - Made a certain classic type of pad (the one that plays during the sad part) - Made a very good loop! (this was quite challenging, considering I had done some modulations) - Used a variable fixed detune for a buzzer sound - Used Picardy 3rd in a full composition (at least consciously ) - Used a trick to use a sample longer than normally possible (the ice cracking) I also spent hours on the graphic. The snowflake was quite a challenge, especially with the in some senses limited tools of DEGAS+. The fairy (which I based on the opening cutscene of the GBA game Crazy Castle 5) was a lot of fun, although I left out the wings because I thought they might be too difficult and/or obscure the view of the shed. Also notice the snow on the names '607' and 'Lux'. To earn 7 CP, be the first to answer the following question correctly in the comments: when does the 'fairy' first enter the tune? Post the timestamp. " https://youtu.be/oxMNs4bwhvo
Not sure how I haven't seen this thread before, but this is awesome! You really nailed the retro feeling, feels like it could come straight out of an old video game
Thank you! I actually don't usually care about the retro feeling, and don't think this tune sounds retro at all.
I'm trying out the premiere function for my new tune, that I have myself long awaited... Not sure if anyone will want to watch it live, but I'll be in chat, and it'd be fun to see your name! https://youtu.be/PUM_UCik4mM I will update this post with the description after the premiere (which is at 2 PM EMC time, in case it isn't clear when clicking the video). "This track doesn't loop in the video... it's actually over 5 minutes long! I hope you enjoy. This is the first Atari ST compatible track that I've written. Most significantly, this meant that I only had 3 channels to work with rather than 5, and could not play samples with high fidelity. This wasn't much of a limitation though, for this track! It was intended to be rough and gritty from the start, so the dirty samples actually work great. And because there is such a lot going on in the bass, drums and melody at all times, there really was no need for a harmony track. I did add some chords and other embellishments in the melody channel, here and there. This track was made over a 9 month period, but for most of it I wasn't working on it. Almost all development was done on the original hardware rather than on emulator, made possible by the first national lockdown in the Netherlands. I actually really enjoyed this experience! Before I started composing, I made an outline of the story of the track. I thought of how a boss fight might go, and wrote down several points in it, including any musical ideas that I came up with immediately. There were multiple points where I got stuck, and had to make major changes to the tune, or take a break for a fresh look at it. However, at the end of the day (or well, year in this case) I was quite happy with the finished product. It is epic indeed, I've got to say! (in the contemporary use of the word, at least ) And whereas I was at some point afraid that the tune would only get less good as it went on, because I'd already used my best ideas, my favourite part is actually the boss' final attempt to kill the player, which is obviously near the end. I also quite like the ending, which came about pretty unexpectedly. I knew I wanted to use that bass sound, which I created for my K3 Land van de Regenboog cover, but the melodies just happened... and I think it's really cool that at the end I managed to get two independent melodies into one channel. The tune was finished on December 31st and I was hoping to publish it then, on New Year's Eve. However, I wanted to record from Atari rather than from some emulator, and I had trouble setting that up. I eventually had my uncle solder a cable to use, but then my microphone recording still clipped... but I Got dma from atari-forum.com to do a fidelitous render! Of course, in my opinion the tune is best listened to on an actual Atari ST(E)... so if you have one, go download the SNDH from http://bit.ly/MaxYMiser607! You can also play it on windows using JAM (Just Another Musicplayer). My initial idea for the graphic was doing something inspired by the beginning of the final boss fight of Yoshi's Island, with Yoshi looking into the distance and seeing the silhouette of (a gigantic) baby Bowser appear. However, I didn't fancy spending several days on the graphic, and I went for something simpler. I like the idea, and the execution is fine too, to my standards. Next I am hoping to release something for Game Boy! I do also have a theme in mind for the fifth track of Lux Environments. To earn 7 CP, tell me in the comments what your favourite part of the tune is (anyone can do this!)."
The description was actually too long to put on YouTube, but I can post it in full here. "I had been wanting to learn LSDj for many years. Over the holidays, I decided to finally do it for real! I got started on emulator, using an N64 controller to operate the program. Of great use were the manual by Johan Kotlinski and some videos by DEFENSE MECHANISM. Because I was learning the program, I was just fiddling around, trying things here and there, occasionally starting a new piece when I had got stuck. This piece started when I wanted to try out the Groove function. In MaxYMiser, I have never made a swing piece, because it seems like a hassle to have song speed change effects every few steps. In LSDj, you don't need to do this! From the original playing around, the main chord progression survives, as does the percussion pattern at the beginning. I liked these a lot, and wanted to turn this tryout into my first full tune. It took me three or four tries before I got a good melody, however! But I am glad that I kept trying, and was not content with what I came up with before. Because this tune's main melody is charming and quite catchy, if I do say so myself. Originally, the chord progression was played by a square octave arp, if I recall correctly, and included all three notes for each chord. At some point, after watching DEFENSE MECHANISM's video on the Wave channel, I designed the bass sound (which has been very well received so far ), and decided to get rid of the square altogether. I thought I might find a use for the free channel later... and I did! The feel of the tune reminded me of some existing track from a video game, and it annoyed me that I couldn't think of what it was, as I was afraid I was subconsciously copying it. Eventually I remembered: it was Viking Camp from Hugo Advance, a soundtrack which I uploaded last year. I listened to it, and fortunately it turned out to be quite different! I did then decide to take one idea from that soundtrack, though... Hugo Advance has some really cool arpeggios, and I thought that an arpeggio would fit this track as well! The way I made it is quite different from how it is in that soundtrack, though... maybe I will try to figure out how it works there for another track, later! Usually I don't let people hear my tunes until I've finished them, but this time I let my family hear it at some point, and two of my housemates at separate points too. This helped to decide in what direction to go; for example, my family pointed out that the main melody was getting stale, at which point I decided to bring in a new instrument with a new melody! And I love that one too! I'm honestly not sure which of the two leads I like more. In both leads, but especially the second one, I used a lot of chromatism. This was very fun to do, but it also made it tricky to make the arpeggios work. I didn't want the arpeggio to play a G while the lead was playing an F#, for example... What complicated things is that I wrote the arpeggios in non-swing, with only 12 steps per phrase instead of 16. After some scribbling things on paper and trying possible intervals on piano I ended up figuring it out, though. The idea to make the arpeggio switch between the left and right ears is one that I conceived late in development, after taking a break of a few hours to arrange a Game Boy version of Happy Birthday for two cousins. For a while I was unsure if I wanted to keep it, as I thought it might be too distracting. After some testing on different people, though, it didn't seem like it was! I also submitted the tune to Winter Chip XVI at Battle of the Bits, and got no negative comments on it. I don't quite remember how I came up with the ending. The last few chains were all made in one evening, I think. When I let one of my housemates hear the full tune, he laughed hard at the final chord. He suggested making the tune speed up slightly in the measures preceding it, which I tried. Great suggestion, it works very well. While I was working on this tune, beta versions of LSDj 9 started coming out (this was made in LSDj 8). It completely revamps the way the noise channel works, and I thought I could use this to create a cool snare. However, I was having an issue, and I decided that I didn't really fancy working with an unstable version of a program that I hadn't yet fully grasped the stable version of, and I reverted to LSDj 8.5.1. I think I was still able to create a nice snare, actually. I was a bit uncertain about changing up the percussion, but I think it's good I did. Makes the two different sections more unique! Circus of the Crown was made from start to finish in January 2021 and took 19 hours to make, including a bit of fiddling around with the program at the start. I wanted to create a graphic, as is the tradition with my chiptunes from MaxYMiser, but it didn't appear that there exists a program for graphic creation on Game Boy or Game Boy Color. I found a forum for Game Boy development however, and asked around there. After a fairly lenghty exchange with another user, who turned out to be the creator of one of the tools I needed (he even pushed an update after I came upon an issue he had not seen before), resulted in success! I decided to keep the graphic abstract. It was made in Paint.NET, and I used a drawing tablet for the text. It seemed fun to write the title in cursive. I don't normally have a drawing tablet, but I have one from university now because I have to teach classes from home. It did turn out to be a lot harder to take a decent picture of a GBC screen than it is of a CRT monitor, even though that is hard enough already. Oh, and in case you wonder about the title: translate the last word to Latin and consider recent events. This tune is not political, but it is taking a bit of a jest at the somewhat pathetic situation that the world has been in lately. But I didn't do that slide a half note up at the end for nothing! To earn 7 CP, be the first to post the timestamp for the following in the comments: when does (for the first time) a variation on the main melody play in the major scale?" https://youtu.be/110bT2wfzTQ
"I am happy to present the fifth tune in the Lux Environments series for Atari STE! The tune plays twice and then fades out, in this recording. I am very happy with how this tune turned out. This is probably the last of the themes that I had in mind when I originally conceived the Lux Environments series (I did already come up with an idea for #6!). Originally, I had pictured something like Super Mario's underwater music. But once I got to it, I decided that I didn't want to go that route. I wanted to make something grander. I wanted to make something that showed the beautiful side and the dark side of the ocean. I wanted to make something that portrayed wonder, curiosity, fear. And frankly, I think I succeeded. When I started making this tune, I was really excited for it, and especially so after finishing the intro, on March 31st. I wasn't sure if I would be able to make the rest of the tune live up to it, though. I was especially uncertain about being able to create a catchy and fitting motif for the tune. I did! And funnily enough, the first thing that I put down, even though I wasn't happy with it initially, is what I ended up with. I thought it was too simple, but its simplicity allowed me to reuse it in many different ways, and have it still be recognisable. Something else that I was a bit intimidated by was the prospect of having to find usable whale and dolphin sounds. But I was in luck, and found some pretty good stuff on freesound.org! I also hadn't been sure whether I would be able to make the whale sounds sound okay, but gwEm, the author of MaxYMiser, recently uploaded a video with tips on how to treat samples, and that was quite useful. Here is a list of some of my achievements in working on this project that I am really happy with: - Designing the lush instrument that plays the chords - Designing the edgy instrument that is used during the scary part - Making the intro (the chord extensions, the echoing off-meter downward-moving part, the sample use...) - Using microwire treble and bass adjustment to great effect - Reusing a 4/4 melody in 3/4 time - Making a seamless loop - Making one channel do three separate things 'at once' (the low harmonisation note, the hi-hat and the bleepbloops are all on YM channel 1) - Creating atmosphere - Drawing a dolphin For the last point, I got help from my sister, and I used DEGAS' rotation function. I drew the dolphin level first, as that was easier, then rotated it, and then fixed it up (I had to do a lot of fixing up...). Also, for the first time I really did much with the SyncBuzzer. I had forgotten how it worked, so I rewatched gwEm's tutorial on it while working on the tune. It turned out I had never used it to its full potential... Well, I used more of that potential now! I did notice that the tune clips a lot on my STE. It's natural that it does when the bass is fully cranked up (this recording clips too!), but it does so throughout the tune too, which is definitely not intentional. If you want to try whether it works better on your end, or listen in an emulator (you do need an emulator that has microwire support, then), you can download the tune from http://bit.ly/MaxYMiser607. Shortly before finishing the tune an update for MaxYMiser was released, which added some new effects. I will try to use them more extensively for the next installment (some of them are a bit glitchy, though...), but I already used one of the new effects to thicken up the PAAAA sound at the climax of the scary part. I actually wrote two more patterns for this tune this evening. I didn't end up rerecording the tune, though, as I think it is better off the way it is now. But I am glad that I have tried, so that I know. Be the first to answer the following question to correctly earn 7 CP: Why does the bass go up and does the treble go down starting a bit before 1:30? I don't mean what effects I used or whatever, I mean why I decided to do this. The drawing gives a hint!" https://youtu.be/ofktFcchoSU
"I am Dutch. In the Netherlands, liquorice is a very popular type of confectionery. It is called 'drop' here. I took some drop and dropped it onto various surfaces, recording the impact sounds. I aggregated different recordings to create a bass drum, snare drum and cymbal sample. I then created a beat drop with it: dropdropdrop. I got the idea for this track after my study association's magazine, which I am chairman of, published an issue themed around liquorice, including several puns about 'drop'. For one of the articles we asked an alumnus, whom we know to be very musical, to create an application that could generate beat drops (I study Artificial Intelligence). He did, and you can download it here: http://timvvlietproductions.com/Drop (the program is in English). Having read the article, I got the idea to create this track. Around the same time, Atari user Damo was making a new tracker for Atari ST: TTRAK. I tried it out and was very excited about it: compared to MaxYMiser, it is limited in terms of effects, but very versatile in terms of sounds (MaxYMiser did get updated recently, to be more on par with TTRAK!), and it has some really cool features. Really, it seemed perfect for this track, so I went for it. The only thing I was unsure about is whether I would be able to make the liquorice drop sounds sound good. But I totally was! I think that the drums actually sound pretty good; if you didn't know they had an odd origin, I wonder if you would've noticed! For the graphic (which I had a lot of trouble with as usual for 16+ colour pictures... it turned out a little glitchy but I'm fine with that, considering the style of the track ) I represented the bass, snare and cymbal with three household items that would've been good for them, but except for the plate I didn't actually use these specific objects. Moreover, for the actual samples I layered several recordings from different drops and different sources together to get a rich sound. I have decided not to analyse the song structure for this YouTube comment... listen to it a few times if you want, and draw your own conclusions! What really delighted me about this project is that when I presented it to the program's creator, he absolutely loved it!! I got an amazing reaction to it, which was very gratifying. I also submitted the track to Battle of the Bits' Summer Chip XI, and got 4th place out of 7 in the AY/YM category, and 137th out of 300 overall. Personally, I would've ranked it higher, but hey, of course I make music in a style that I particularly enjoy a lot myself. Come semester I am going to follow two music theory courses at university, I am really curious what I will learn there! I feel like that since Frost Fright and Fairies, every new chiptune I brought out could be considered my best ever. If I get proper education, maybe that trend can continue? I'm not sure yet if I will provide a download for the module. TTRAK is still in beta, and this track is affected by a bug in the current versions. I wonder how it will sound when that bug is fixed! You can download the song for playback on Atari hardware or an emulator (JAM on Windows will not play everything correctly, use SNDPlay) from https://607web.nl/snd. This is something that I made just now, because the Google Drive folder I have was made specifically for MaxYMiser. I'm not sure yet if I will keep using this for TTRAK only, move my MaxYMiser stuff here too, or end up creating a Drive folder for TTRAK as well. I decided to record the program output for the video, for several reasons: this is a new program, and it is cool to show it off; all channels can be seen at once without scrolling, contrary to most of my MaxYMiser tracks; it is actually very easy to see what is going on, because of the big characters and the different colours for different instruments; and during the drops the screen flickers because I'm using too much CPU! I love that last one, hopefully it's not dangerous for anyone. I hope you enjoy the track!! Be the first to put the timestamp answering the following question in the comments to earn 7 CP: when does the track playback first make the screen flicker? An easy one. " youtu.be/o3wIdP5DRwE
This is the first time since January 1st 2017 that a composition came out of a school assignment! "This semester, I'm following music theory courses at university. This week I had to write a piece in rounded continuous binary form for my homework. The first four measures of accompaniment were given; the melody and the rest of the piece we had to made up ourselves. I think I spent about three hours on this part of the homework, and I was enjoying it so much that at one point I thought "Maybe I should do some studying soon", only to realise that I was in fact studying. I liked what I came up with, and decided that I wanted to make a chiptune arrangement of it. I went for LSDj, because I thought Game Boy would fit the tune, and because I hadn't used LSDj since finishing Circus of the Crown (which is closing up on a year ago), and I didn't want to have to completely relearn it in the future. I spent about three hours on the arrangement, including getting the hang of the program again and redoing most of the notework because of an unsuccessful save. I thought I would keep the arrangement very simple, but I did do quite some finetuning in the end. It's fun. I changed only one thing compared to what I handed in for the assignment (which was written on manuscript paper), which was changing the second measure (and any repeats of it) from A minor to C major. Of course the percussion was also added for this arrangement. Style wise, this might be quite different from what you're used to from me: that's because I kept it simple and easy-going, for one because this was easier and less time-consuming to write, but also because I didn't think use of sharp dissonances and chromaticism would fit the spirit of the assignment. I did notice just now that there are parallel fifths in the tune, which aren't really desired either... well, I suppose it's cool that I can recognise them now. I decided to draw my own waveform for the lead. For a while my WIP didn't have variable volume for the melody, because in the current stable version of LSDj there's no way to generate lower amplitude versions of user-drawn waveforms. But I ended up drawing them myself. The result was a bit clicky, but with some vibrato and in combination with the rest of the instruments, I think it's completely unnoticeable. All in all, I'm happy to share this! And I would love to get more assignments like this, although I do think that for most students this was too far out of their comfort zone, so I wouldn't be surprised if the teacher will tone down future homework assignments a little. Do you reckon it's okay to ask a music analysis question for Club Points? It does fit the upload, right? Be the first to answer the following question correctly in the comments to earn 7 CP: What key is this piece in?" https://youtu.be/7qcHtinHuyo
"Last year I made a game for my cousin's fifth birthday. I am working on an update, and decided to also make some title music. I wanted a memorable, energetic tune, that she and her younger sister could enjoy. Maybe I can make them fall in love with the Atari ST soundchip too. I got started with this at the end of last summer, but I got stuck, as the track seemed too busy and I wasn't sure how to fix it. There's more to this story, but I think I'm not going to write it here. Maybe ask me for it if you're interested! There's a WIP from that time floating around on Discord. After I made Binary Tune, I was motivated to get back to this tune and finish it. I could use some of my new knowledge about cadences, and decided to keep it very short for a strong and easy to grasp structure. I am very happy with the result. It is short, but I can listen to it for 10 minutes or more, and I think that is a good achievement! It is catchy too; I've found myself humming or whistling parts of the tune several times since writing it. I hope you enjoy, too! And I hope my cousins wil. The picture for the video shows a modified version of the title screen to the game. It features the characters of the four franchises that the levels are based on. To earn 7 CP (https://607web.nl/cp), post the name of one of them in the comments! One per person, but all four can be claimed, for 28 CP in total. Half of them aren't well-known internationally, so good luck. " https://youtu.be/a_LxVgw-UyU
"(This tune loops twice in the video... but the second time, the beginning sounds different ) This theme is not as often used in video games as those of the previous entries in Lux Environments, perhaps. However, I know plenty of examples of factory levels in games, and among them are some of my favourite levels in general! The graphic was mostly based on Mecha No Mistake from Rayman Origins, which is the factory level I played most recently, and really enjoyed. I had started work on this tune before that, though! But to read my write-up, check the link at the bottom of this description! It exceeded 5000 characters, and YouTube wouldn't let me include it here. I hope you enjoy the track, whether you check out the entire description or not! Be the first to put in the comments the time at which the alarm starts sounding to earn 7 CP. To read more about this track and the rest of Lux Environments, check what samples I used in this track, and download the SND, go to https://607web.nl/lux-environments." https://youtu.be/vZHv3CjGNok
God I love the way the SID chip from the C64 sounds like. It truly earned the title "King of 8 Bits" here in the west. While the NES and Gameboy were good, both systems had their limitations. I wish I grew up with the C64, because most of that multi-wave mixing is just too good~ 🥰
