Fragmare Posted May 4, 2017 Share Posted May 4, 2017 (edited) By popular request, and also because this one was on my "must do" list of NES music to cover. Enjoy! XEX attached. Castlevania III - Demon Seed Demon_Seed_POKEY01a.xex Edited May 4, 2017 by Fragmare 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fragmare Posted May 4, 2017 Author Share Posted May 4, 2017 Also, here is the .RMT file, in case anybody is interested Demon_Seed_POKEY01a.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted May 4, 2017 Share Posted May 4, 2017 Nothing to change there Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CharlieChaplin Posted May 4, 2017 Share Posted May 4, 2017 (edited) Hmmm, the XEX versions of "Demon Seed", "Wily`s Castle", "Flash Man" and "Push On" all display Noname song when loaded / played back on the Atari or emulator. Maybe you can change this and give them their proper names instead of Noname song ?!? Edited May 4, 2017 by CharlieChaplin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted May 5, 2017 Share Posted May 5, 2017 By popular request, and also because this one was on my "must do" list of NES music to cover. Enjoy! XEX attached. Castlevania III - Demon Seed Nice job; thanks for working on it. Definitely one of my favorites. A little bit of feedback: if you listen closely to the original NES version, the bass goes back and forth between distorted and clean sounds on certain parts. Well, technically a distorted bass and a clean bass are playing simultaneously when the distorted one comes in, then the distorted one will stop and leave the clean one playing by itself. I had a quick look to see if I could hack in a clean bass instrument to play alternately with the distorted one. But I could see/hear you had the main repeating part on a loop, once I created the new instrument and added it in for a few bars. So, no way to really test it out without unrolling the repeat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fragmare Posted May 5, 2017 Author Share Posted May 5, 2017 (edited) Eh, yea, I just export them without properly saving a tag, I suppose. I just let the filename do the talking heh Edited May 5, 2017 by Fragmare Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fragmare Posted May 5, 2017 Author Share Posted May 5, 2017 Nice job; thanks for working on it. Definitely one of my favorites. A little bit of feedback: if you listen closely to the original NES version, the bass goes back and forth between distorted and clean sounds on certain parts. Well, technically a distorted bass and a clean bass are playing simultaneously when the distorted one comes in, then the distorted one will stop and leave the clean one playing by itself. I had a quick look to see if I could hack in a clean bass instrument to play alternately with the distorted one. But I could see/hear you had the main repeating part on a loop, once I created the new instrument and added it in for a few bars. So, no way to really test it out without unrolling the repeat. Thanks! I don't know about the Jp VRC6 version, since I covered the US 2A03 version, but in the source material there's a deep bassline, then a deep rhythm synth that spends most of it's time mirroring the bassline. I decided to use distortion bit E for the actual bassline, and the slightly cleaner sounding C distortion bit for the rhythm bit... I thought it worked out rather nice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted May 5, 2017 Share Posted May 5, 2017 (edited) @Fragmare Your edits were very helpful , to have some impressions of POKEY music "from another point of view" .... Have a listen to this one. It uses 16 bit basses and high percussions. It's in no way perfect, but a good demonstration how things could be . The "trimming" of the basses depend on the instrument of the "other" channel... as RMT doesn't handle the 16 bit resolution. Edited May 5, 2017 by emkay 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted May 5, 2017 Share Posted May 5, 2017 (edited) Thanks! I don't know about the Jp VRC6 version, since I covered the US 2A03 version, but in the source material there's a deep bassline, then a deep rhythm synth that spends most of it's time mirroring the bassline. I decided to use distortion bit E for the actual bassline, and the slightly cleaner sounding C distortion bit for the rhythm bit... I thought it worked out rather nice OK, I see what you're saying about the rhythm part. I hadn't looked around enough to see what the rhythm part was doing exactly. It's an interesting approach that you took and makes some sense based on how the different types of distortions sound with various lengths on the envelope. No complaints about how it turned; it's a good version. My ears are just used to the way the "heavy" sound cuts in and out. So, I wasn't sure if you had noticed it. But I can see you were working around the "tough" POKEY bass sounds. It's definitely not easy, without going the stereo route, where things can have better tuning. I did a little edit and switched around the two types of distortions you were using. I also edited the envelopes for each. Just a little experiment. Thanks for providing the source file. Demon_Seed_POKEY01a4.xex Edited May 5, 2017 by MrFish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pseudografx Posted May 5, 2017 Share Posted May 5, 2017 If I could ask for the next remake, could you try to do Duck Tales - Moon stage? :-) I already started working on it but might be nice to hear a different approach. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted May 5, 2017 Share Posted May 5, 2017 It's definitely not easy, without going the stereo route, where things can have better tuning. BTW, speaking of stereo, I wouldn't consider it "cheating" at all to go for stereo POKEY on this tune, especially considering what sound capabilities the Castlevania III cart itself added to the NES version. It'd be more like "evening the playing field", really. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fragmare Posted May 6, 2017 Author Share Posted May 6, 2017 OK, I see what you're saying about the rhythm part. I hadn't looked around enough to see what the rhythm part was doing exactly. It's an interesting approach that you took and makes some sense based on how the different types of distortions sound with various lengths on the envelope. No complaints about how it turned; it's a good version. My ears are just used to the way the "heavy" sound cuts in and out. So, I wasn't sure if you had noticed it. But I can see you were working around the "tough" POKEY bass sounds. It's definitely not easy, without going the stereo route, where things can have better tuning. I did a little edit and switched around the two types of distortions you were using. I also edited the envelopes for each. Just a little experiment. Thanks for providing the source file. Demon_Seed_POKEY01a4.xex Yea, man... edit and/or improve any of these any way you like. That's why I upload 'em. I'm no PoKEY expert, I'm just trying to get a better feel for the chip and cover some classic 8-bit era tunes while doing so. If I could ask for the next remake, could you try to do Duck Tales - Moon stage? :-) I already started working on it but might be nice to hear a different approach. Duck Tales is good. I just got finished covering some Sunsoft, so I will see what I want to cover next. BTW, speaking of stereo, I wouldn't consider it "cheating" at all to go for stereo POKEY on this tune, especially considering what sound capabilities the Castlevania III cart itself added to the NES version. It'd be more like "evening the playing field", really. Yea! the standard PoKEY can go up against the 2a03 version, and the Stero-PoKEY version can go up against the VRC6 version! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted May 6, 2017 Share Posted May 6, 2017 (edited) Yea, man... edit and/or improve any of these any way you like. That's why I upload 'em. I'm no PoKEY expert, I'm just trying to get a better feel for the chip and cover some classic 8-bit era tunes while doing so. You're doing a great job pulling the needed sounds out of POKEY. It's cool to hear all this new material for the chip. I'm no POKEY expert either, just trying to help out a little bit. I'm actually a musician of 36 years (mainly guitar, mandolin, and bass), but I've done very little with POKEY music (spend most of my time on other Atari-related interests). So I appreciate seeing others put time into it. Yea! the standard PoKEY can go up against the 2a03 version, and the Stero-PoKEY version can go up against the VRC6 version! Haha... I actually prefer the bass sounds used on the 2A03/MMC5 version, but a single POKEY is pretty much handicapped compared to either. Edited May 6, 2017 by MrFish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pseudografx Posted May 7, 2017 Share Posted May 7, 2017 Here is my version of the Duck Tales - The Moon: https://soundcloud.com/pseudografx/duck-tales-the-moon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fragmare Posted May 8, 2017 Author Share Posted May 8, 2017 Here is my version of the Duck Tales - The Moon: https://soundcloud.com/pseudografx/duck-tales-the-moon Great job on that cover! The Stereo PoKEY setup sure sounds great when used properly! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.