I haven't posted a random .sap in ages have I?

[sack-c0s]

I think the filename sums up what 'inspired' this short loop

psilocybe_mexicana.zip

[raster/c.p.u.]

Nice song, Sack-c0s. :wink:

[Sheddy]

Like the song, Sack. Maybe could do with a bit more of a Latin rhythm though? - Way better than I could do though. What's your tracker of choice on the Atari? RMT?

[emkay]

Like the song, Sack. Maybe could do with a bit more of a Latin rhythm though? - Way better than I could do though. What's your tracker of choice on the Atari? RMT?

 

Sheddy

 

Please try to explain, why you like this tune, and at the same time the converted tune I did in the other thread is sounding mostly out of tune for you.

 

This shall neither be a complaint nor an argue... It's only for better understanding.

 

So I hear from this tune a nice melody with typical POKEY-sounds

The only "in tune" is the main melody.

The bass-sounds are heavily out of tune.

The "attendance" is destroying the main voice in it's characteristics, because it uses nearly the same pitch, but yet another notation.

All features are given easily in RMT though.

 

 

The last Conversion of "Ode to ..." uses a melody in a range of 4 octaves without losing it's focus.

The "attendance" is done with a full different pitch.

The Percussion ist clear and distinguish...

So all three used voices are full usable by stable sounding and different pitches.

To enhance this tune, POKEY has the abilities of switching AUDCTL inside an instrument that RMT does not support (exept filtering), as RMT does not support any feature like "portamento" or "frequency adjustment" , when using 16 bit with another generator than "A" ... neither it does support "16" bit as a melodic voice.

[Heaven/TQA]

maybe simply because the majority here @ atariage has a "out of tune" hearing and some minority not... and you seem to be the minority?

 

or why are you the only one who's tracks are rated by the majority as out of tune and not vise verser? and maybe my ears are grew up with the "detuned" pokey... and are not able to recognise the "tuned" sounds your songs produce???

 

no offense here but this is simply i do not understand...

[Sheddy]

Like the song, Sack. Maybe could do with a bit more of a Latin rhythm though? - Way better than I could do though. What's your tracker of choice on the Atari? RMT?

 

Sheddy

 

Please try to explain, why you like this tune, and at the same time the converted tune I did in the other thread is sounding mostly out of tune for you.

 

This shall neither be a complaint nor an argue... It's only for better understanding.

 

So I hear from this tune a nice melody with typical POKEY-sounds

The only "in tune" is the main melody.

The bass-sounds are heavily out of tune.

The "attendance" is destroying the main voice in it's characteristics, because it uses nearly the same pitch, but yet another notation.

All features are given easily in RMT though.

 

 

The last Conversion of "Ode to ..." uses a melody in a range of 4 octaves without losing it's focus.

The "attendance" is done with a full different pitch.

The Percussion ist clear and distinguish...

So all three used voices are full usable by stable sounding and different pitches.

To enhance this tune, POKEY has the abilities of switching AUDCTL inside an instrument that RMT does not support (exept filtering), as RMT does not support any feature like "portamento" or "frequency adjustment" , when using 16 bit with another generator than "A" ... neither it does support "16" bit as a melodic voice.

 

OK - I'll try - and please don't take this personally, emkay, - just trying to explain, and I'm sorry if I tell you things you already know.

 

True, Sack's tune is not pushing POKEY especially in any new wonderful way, wheras your experiments get some different interesting sounds. It is simply the composition of Sack's tune and its rhythms I like. It is not totally "in tune", but as close as can be with the 8-bit frequencies. OK you may use 4 octaves, but the voices in your tune all have different focus - because you are not following the generally accepted rules of harmony. (I'm using AtariWinPLus 4 to listen, hopefully not too different sounding from the real machine.)

 

I know you don't claim to be a musician, but there are certain "rules" that are commonly accepted when playing simultaneous notes (chords). The exact frequencies are critical to clean sound of the chord - fiifths, thirds and octaves make up the simple chords. for example C, E, G make a simple chord. When one of the notes playing simultaneously is even slightly wrong by a few hertz it totally messes the clean, clear, "in tune" sound of the chord. For example - you play a 440Hz note - you should not play a 217Hz note at the same time. 220Hz sound OK though - as it's octave apart. There are also many other "rules" about deciding what are good chords to play after each other. (check out some sites on music theory to see what I mean!).

 

Anyway the main point is that all the notes you use for all your intruments must be tuned to the same frequencies or multiples of..the notes in the music scale A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A...etc. or your chords will sound "out of tune".

 

Hope that makes some kind of sense to you, and not too patronising

[Cybernoid]

Anyway the main point is that all the notes you use for all your intruments must be tuned to the same frequencies or multiples of..the notes in the music scale A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A...etc. or your chords will sound "out of tune".

 

Ah, yes. I understand your point. However, I am not sure emkay is going for in-tune, but rather trying to get us to think about how to push the hardware sound technically. Most of his tunes are technically cool but musically lackluster. Each instrument by itself sounds great, but we have to think about how these will sound with the other instruments; but, not only the instruments but the notes each instrument plays. You do not want to play a B on one instrument and a C on another instrument, unless you have adjusted the frequency of each instrument.

 

I think Emkay's point is to try to get us to do Pokey sounds better, but I think the musicians will have to make Pokey "Music" better....

 

If we adjust the notes in each track played by each instrument, then adjust the frequencies of each instrument, we have to be careful to make sure these are okay. If we transpose each note down a half-step, it is okay, as long as we adjust the frequency played by the instrument up a half-step, unless we adjust every instrument. If you adjust each instrument differently (starting from a mod file, for example), it is easy to get everything out of tune.

 

The instruments may fit into the frequencies ranges of Pokey better, but could be out of tune...

 

Anyway, I am rambling...

 

~C

[emkay]

Anyway the main point is that all the notes you use for all your intruments must be tuned to the same frequencies or multiples of..the notes in the music scale A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A...etc. or your chords will sound "out of tune".

 

 

I think Emkay's point is to try to get us to do Pokey sounds better, but I think the musicians will have to make Pokey "Music" better....

 

 

Let me explain it this way:

 

Making music with the 8-bit resolution is "standard" and it builds a standard sound.

How may this be enhanced?

Actually POKEY has a 16 bit resolution, too. And actually(too) is the fact, that pokeys "note-stepping" resolution is rather fine than of the SID, because the 16 bit on the SID are build to fit into a higher range of notes.

Using 15kHz gives a higher density to the resolution of deeper notes.

Using 1,79MHz gives the high notes a higher stepping-resolution.

 

At the end you may create songs with a higher resolution and a more distinguished sounding.... simply using the Setting of the last testsongs.

16-bit (main/singing voice) (not only per byte programming)

15kHz for "attendance"

1,79MHz percussion

 

Done with enough musically knowledge, the tunes must be more "in-tune" than the average SID-Tune is.

But... please remember: RMT isn't supporting 16 bit for creating music, it still misuses the 16 bit generators for Bass-sounds that are not stable enough for a clean bass-line, but that can sound really nice in higher (and stable) tones.

 

.... if only one would give it a try, we would go a BIG step forward.

[Schmutzpuppe]

I don't know if 16bit is more usefull than the use of filter.

Imho filter gives a more unique sound but sometimes 16bit may also be a good thing.

I also think that the pokey potential could be used a bit more to generate some differend sound but I also like this "normal" pokey style so I like sacks song (good work!).

Btw. sound-wise I really love this old "masters of time" song because it is unique. It also used some of the technique that emkay mentioned.

Channel 2+4 15KHz Clock and highpass (used for bass), channel 1 and 3 1,79Mhz. It really sounds "different".

[Heaven/TQA]

master of time song is just about 1kb and has kind of "random" touch... and is used via standard VBL... i was blew away when i 1st heard of it... i love the "background highpass voices"... and you are right... it sounds different than the rest from the 1984 songs when ariolasoft released master of time?

 

what aboiut rescue on fractalus? i love the title music as well? imho it sounds different as well?

[Schmutzpuppe]

what aboiut rescue on fractalus? i love the title music as well? imho it sounds different as well?

You are right, they used 3 channel for the main voice (accord) that's why it sounds different (I don't know any other song doing this).

But it's pure tone ($AX) without any filter or other audtcl things.

[emkay]

I don't know if 16bit is more usefull than the use of filter.

Imho filter gives a more unique sound but sometimes 16bit may also be a good thing.

I also think that the pokey potential could be used a bit more to generate some differend sound but I also like this "normal" pokey style so I like sacks song (good work!).

Btw. sound-wise I really love this old "masters of time" song because it is unique. It also used some of the technique that emkay mentioned.

Channel 2+4 15KHz Clock and highpass (used for bass), channel 1 and 3 1,79Mhz. It really sounds "different".

 

 

This time I used 16 bit as a ground for the discussion, because it is absolutely rare used in the past.

This 3 channel setup should be used when starting converting a sid. Using different settings inside a tune is technically given.

 

Filter is the alternative, but please keep in mind that the roundup for filter by using 1,79MHz filter, never was used for the melodic voice.

 

 

Btw: The "masters of time" tune uses 15kHz + two 1,79MHz channels, but not with filter on the high sounds. It seems, one uses generator "2" and the other one uses generator "A" .

[emkay]

 For example - you play a 440Hz note - you should not play a 217Hz note at the same time. 220Hz sound OK though - as it's octave apart. There are also many other "rules" about deciding what are good chords to play after each other. (check out some sites on music theory to see what I mean!).

 

 

 

Hm... especially this problen should not happen on a soundchip, like pokey, because it uses a frequency divisor. So perhaps you may not get the 220/440 Hz with the 8bit resolution, but you should get 217/434

I guess that the real problem is the note-stepping at the 8bit resolution, which is sometimes hitting a note and sometimes it doesn't.

Another problem ist the volume when going through the sound-spectrum.

With simple squarewaves, the sound is getting louder when using higher notes, because of the higher-frequent voltage-switching. That's why distorted sounds off the pokey are used for bass-sounds....they are "loud" (but not stable at deeper notes)

 

Actually, in the german "ATARI-Profibuch" you can read, that POKEY is able to do sinewaves... per generator ... (it can do some sawtooth-sine shapes for real.... which make a flute sounding possible)

So sinewaves are continously changing the voltage-level, they are the best wave-form for bass-sounds.

[Sheddy]

 For example - you play a 440Hz note - you should not play a 217Hz note at the same time. 220Hz sound OK though - as it's octave apart. There are also many other "rules" about deciding what are good chords to play after each other. (check out some sites on music theory to see what I mean!).

 

 

 

Hm... especially this problen should not happen on a soundchip, like pokey, because it uses a frequency divisor. So perhaps you may not get the 220/440 Hz with the 8bit resolution, but you should get 217/434

I guess that the real problem is the note-stepping at the 8bit resolution, which is sometimes hitting a note and sometimes it doesn't.

Another problem ist the volume when going through the sound-spectrum.

With simple squarewaves, the sound is getting louder when using higher notes, because of the higher-frequent voltage-switching. That's why distorted sounds off the pokey are used for bass-sounds....they are "loud" (but not stable at deeper notes)

 

Actually, in the german "ATARI-Profibuch" you can read, that POKEY is able to do sinewaves... per generator ... (it can do some sawtooth-sine shapes for real.... which make a flute sounding possible)

So sinewaves are continously changing the voltage-level, they are the best wave-form for bass-sounds.

 

I don't know why it comes out wrong either, something just doesn't sound right. (maybe it is a matter of getting the 16-bit frequency values correct for use with the 8-bit frequencies, if the software does not do that?). It just does not give a convincing demonstration of the different instruments you are creating to the non-technical listener - A bit like a conductor telling people "I have created this great orchestra with all the best virtuoso players in the world", and then getting them to perform an out of tune "twinkle twinkle little star" as the proof of it. That is a harsh comparison, and I'm not really comparing your songs to that one, but you see the point I'm getting at?

 

Your technical demonstrations, are great, as cybernoid has said - it just needs some really highly skilled musicians to prove it can be made into truly outstanding music, before people can be convinced by what they hear, that this is a good way to do things. The "tuning" problem must be resolved before this can happen though.

[sack-c0s]

I'll agree with that - there are some nice sounds there emkay, but I'm not sure about the tunes. ever thought of working with someone on a tune?

 

and in hindsight it is a little out - I'd just come back from a night out and was worse for wear when I did that one

[emkay]

ever thought of working with someone on a tune?

 

 

please make a proposion, how to, when not having a professional musician around the corner?

This is actually one point of why I am posting all my experiments though.