BitFight?

Dave - so dark... · Post by **Dave - so dark...** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 10:05 pm

Okay. Being the geek I am, i wondered if anyone would be up for a side fight based loosely upon old computer game 'chip' tunes.

Basically, as i see it the rules would be something like this:

* a Title, as per usual fight rules.

* no more than 3 different noises must occur at any time (though you are not restricted to these three noises for the entire song, just for any particular moment in the song, the polyphony must be kept to 3)

* everything must be synthesised (nothing acoustic. no vocals ). Though you may record/sample external synths/beep makers/old computers/whatnot... as long as it's a sample of something generated by a machine, and not a 'real life' noise.
ie a sine wav, theremin, speak and spell, c64, gameboy, or analogue synth keyboard = OK.
sound of cars screeching, microwave cooking, shaking rocks in a tin, real instruments etc = NOT OK.
Effected stuff like vocoded vocals, instruments is a no. Thats too high tech :)

* I'm up in the air about effects. I might limit effects to phasor, flange, compressor, vibrato (if that counts as an 'effect', noise gate, equalisers, and sound filters (ie, cuts). Delay is okay, but it counts as +1 polyphony per delay 'tap'. Chorus is maybe +1 as well.

I'm tempted to force everyone to make songs at a forced bpm. like 85 or something along the lines of old computer games.

Does this idea appeal to anyone else? and does anyone else have any ideas to contribute.

If anyone thinks it sounds interesting, but isn't quite sure what types of tunes i'm going for here, i can post some samples.

Thanks :P

fodroy · Post by **fodroy** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 10:09 pm

I felt like taking a pen and shoving it into both of my ears until I felt blood running down my cheeks.
- fodroy ~ upon listening to our music. *wipes away happy tear*

i said that? wow. i am truly an ass. if you ever see me walking down the street, feel free to assault me.

Dave - so dark... · Post by **Dave - so dark...** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 10:09 pm

possibly in addition to 3 levels of polyphony, maybe 1 level of 'noise' which may be used as a 'drum' level. which of course can only consist of static style noise.

that is if we'd like to go on a classic game sound chip structure.

Dave - so dark... · Post by **Dave - so dark...** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 10:11 pm

fodroy wrote:
I felt like taking a pen and shoving it into both of my ears until I felt blood running down my cheeks.
- fodroy ~ upon listening to our music. *wipes away happy tear*
i said that? wow. i am truly an ass. if you ever see me walking down the street, feel free to assault me.

Truely. It's the best review ever

Feel free to be as liberal with our reviews in future. hehe. I also like blue's comment in that fight about giant metal mosquitos.

pure class.

off topic however.

Denyer · Post by **Denyer** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 10:14 pm

Hell yes I would do this.

Adam! · Post by **Adam!** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 11:17 pm

I'm all over this... but I don’t see how a title restriction works in. The format you've suggested is so restrictive that a) anyone could make an eligible song before the title is announced, b) few songs without vocals would obviously represent the title (unless the title was "Attack!", "Nighttime In-Town", or "Link Drops Acid"), and c) I think the format of the fight is challenging enough that we don't need the extra challenge of a title. I'd really like to see what the SongFfight community could come up with under these restrictions. Ideally the full set of criteria would be listed and we'd be given one week to turn in our 8-bit opus.

Hopefully the purpose of this exercise would be to create some amazing music that would not sound out of place coming from an NES game (Dr. Mario has the best sound track I've ever heard for any game, new or old). To achieve this we'd have to limit ourselves to 2 pulse wave channels, a triangle wave channel, a noise channel and a 1-bit sample channel. Each synth channel is monophonic and is produced at a glorious 4-bits of fidelity. The pulse channels are restricted to widths of 14%, 25% and 50%. The only effect you can have on these is vibrato, and the only volume envelopes are decays. The triangle wave has no parameters aside from pitch and volume. The noise channel provides you with white noise passed through a sample-rate/bit-rate quantizer, and gets a decay envelope and the ability to grab up to one second of audio from this channel and loop it. Finally the sample channel gets a 16-kb wavetable of 1-bit, 8khz samples. These samples only play at one speed, so you cant get different pitches from the same sample. Note that the NES had no low-pass filters, no EQ, no chorus, no delay, no phaser and no flanger.

If this fight happens I will adhere to the above restrictions, even if the rules are not this strict. Excited.

Sober · Post by **Sober** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 11:40 pm

Suggested titles:

"Boss"

"Forest"

"Battle"

I think it would be cool to turn this whole idea around, and basically cover selected video game tunes. I realize that Coverfight XIII was a Niel Diamond/video game theme, but whatever. This is a pretty cool idea, too.

jute gyte · Post by **jute gyte** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 7:56 am

i would love to take part in this.

c hack · Post by **c hack** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 8:03 am

I like this, but I think the limitation should be that it can be played on an NES, at least theoretically. Ideally, someone would find out what set of sounds the NES had to work with, and we could use only those. Also, same limitations with regard to polyphony/BPM, etc.

I don't think we'd need to set a title, since, like someone else said, the medium is restrictive enough.

soda · Post by **soda** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 8:41 am

c hack wrote:I like this, but I think the limitation should be that it can be played on an NES, at least theoretically. Ideally, someone would find out what set of sounds the NES had to work with, and we could use only those. Also, same limitations with regard to polyphony/BPM, etc.

<a href="http://nesdev.parodius.com/nt2/">*cough cough*</a>

Phil. Redmon. · Post by **Phil. Redmon.** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 8:58 am

I would be into this.

Also: Jute Gytes avatar is awesome.

And: Not into the covers idea, and I think people naming their own songs would help add personal touches to a restrictive format.

FL4's 3Xosc, here I come.

HeuristicsInc · Post by **HeuristicsInc** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 10:06 am

wow, nerdtracker. that's cool.
i actually used a mod tracker to do my very first compositions.
i have one of them available on my website

-bill

c hack · Post by **c hack** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 10:19 am

soda wrote: <a href="http://nesdev.parodius.com/nt2/">*cough cough*</a>

Okay, that is off the hook. But I'm guessing I need a PC to run it -- guessing Virtual PC won't cut it. Gonna try it out though.

Might be easier if there was a MIDI patch with all those sounds sampled and loaded on it, but the fact that you can compile it into a .NES file really kicks ass.

jute gyte · Post by **jute gyte** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 11:02 am

Phil. Redmon. wrote: Also: Jute Gytes avatar is awesome.

none blacker, dude.

and nerdtracker is cool.

Adam! · Post by **Adam!** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 11:22 am

c hack wrote:I like this, but I think the limitation should be that it can be played on an NES, at least theoretically. Ideally, someone would find out what set of sounds the NES had to work with, and we could use only those. Also, same limitations with regard to polyphony/BPM, etc.

How the NES creates sound.

Future Boy · Post by **Future Boy** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 12:16 pm

I think I'd be into this. I'm not sure I'd go as far as Puce with the restrictions (mainly because I'm not sure everyone has the capability to create such sounds easily) but I might be into learning that Tracker that Soda linked to. I think if we required everyone to use that particular tracker software that we'd have to allow, like, 3-4 weeks to learn the software and then one more week to write the song. I realize that some would pick it up faster than others, but, it'd be nice to have the breathing time.

Adam! · Post by **Adam!** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 12:56 pm

Future Boy wrote:I'm not sure everyone has the capability to create such sounds easily

Problem Solved!

c hack · Post by **c hack** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 7:11 am

Puce wrote:(Dr. Mario has the best sound track I've ever heard for any game, new or old)

Dunno about that. I rank them:

1. Super Mario Bros.
2. The Legend of Zelda
3. Dr. Mario

or, in other words, *bump*

edit: also, i found this:

http://www.zophar.net/utilities/soundfont.html

the top NES one and the SNES one seem to wrok alright when I load them into the sampler in Reason. The NES one only has a few actual sounds though -- maybe it's the same as in the real NES?

adjuster · Post by **adjuster** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 9:53 pm

Future Boy wrote:...but I might be into learning that Tracker that Soda linked to. I think if we required everyone to use that particular tracker software that we'd have to allow, like, 3-4 weeks to learn the software and then one more week to write the song. I realize that some would pick it up faster than others, but, it'd be nice to have the breathing time.

Agreed. I'm, of course, an old tracker fan of yore, and love table-based synths anyway, so I'm kinda salavating to play w/ that tracker.

I guess I probably should see if I can get it to run 'fo I get too excited, but, at first glance, I'd be into a fight like this.

Dave - so dark... · Post by **Dave - so dark...** » Tue Oct 05, 2004 2:34 am

Ah hah! i wasn't expecting people to take to this quite so well..

and yes, i was trying to base it around the nes/gameboy/c64 sound structure. Not the say the nes/gameboy sound chip was on the same level as the C64.

I figured some people would have problems getting the sounds, so tried to make it simpler. I suppose one way we could go is that all sounds have to be made from pure waves (sine, square, saw, pure noise etc) this would let some people without the patience to use an 8bit tracker use stuff like the ts404 in fruityloops.

But i'm happy to make it so songs must be in code format, ie .nsf or .sid but we'll have to make rules on what an acceptable entry is. And also, take note that if we use this sort fo submission basis, the sound is going to be quite different depending on what we use to listen to the song with. Ie: an emulated sid sounds completely different to a real C64 playing the file, as does a different C64 sid chip, because they were all a bit buggy anyway.

We'd need alot more time however, as making songs in this way takes alot longer recording a normal song. Making the instruments is easily half the effort of making the song.

Depending on time, i'll use GoatTracker: http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&o ... oattracker (which has *nix and mac ports), and is C64 based... that is if i get started early enough, if not, i'll probably cop out and use something like Quadrasid http://www.refx.net/pro_QuadraSID.htm?lang=eng

I also have carillion http://www.cncd.fi/aeeben/ at home on my gameboy colour which is fun, but irritating to program using the gbc gamepad. The help file in carillion is the best i've seen for any 'oldschool' tracker of this sort, and helped me understand how to create sounds on alot of other trackers of this sort, so might be worth checking out on an emulator for the rest of you who are a little unsure.
I've been meaning to try little sound dj, which is supposed to be the good one on the gbc. but yesss...

i found this just before in a search too: http://www.wayfar.net/index.php I'd so get one if i had a NES. *looks in 2nd hand shops*

as for best game tunes ever

1. Last Ninja 3 (intro tune)
2. Ocean Loader (the original one)
3. Commando (main theme)
4. Delta (main theme)
5. Last Ninja 2 (the street level)

grin.

I really like Sober Irishman's idea of the Boss/Battle etc theme.

I would however say perhaps:
Title Theme (intro style),
Battle theme
High Score/ending/credits theme

We could group submissions under these catagories or go for three rounds...

We can just start with Title Theme, which can basically be anything, anyway, and if we want we can continue the following rounds.

Wow.. i'm really excited about this now!

Dave - so dark... · Post by **Dave - so dark...** » Tue Oct 05, 2004 7:37 pm

Well. I'd like to enter the Children's Song Sidefight as well, so i'll make the entry date 3 weeks from the end of that.
so Monday, 8th November.

Is everyone happy with that?

I'll provide a way for people to upload their submissions on my domain soon.

I wont officially start the fight till the 18th. So we have until then to set rules everyone can follow. Not that I think it's that important, as long as the song sounds like it's coming from an old computer game, and uses a maximum of 4 sounds simultaniously it'll fit in fine.

I'd also like a brief bit of text to say what programs/hardware each person used to make their piece, but it's not necessary.

Future Boy · Post by **Future Boy** » Wed Oct 06, 2004 9:15 am

HKD - Unit Z wrote: i found this just before in a search too: http://www.wayfar.net/index.php I'd so get one if i had a NES. *looks in 2nd hand shops*

That does sound cool. I should point out that there is a band called <a href="http://www.treewave.com">Treewave</a> that makes all of their music with Commodore 64s and Ataris. The guy has made a custom cartridge for the Atari to play live with. It was pretty freaking cool.