Jump to content

lazygecko

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    1,676

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    4

 Content Type 

Posts posted by lazygecko

    Distortionator - turn anything into an FM synth

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    Thought I'd give a shoutout to this obscure effect plugin I came across:

    http://www.niallmoody.com/ndcplugs/distortionator.htm

    It lets you choose between vanilla clipping and sine wave distortion, which is kind of like waveshaping I guess, but sounds more unique and closer to frequency modulation as the description says. Turn the distortion and in gain to max, then try playing some drum or percussion sounds through it and they will sound like tinny Genesis sound effects.

    I tried running some 3xOscs from FLStudio through it, started out with a basic sine wave osc, then added another sine wave osc and just started tweaking the knobs, volume and coarse and such, and I'm suddenly programming FM synthesis through subtractive synthesis. Even something as subtle as slight detuning can have a profound impact on the sound. I made this quick example of a bunch of distorted 3xOsc instances where I even managed to program drum and cymbal sounds with relative ease, then automating the volume knobs

    http://www.tindeck.com/listen/lqxz

    It's a pretty fun and alternate way of programming FM sounds. The only notable drawback I can think of is that you won't get any actual polyphony, you'd need to load up another instance in a different mixer slot for that.

    Getting back into Oblivion

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I reinstalled Oblivion recently to give it another shot. I had some good times with it back when it was new, but it didn't hold my interest that well and I never considered it GOTY material. Bethesda's games are blessed though with having some of the most dedicated modding communities in the world, even Morrowind is still recieveing new high-quality content on a regular basis. So I decided to see how a modded Oblivion holds up now almost half a decade after release, and not surprisingly I'm having a blast.

    Here are some external programs you ought to install before beginning to install mods:

    Oblivion Mod Manager - Most of the more extensive mods often have pretty complex install instructions, and this tool is meant to make that a lot easier. Most of those mods are released in .omod format, which you open with this program and it will install them correctly for you. It will also warn of any potential compatibility issues between mods, which can be a godsend.

    Oblivion Script Extender - This is a resource for modders which allows for more complex scripts/changes than what the game regularly allows. You just copy over the files to your root Oblivion folder, and from now on you launch the game using obse_loader.exe instead of Oblivion.exe

    Now we get to the good stuff. First I'd like to list some mods that fundamentally alter the gameplay:

    Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul - This makes a buttload of changes, primarily altering the flow and progression, and adding new content like extra bosses in all the dungeons and stuff. It also makes the game a lot harder in general, much like the RPG's of old where you'd often run into monsters that are much higher level than you that you aren't meant to face yet, so be prepared to make a run for it. This thread has some useful tips that will help you survive early on and give you pointers on where you should and shouldn't go

    Oblivion XP - Changes the leveling system to be clasically exp-based instead of Bethesda's skill-based system. I much prefer this progression system. You get exp from killing monsters, completing quests, exploring new areas, reading books, etc etc. You also ought to get this addon which also adds experience to Oscuro-specific stuff.

    DarNified UI - Oblivion suffered from a console-ified interface that wasn't tuned to the strengths of a PC, resulting in a lot of needlessly large text and an absurd amount of inventory scrolling. This mod rectifies a lot of those problems, and there is also a tab which lets you configure the layout of the interface yourself. You can also get this addon which gives your UI a dark red color.

    Custom 3rd Person View - This is one of the mods that utilizes the script extender. It lets you play from a Gears of War-esque 3rd person perspective which I find infinitely better than the vanilla 3rd person camera. It's not 100% perfect though, as the dialouge zoom-in gets a bit weird, and it makes your ranged aim not entirely as accurate (you'll get used to it). Still, I find this worthwhile and greatly enhances the experience. Your character animations don't look nearly as awkward either when the legs are obscured from view. I recommend using camera view 2.

    Combat Sounds 300 - Simple. Makes the combat and weapon sounds much meatier.

    Then there's naturally the tons of cosmetic and graphical enhancement mods to choose from. There's just way too many for me to bother listing, the bulk of which consists of cutesy anime elves. Some of the most basic stuff I can recommend (if your computer can handle it) are Qarl's hi-res textures and hi-res LOD textures. For the rest you can just browse TESNexus to your heart's content (set Organise to Downloads and Descending order to list the most popular mods first)

    That's about what I am toying around with right now. Of course that's just the tip of the iceberg, there's tons more high-quality content to find. I'm planning to check out some new location mods like Lost Spires or Dune at some point.

    Some general links that are helpful:

    TESNexus: http://www.tesnexus.com/

    PES: http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/

    Bethesda's Oblivion mod forums is great for keeping up to date with the latest: http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/forum/25-oblivion-mods/

    With all this amazing stuff available for free, it's no wonder I end up so jaded over what paid DLC generally offers.

    Original 8-Bit Composers: How did they do it?

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    Before there were actual interfaces for composing you had to also be a programmer to do music. But it's nothing you actually need to dablle in today unless you're a mega purist. Just trying to mimic the old techniques with modern equipment is enough to get "authentic" sounding chiptunes. The best middle ground would be something like FamiTracker which lets you make NES music in .nsf format using a tracker interface, but even though I know how to use it, I prefer doing all my stuff in FLStudio still.

    Here are some common chiptune techniques you'll want to know about

    Fake reverb - This is just a simple case of decreasing the volume of the note after it has been played for a while. On a tracker you'd just do this by inputting a number, in other tools you could just use volume envelopes, or the way I usually prefer doing it by just inserting a new note with a different volume, like so:

    euptmb.jpg

    Chorus/echo - These are usually done together. First the echo is made by just playing the same notes as the first channel delayed a few steps in the second channel with a lower volume, but this usually results in some annoying phasing. You solve that by detuning the pitch on the second channel a bit, say 12-16 cents or so, which creates a nice chorus effect.

    Next are some tricks for squeezing in some additional harmony into your music, since channels were limited back then composers had to get really creative with getting the music to sound fuller. The most familiar method is by playing very fast arpeggios which was widely used by European composers. But the most basic method of doing so can sound pretty harsh, so they would smoothen out the sound by making the arp pitch bend. In trackers this can get pretty cumbersome since it involves some pretty manual labour by inputting numbers, but most synths today support this in a quick and easy way by just enabling legato and adding a tiny bit of portamento.

    The more subtle way of doing things is by mixing the fake reverb trick with different notes, usually played a few notes down on the scale. This works especially well with fast playing riffs, think it was a pretty common method among Konami composers and I know virt loves doing it.

    jj46cz.jpg

    By getting familiar with all of these techniques, mixed with the stuff I wrote in the earlier post which was the standard procedure for the Japanese way of chiptune composing, it's not as hard as you might think to compose music that sounds like Mega Man, Castlevania, etc.

    Here is some stuff I made all in FLStudio

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkcl8mPp0z0

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNi-Bd8WbfA

    Starcraft 2

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I used to play Starcraft 1 a couple of times with OCR members from the other side of the pond, and was looking forward to doing so again with the sequel. Then out of the blue it's decided I shouldn't be able to do this in the "new and improved" Battle.net 2.0. Coincidentally, the new Battle.net is headed by a former Xbox Live developer which gives me a real bad gut feeling about the whole thing (Especially after he makes such memorable statements as "do you really need chat rooms that much?").

    After trying the SC2 beta a couple of times I'm really not all that passionate about the game, and playing casually with OCR friends was pretty much the best incentive I had for getting it.

    Starcraft 2

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I'm not going to financially support such a retarded regression as region-locked multiplayer. Maybe I'll get it when/if they patch it away. I don't want them to think for even a second that this was a good idea.

×
×
  • Create New...