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The Official SNESology Thread - Sample Libraries Available!

Monobrow

By Monobrow,
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Protricity Newbie

Protricity

Posted
Posted
Indeed I do, but you haven't replied to me in a month, lol :wink:

(incl. several emails of utmost administrative importance)

The last month shes been forwarding them to me and I've been responding to you, I thought, rather expeditiously, since I am handling all the technical aspects of Snesology.

Were there any lingering matters not yet addressed?

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williamkage Newbie

williamkage

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Were there any lingering matters not yet addressed?

It's a matter of courtesy, consistency, transparency, and so on. I had fulfilled an extremely

difficult request (made by Monobrow), all she had to do is write:

A) "Okay, thanks."

-or-

B) "I can't address this. Contact Protricity."

Instead, I got nothing for a week, despite seeing regular activity from her elsewhere.

=====

This is very important, because SNESology is growing (which is fantastic!), and communication

is only going to get more important as time goes on. I strongly recommend that all of you

(Shnabubula, Monobrow, Protricity, RoeTaKa, and anyone else involved in administrative decisions)

come up with a solid procedure for handling correspondence. Successful businesses strive for

continuity, in order to make everyone else feel accommodated by a singular entity; SNESology

should be handled the same way. It's not just courtesy ... it's survival.

In the professional world, especially when email is the sole/primary form of communication,

taking time to write a one-line email can make a huge difference.

This post is a vote of confidence in all of you, and in the SNESology project; I feel you have

tremendous potential, and you're beginning to see some of that success already! But the sooner

you iron out details like this, the easier it will be to do so. When the final issue of

Nintendo Power features SNESology on the cover, and you guys get 3500 emails, you'll wish you'd

made these decisions beforehand.

Oddly, I'd actually be relieved if someone said:

"We have a great system. We reply right away. And we notify the person if he/she is getting

handed off to a different SNESology contact. We just didn't do that for you (it's personal)."

Relieved, because I want you to succeed, and I want to believe that the frustration and pain and

stress I've faced in the past 5 weeks has been uniquely mine. Knowing nobody else has had

(or will have) this problem with SNESology, would be quite a relief indeed. 8)

Best wishes - and as always, my inbox is open. :wink: (hint hint Monobrow!)

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Protricity Newbie

Protricity

Posted
Posted

Guess I'm still confused. Aside from the domain issue which, being technical, was handed off to me to respond to, and I did, was there other issues someone was not responding to?

I'd be happy to address any lingering concerns in private, but otherwise see no cause for dramatic (and rather public) personal attacks, as exemplified by your above post.

1. In other words, you're making it clear to everyone that you're upset about something, but not saying what that something is.

2. You're doing it publicly in a release thread which will only serve to attach drama to Snesology where no drama existed before.

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RoeTaKa Newbie

RoeTaKa

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Posted (edited)

I'm not really doing an admin role but I have been helping out here and there. I'm sorry if any elitism comes across, I mean that's something I really kinda hate. Sam has been busy and generally just taken some time for himself so it has sort of put a dampener on things. Like he was building the sound sets in Kontakt and we agreed that was a bad idea for people to use so he was looking into some free VST's that would get the same job done but then he had to step back. I know soundfonts are the really simple solution and it's been done but we kind of wanted to do more complete sets that had the DSP sound in them so it would be simple to get that full SNES sound out the box and have some fun.

Kage has been building his own soundfonts/sets to use himself and weve also been grabbing some soundfonts and rips to use ourselves just to get some more stuff out. So far what we had done was Final Fantasy VI, Contra 3 and Terranigma. I think Super Mario World, Kart and TMNT4 were being worked on and I started doing Secret of Evermore. But they've been on the backburner for a while.

Anyways, Meteo I don't know why you're "banned" from project, I didn't really know that till now so I will talk to Mono about it and see what's going on. Kage, as far as I'm aware Protricity was handling the domain situation, he knows what he's on about so you're in good hands and you've apparently been sending emails back and forth. I'm sorry Mono didn't respond to you directly about that, I don't want this thread to turn into a drama zone but you posted and the reason you had to fulfill a "difficult request" was because you did something you shouldn't have done in the first place.

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Protricity Newbie

Protricity

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Posted

Just to clear a few things up.

Meteo isn't actually banned from the project. Additionally he has expressed no desire to be part of it. Furthermore any such 'tiff' as it was called had nothing to do with Snesology in any regard.

Sorry if I got any of the details wrong. This is only my understanding.

From this point on, if everyone could keep the discussion related to the topic I'd greatly appreciate it. As I said before, for any lingering concerns please email me directly and I'll handle them promptly (No PMs, since I probably don't check those frequently)

thxthxthxxx

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williamkage Newbie

williamkage

Posted
Posted
you're upset about something, but not saying what that something

is [and] doing it publicly in a release thread which will only

serve to attach drama to Snesology where no drama existed before.

Let me clarify: Communication is the issue.

I'm trying to point out a problem, and give some advice on how

to improve (constructive criticism). I left out most of the

details (to avoid drama). I'm trying to help.

All I've ever wanted to do, is help you guys. I absolutely made

some mistakes (I make LOTS of mistakes, heh), but believe it or

not ... everything would have been easier, with better communication.

The only reason I came here to do it, is because it's silly not

to get a direct response, and here I felt more likely to get one.

Ordinarily, I prefer having these discussions privately via email,

but that wasn't working.

This isn't drama, it's not even particularly bad. Not a big deal,

guys. I'm trying to warn you that it may become a big deal

because of how much faith I have in SNESology to grow into a

very big (and awesome), um, deal! :)

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williamkage Newbie

williamkage

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Posted
I don't think anyone has aspirations of SNESology ever making any money.

That's not the point, it's good practice to be professional and respectful in all projects, whether they're commercial, non-profit, or something else. Or, at least that's how I feel. :P

Do SNESology tracks aim to be "hardware perfect" or is the idea more about the general aural aesthetic of SNES music?

I'd like to comment on this too, since I'm an example. :)

The #1 goal is "good music" and while they may make exceptions in terms of polyphony, DSP authenticity, etc, it's best to stick to the rules as closely as you can. For example, I worked with Shna to improve the authenticity of my DSP, but still bent the polyphony rule a bit with my submission (and I'm grateful for their acceptance of it, despite this).

I like that approach. Prioritize quality! After that, it's case-by-case, the closer to "hardware perfect" the better. And holy crap, Shna has got some beautiful settings that seem hardware perfect to me.

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Protricity Newbie

Protricity

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While 'good music' is certainly among the highest priorities for the SNESology community, the #1 goal as I understand it is to stick as close to the many minutiae, intricacies (and limitations) of the SNES onboard SPC chip. That is to say, the goal is to make music as if it was from an actual game release.

While this sounds kinda obvious, the point is not to just make a 'great song' using 'SNES samples', but to make a 'SNES song' as if you were commissioned to work on some imminent SNES game release.

As per the Mission Statement,

We strongly urge musicians to stick as close to the Super Nintendo SMP as possible. While we do make exceptions, we believe that to honor the SNES, we should stick to the limitations that the pioneers of SNES music were stuck with. Some of these limitations may be a real challenge, but that should be part of the fun! Making authentic SNES music is not for the weak-willed!

Hope I got that right! It's actually that aspect of SNESology that intrigues me the most since I love working within strict limitations. Tends to bring out the creativity

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williamkage Newbie

williamkage

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Ah, sorry about that. I hadn't seen the Mission Statement. My previous post was based on

the original discussions I had with Shna/Mono back in June, when they were still ironing out

requirements; it predated the "Our Mission" page. :)

Back then, I had some very enjoyable talks with Shna/Mono, regarding looping. I'd be interested

to hear what others think about this! My stance is that, to truly adhere to SNES, most of the songs

should be relatively short loops. There were not very many lengthy (5+ min) or non-looping

tracks on real SNES games, except for intro/ending tracks, and rare "cutscene" usage. This

makes for yet another fascinating and authentic constraint, IMO.

It was lots of fun, being a part of the development of these guidelines! :D

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RoeTaKa Newbie

RoeTaKa

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I'm sure that requirement remained true the entire time especially since Shnabubula was working to that rule. Infact he convinced me to always work with 7 channels in mind because that 8th channel usually was open to use for sound effects. If you notice with NES games one of the channels on a song gets disabled for a sound effect to play, but with SNES apparently one was left open so songs were not interrupted. As a composer just writing music and not for a game I'd say using 8 channels as a guide is totally fine but if you were writing and thinking it to be for a game on a SNES cartridge going for 7 has a more convincing feel. That's not to say you can only make a song with 7 instruments in mind, there were times like in Secret of Evermore where channels had samples switched in and out of them to utilize more sound but still keep to the limit. There's quite a large degree to play and experiment whilst keeping to the rules, whilst their are limitations it's still really fun and creative.

As for songs and looping, there's different reasons for that. Short songs obviously are very catchy if done right but also where they were used, the areas weren't too big and didn't require such dynamics. A random battle song for example, it's rare to have a fight go on for one minute so there's not much reason to make a massive song. It makes sense and also for example with Square many of their composers were in-house so they had the time to work on lots of small but memorable songs. I wouldn't particularly call it a constraint in this case I would just say it was the management of time with the forward thinking that a lot of places didn't need long songs and repetition actually benefited the player.

Either way constraints are constraints and that was what we were used to and enjoyed as kids/gamers of that generation. But we don't get paid and we have the luxury of time and absolute creativity to decide what we want our pieces to be and I think that is really important because music is always about the composer/writer.

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williamkage Newbie

williamkage

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Posted

Believe it or not, it wasn't true all along. ;)

(I'll email you about this, I've derailed enough heh)

But yes! Seven or even six channels. You could always tell when a game

was swapping out instruments to save on channels, by whether or not

sound effects robbed the drums/etc. I remember scratching my head

as a kid, wondering why some games could play sound effects WITH

music, and others had to compromise the drums, for example.

That's an excellent point, maybe you should add that to the guidelines! :)

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Monobrow Newbie

Monobrow

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That's not to say you can only make a song with 7 instruments in mind, there were times like in Secret of Evermore where channels had samples switched in and out of them to utilize more sound but still keep to the limit.

One game that suffered quite a bit from this was Secret of Mana actually. If you notice, quite a lot of music cuts out for "WHACKS" and hits throughout the game.

I try to work w/ 7, but a lot of the time I end up w/ 8 anyway just because of my writing style (throw everything in). A trick I try to do is to compensate by taking out notes that your mind plays for you, as in, you're not going to miss these notes while a high hat plays instead, and vice versa. Sometimes I'll start a phrase w/ an accompanying instrument and let it trail off mid-section, because it's made its point. I try to write drums in ways where I can take out notes that play together if I can. I find myself doing this more and more to compensate for delay effects on other instruments as well. I'm still not 100% sure my songs are all accounted for for not going over in every respect, because I think I would need to be actually hearing it as .spc to tell, but it's a real challenge to try to work with only 7 and hope that it gives you enough headroom. I love it, and I can hopefully only get better w/ time.

That's also why accepting SPCs works pretty well as long as the samples use sound recognizable from SNES games... Like mv and Velanthos' excellent submissions.

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RoeTaKa Newbie

RoeTaKa

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Posted
Ahah, nice one. That title alone had me sold. Turns out the song was pretty legit too. :nicework:

Is SNESology a private endeavor, or are submissions open to public?

Haha thanks.

It's not private at all, just the sound sets kind of are at the moment. If you can grab some soundfonts you like or know how to use a tracker then bust something out and send Monobrow a message or submit through the tumblr page.

Dave Harris has soundfonts he made on his page : http://www.iridescentaudio.co.uk/

And there are links to soundfonts on Kage's page : http://williamkage.com/snes-soundfonts-and-samples/

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williamkage Newbie

williamkage

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It's not private at all, just the sound sets kind of are at the moment.

I've proposed this to Shna before, but it's worth trying again:

Can we collaborate to get more SF2's out?

I'd be happy to put your WAV's into SF2's (and credit you of course).

In particular:

Contra

Terranigma

Castlevania

To a lesser extent:

Metroid

(I have most samples done, just not SF2'd yet)

The community would certainly benefit from this.

What do you think? :D

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williamkage Newbie

williamkage

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I'm not sure how that came off as doubting your ability; I have no doubt that you can do it. :)

I offer it as a service to help you and the community:

1) Saves you time, so you can instead focus on the greater goal (VST bundle?)

2) Provides the community (including potential contributors) with additional tools, sooner.

Yes, Shnabubula and I had discussed even providing DSP by brand, which is a flippin' cool idea. :D

Terranigma + Capcom Reverb B

Contra + Square Reverb C

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