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Chiptune Database with Web API


Multimedia Mike
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Remember that website I created that allows users to listen to chiptunes directly through their [Chrome] web browsers? The primary problem I wanted to solve was to make it easy for people to listen to chiptunes.

I recently realized that a side effect of the project was creating an impressive online database of chiptunes and their metadata, and making it all searchable. I decided to publish an API to access all this juicy chiptune data. The technical details are explained here:

http://multimedia.cx/eggs/chiptune-database-and-api/

At this point, I have to wonder: Does anyone still listen to chiptunes? What offline players are you using? Is everyone behind Chipamp? I ask because my hope is that the authors of these offline chiptune players would be able to leverage this database to make it easier for their users to locate and play their favorite video game music.

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I prefer my chiptunes in MP3 format, only because of the universality of the format.

That Game Music Appreciation site is really awesome though. I certainly use it when I want to listen to older game soundtracks.

One feature I have thought of adding is an "Export Song" or "Export Album" button (the latter would export all songs in a game). It would be possible to simply generate the audio and dump it to files on the user's hard drive. There are a few usability matters to work out first, though. (What format should it dump? Raw PCM in WAV or MP4? Then the user has to recompress to MP3 or AAC. Should the program compress it? What format and settings?)

I wonder if that would be a worthwhile feature to pursue?

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Mac user, so no Chipamp for me. I use an older thing, Game Music Box, which is nice and simple and doesn't try too hard to have everything. I haven't collected that many chiptunes, I've only really got a nes and a snes collection, but that's where most of my sources are from. I have some arcade emulator on one of my machines, but don't remember which. GMB doesn't seem to work in Lion, so I use Audio Overload there.

I found it really interesting to see the composers of individual tracks and the track names in GMB and AO. Dunno if the nes collection had any metadata, but the snes one did. I could see your database being used for tracks without that kind of metadata, or just for finding all tracks by specific composers (a composer-based ocr album, anyone?).

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One feature I have thought of adding is an "Export Song" or "Export Album" button (the latter would export all songs in a game). It would be possible to simply generate the audio and dump it to files on the user's hard drive. There are a few usability matters to work out first, though. (What format should it dump? Raw PCM in WAV or MP4? Then the user has to recompress to MP3 or AAC. Should the program compress it? What format and settings?)

I wonder if that would be a worthwhile feature to pursue?

That would be interesting. Would it be possible to keep the information in the file or would the user have to fill it in themselves? I would totally use something like that, as long as it's not too difficult and/or time consuming to implement.

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That would be interesting. Would it be possible to keep the information in the file or would the user have to fill it in themselves? I would totally use something like that, as long as it's not too difficult and/or time consuming to implement.

Absolutely, the metadata would be preserved. If the program wrote to an m4a/mp4 file, it could output an iTunes-compatible metadata block.

I think the biggest concern with this feature would be deciding the specific audio format to use: The choices would be raw PCM, MP3, AAC, or Apple Lossless.

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Add in FLAC and give the end user a choice between the formats and then you're golden.

It's true that FLAC could still carry metadata (whether in raw FLAC or Ogg container). But this project is all about reducing friction for the end user (I've heard the user experience design philosophy summed up with the maxim "don't make me think!").

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