Cheetahmen II remix//arrange

[SKIPJACK AUDIO]

hello, i'm a new poster but a longtime fan of ocremix.org - i've been making music for some time (not that long though!), and while right now i don't have the software or hardware to make anything more sophisticated, i've been making chiptunes for a few years now. i recently completed a rearrangement//loosely-termed 'remix' of some of the melodies termed as being the themes of stages "1, 2, 3, and 3" of Cheetahmen II, if Youtube is to be believed. Either way, I've been really fond of this theme for a long time, and making a bit of a reimagining of it was a lot of fun.

>>> here it is! <<<

right now, the program i use to make my chiptunes is the ultrasimplistic freeware tracker FamiTracker. my process as of right now is that I do a raw bounce of all the tracks together as a .wav, and then i put it through audacity to look thru the waveforms and remove any clicks or pops at the end, which for some reason FT is wont to do at the end of songs.

what i'm looking for most in terms of feedback is mostly what peoples' mixing/polishing techniques are when it comes to dealing with chiptune, and if there's anything I could be doing better; any problems you notice from the get-go listening to this thing. While it would be cool, with this song/method of music making in particular it isn't my intent to get this or any other vg themes i do featured as an OC ReMix-- i know just by looking at the submission guidelines that they don't look too kindly on raw chiptunes. Later on, I'd like to incorporate elements of chiptune in my songs along with more detailed instruments, and not rely on it exclusively as a platform for my compositions-- while i love 8 bit, i wouldn't build the entire sound im aiming for in the future around it.

For the time being, I'd like to build my strength in terms of mixing/technical fixes when it comes to what i make until i can get a better computer and afford a solid DAW or two. So what do you guys think so far?

[timaeus222]

While it would be cool, with this song/method of music making in particular it isn't my intent to get this or any other vg themes i do featured as an OC ReMix-- i know just by looking at the submission guidelines that they don't look too kindly on raw chiptunes. Later on, I'd like to incorporate elements of chiptune in my songs along with more detailed instruments, and not rely on it exclusively as a platform for my compositions-- while i love 8 bit, i wouldn't build the entire sound im aiming for in the future around it.

For the time being, I'd like to build my strength in terms of mixing/technical fixes when it comes to what i make until i can get a better computer and afford a solid DAW or two. So what do you guys think so far?

OC ReMix isn't necessarily against chiptunes, but against specifically basic, unrefined chiptunes. If it's detailed enough, then it's good enough. Case in point: halc, PROTO·DOME, etc.

The arrangement sounds simple, chiptunes aside, even sparse sometimes, relative to chiptune textures. e.g. 1:50-1:53. If you get to using a DAW, it'll allow for more expressive chiptunes through modulations and automations.

Edited March 7, 2014 by timaeus222

[SKIPJACK AUDIO]

OC ReMix isn't necessarily against chiptunes, but against specifically basic, unrefined chiptunes. If it's detailed enough, then it's good enough. Case in point: halc, PROTO·DOME, etc.

The arrangement sounds simple, chiptunes aside, even sparse sometimes, relative to chiptune textures. e.g. 1:50-1:53. If you get to using a DAW, it'll allow for more expressive chiptunes through modulations and automations.

Thanks for your input, but it wasn't so much the arrangement of the chiptune itself that I was looking for commentary on-- it was more the quality of the audio itself. I find that especially in comparison to other audio files/songs, the raw bounces i get out of FT tend to be kind of quiet. I haven't gotten a look at the average level in dB throughout the tune-- hoping there might be an Audacity plugin to check for clipping akin to WaveBurner's but i might take it to my college to use their copy of WB if not, just to see what kind of dynamics i'm getting out of .wav bounces right out of the tracker.

I'm mainly nervous that if i try to do anything mastering-wise in terms of external dynamics control like putting a limiter on it or using some compression on separate tracks that it'll bring up a huge noise floor. I haven't had time to try it yet, but i might, just to see if it's just that FamiTracker's file output is hella low, or if there's something else I should be doing to treat or master the tracks before sitting back and calling it done-- it certainly doesn't SOUND that low when I'm doing playback through the program itself.

[timaeus222]

Thanks for your input, but it wasn't so much the arrangement of the chiptune itself that I was looking for commentary on-- it was more the quality of the audio itself. I find that especially in comparison to other audio files/songs, the raw bounces i get out of FT tend to be kind of quiet. I haven't gotten a look at the average level in dB throughout the tune-- hoping there might be an Audacity plugin to check for clipping akin to WaveBurner's but i might take it to my college to use their copy of WB if not, just to see what kind of dynamics i'm getting out of .wav bounces right out of the tracker.

Well, it's at about -23 dB RMS right now, compared to around a (likely) normal -18~-14 dB RMS for chiptunes. In other words, the volume is about 30% lower than normal. Chiptunes tend to have parts that play a large role in maintaining the harmonies anyway, so there's less of an issue with volume here than if this was some other fuller genre.

[SKIPJACK AUDIO]

Well, it's at about -23 dB RMS right now, compared to around a (likely) normal -18~-14 dB RMS for chiptunes. In other words, the volume is about 30% lower than normal. Chiptunes tend to have parts that play a large role in maintaining the harmonies anyway, so there's less of an issue with volume here than if this was some other fuller genre.

Fair enough, but for the sake of what I can currently make and in the interest of making something high-quality even if it is only chiptune, I still find that as it is right now, it's still terribly quiet in comparison to other audio and could probably do with being improved. Do you think there might be something that could be attenuating it really hard when I do an audio bounce? I looked through the settings, but all it's really got in it is some sort of simplistic high-frequency shelf EQ. Once I'm home I'll take a better look at what it's set to and what it's doing, since I'm not posting from my own computer right now and I'm noting this out of my memory of having skimmed through said settings a week ago.

[Moseph]

Just normalize it in Audacity to bring the level up as high as it can go without clipping. Noise floor shouldn't be an issue.

Or am I misunderstanding the issue? Are you getting spikes in the audio that prevent it from being normalized to the usual level of chiptunes?

[SKIPJACK AUDIO]

Just normalize it in Audacity to bring the level up as high as it can go without clipping. Noise floor shouldn't be an issue.

Or am I misunderstanding the issue? Are you getting spikes in the audio that prevent it from being normalized to the usual level of chiptunes?

Once I have some spare time to do so this weekend, I'm going to give normalizing it in Audacity a try just to see if that fixes the worst of the level issues.

At least to my ear the dynamic range that Famitracker is capable of is pretty narrow, so I don't anticipate any spikes causing any problems, though in that one particular 16-bar chunk where it's a long run of notes against the "signature" Cheetahmen bassline, there's something I need to fix where I had two pulse-wave instruments playing together at the same octave and volume setting when I meant to either shift one of the instrument tracks' octaves or muck around with the volumes between the two tracks so they didn't fight with one another's sound (i'm not sure if that's going to make much sense to someone not used to FT though lmao). It caused some weird additive/subtractive synthesis stuff where I feel a lot of high end got boosted and is making it sound too ringy and annoying... might just be me being overly critical and listening through crappy treble-heavy earbuds, though; I'm not sure if anyone else notices this. Might sound piercing at that part if I try normalizing it, but again, won't know until this weekend when I have time to give it a go.