Megadrive equivalent of Famitracker?

[westcabaretdrive]

Hi,

I'm making music for a game, and I want it to be in the style of 16-bit game soundtracks.

I'm looking for someting basically like Famitracker

http://famitracker.shoodot.net/

but which can do 16-bit console style sounds like Megadrive, SNES, TG-16 etc.

Is there anything like this? Or even just a rom I could use in an emulator to compose voices (then I could record to wavs and use them in an ordinary tracker)

[OverCoat]

Unfortunately there's nothing I know of that simulates the Genesis FM sounds in an authentic environment. You can sample the Genesis or use FM synths elsewhere, however. There is also ScreamTracker, which can take advantage of your AdLib soundcard for FM sounds [OPL-2]... if you still have one. You can mess around with DOSBox which has AdLib emulation but I don't know if it would be entirely accurate or stable.

Funny you should mention the SNES though!

An acquaintance of mine, who goes by eKid, is working on a SNES .xm player! And he is almost finished. I will be sure to link it in this forum when he is finished [and like, everywhere else, because this is huge!]

What it should be able to do when finished is take a normal, 8 channel .xm file, and have SNES software emulate it somehow, then output the sound using any SNES emulator [of the SNES itself if possible].

What this MEANS is simple:

XM > XM Player ROM > SPC file!

I'll let you guys know soon. Hopefully.

[Yoozer]

but which can do 16-bit console style sounds like Megadrive, SNES, TG-16 etc.

The Megadrive and SNES have completely different ways of generating sound. Closest you'd get for the MD would be the DiscoDSP Phantom. FM synthesis is however not for the faint of heart, but the 4-op FM synth in there is what a Megadrive uses (one separate synth per voice).

Closest you'd get for the SNES - well, the SNES uses lo-fi samples. If you know how to rip the samples from a SNES SPC file, try to put 'm in a Soundfont, and then play them.

[Tiled]

but which can do 16-bit console style sounds like Megadrive, SNES, TG-16 etc.

The Megadrive and SNES have completely different ways of generating sound. Closest you'd get for the MD would be the DiscoDSP Phantom. FM synthesis is however not for the faint of heart, but the 4-op FM synth in there is what a Megadrive uses (one separate synth per voice).

Closest you'd get for the SNES - well, the SNES uses lo-fi samples. If you know how to rip the samples from a SNES SPC file, try to put 'm in a Soundfont, and then play them.

Any idea about the sample rate/bit depth?

[Yoozer]

Start with 8 bit, 22khz. Use mono waveforms - simulate stereo by panning. No effects whatsoever; reverb on the SNES is recorded in the sample itself.

[the_nihilist]

The Genesis had a 2 Operator FM synth and 1 PCM channel for voice and stuff. Closest thing for the FM sounds would be the free MDA DX10, which is almost dead-on as far as sound goes.

[Yoozer]

4-op, actually. I've got all three (2, 4, 6 op) at home, and 2 op is not enough.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_YM2612

[OverCoat]

mda DX10 does come pretty close though

[klm09]

reverb on the SNES is recorded in the sample itself.

Not quite true, the SNES soundchip did have a built in (rudimentary) reverb effect.

[OverCoat]

It did. eKid was talking about converting some unused effects letter in the .xm format to be used as the echo effect when converting to .spc

And it worked!

[lazygecko]

Here's a Ym-2612 tracker: http://www.pascalorama.info/article.php?news=30&cat=22

So far i'ts a primitive version with no PSG or PCM support. There are some preset instruments included, but you can also rip instruments from games using KGens.

[DXFreak]

Yay, MVSTracker MD! It's actually pretty useful when used in conjunction with Gens KMod (see above).

To people who effectively want to use those kind of sounds in their personal music software (any kind that support VST instruments), this might interest you.

Recently, I stumbled accross a VST plugin called VOPM. As its name suggests it, it is nothing less than an YM2151 emulator. And it's freeware.

And, as parameters are roughly the same as on a 2612, it is technically possible to port 2612 voices to VOPM easily.

Also, VOPM seems to be pretty accurate and 2612 voices will sound almost exactly the same.

VOPM can be downloaded here: http://www.geocities.jp/sam_kb/VOPM/

I consider it as a nice alternative to MVSTracker MD because it allows those kind of sound to be used in FL Studio for example.

But keep in mind you'll need to have both Gens KMod (scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the download link) and MVSTracker MD to be able to port voices to VOPM: just select the adequate audio channel, dump your voice, load it into MVSTracker MD and now you can port the values directly to VOPM (but you'll have to flip operator 2 and 3 because both of them display them in the wrong order).

If someone is interested and have trouble porting voices, I'll be here to help.

[Seiryu]

I downloaded all tools needed ,and I just dumped some channels, but I don't know what to do from there.Could someone help me please?

[DXFreak]

Well, it's not as hard as you think.

To those who will not get a word of what I'll say, I included screenshots showing the steps for the same Slap Bass sound (from Sonic 1, Green Hill Zone) :

When you dumped your channels using Gens KMod, you should have some *.y12 files somewhere on you hard drive (where you specified the files to be saved):

Go to that menu using Gens KMod.

To dump your voice/preset/sound, just hit the "Dump channel" button.

Then, open MVSTracker MD. Go to the "View" menu and select "Instrument Editor".

Push the "Load" button at the top of the dialog and select the y12 file you want.

Now, all parameters necessary to set up you voice should be loaded:

VOPM uses the exact same scale for FM values. The only probem is that op2 and op3 are inverted (order must be actually op1, op3, op2, op4 to make the sound sound right in VST synths such as FM7 or VOPM).

To port the voice to VOPM, open your music tool (Fruity Loops or whatever) and select VOPM as a new instrument (in Fruity Loops/FL studio, "New Channel" --> "VOPM").

Once, you have the VOPM window, select en empty preset where you can create a new sound.

Now, simply set up your voice/sound/preset by copying the values displayed in the instrument Editor of MVSTracker MD.

Operator order is the following (VOPM / MVSTracker MD):

M1 = Slot 1

C1 = Slot 3

M2 = Slot 2

C2 = Slot 4

Other parameters have different names but I think it should be easy to identify what is what.

Once you've finished, hit the "Export" button on the top left of the VOPM window and save your bank to hard disk. (you can save single presets in fxb format in FL Studio, too):

I hope this should help you.

[OverCoat]

Holy shit!

I think I'll try messing around with the tracker.

[OverCoat]

Results! Load it in the genesis emulator of your choice. The damn thing works, kind of!

I should try dumping this to .vgm or something.

[Seiryu]

Thank you so much.I just did it and it works fine,but I would also like to break into FM Synthesis.I was looking for guide on OCR,but there doesn't seem to be one.If any knows of any guide for FM synthesis,I would really appreciate it.Just PM me,thanks in advanced.

[feline_ki]

Sorry to revive such an old thread, but I'm wondering, is there a way to easily extract FM instrument definitions like in the above example, but for non-Genesis games? Specifically, I'm wondering about Gradius III. It uses a YM2151 chip for FM sounds. I've tried viewing the register values using Hoot, but it's getting a too complicated for me (individual registers seem to control multiple parameters?).

[Stargazer]

Hey Guys sorry to dig up this old thread but here goes...

Im currently remixing Emerald Hill on Sonic 2 and im having difficulties recreating the brass sounding stabs at the start (inside the first 3 seconds). So i looked to this.. So far ive ripped the voices too a Y12 file loaded them up in VOPM. but i cant seem to get that exact sound. What im unclear on is that there is only one Y12 file in the dump folder, shouldnt there be one for each channel? or do i need to do 6 seperate dumps? also how does this record the modulation or automation? Sorry im not up on FM synthesis nor trackers for that matter. Any help would be greatly appreactiated.

Kind Regards

SG

[Dafydd]

Sorry to necropost like this, but does anyone know of a way to convert .y12, .vgi or .tfm or similar into .syx? If not, I'll try making a converter myself.