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Chiptune.app

chiptune.app

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Re: Chiptune.app

#111

Post by el_nahual »

vardump wrote: post #51

Searched for any chiptunes (in the original meaning) on that site, the only ones I could find are here: https://chiptune.app/browse/ModArchives/Dreamfish . Perhaps there are more? In the 1990s chiptunes meant *tracker (Protracker, etc.) tunes with short loops used as instruments.

I'm old enough to remember playing games with chiptunes, but young enough to not have known what a tracker was. This YouTube video (from the amazing Ahoy channel) is an incredible, in-depth overview of trackers, their sound and history:

https://youtu.be/roBkg-iPrbw

Re: Chiptune.app

#113

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

wiradikusuma wrote: post #103
Jakob wrote: post #23

If you are on macOS, download the .mid file and open it in Garageband and listen for how much (free!) MIDI synthesis has improved.

You're right! Why is that? Shouldn't regardless of the app (Chrome vs GarageBand) the sound be the same? I mean the underlaying player should be the same right?

MIDI files only contain a description of (simplifying somewhat) the rhythm and base pitch of notes, and which instruments they should be played on, so the realisation can vary drastically depending on the particular system and configuration (e.g. soundfont choice) it's played back with.

Re: Chiptune.app

#114

Post by charred_patina »

Wow, I previously had this domain with a similar project hosted and just let it expire in March. I was really confused seeing it at the top of HN.

"Wait why is my website on the front page of HN? I thought I let the domain expire."

I don't mean to piggyback, but I want to show what I had hosted here before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pEvu_nC2LQ

OPs project is obviously much more impressive, but it's cool to me that the aesthetics are similar and both come from similar places. A nice reminder that the internet is actually pretty small I guess.

Also, I'd like to introduce people who may not be familiar with Chiptunes and trackers to Tim Follin. Tim has a legendary status among NES composers. His music doesn't even sound like it could be coming from an NES sound chip:

https://chiptune.app/browse/Nintendo/Silver%20Surfer

Re: Chiptune.app

#119

Post by nxpnsv »

vardump wrote: post #56
nxpnsv wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it meant sid, and a bunch of ym trackers on atari st. The mods where just chip style. That said i really loved those old chip mods

Absolutely no one referred to SID, YM etc. tunes as chiptunes in the nineties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiptune "The term is commonly used to refer to tracker format music using extremely basic and small samples that an old computer or console could produce (this is the original meaning of the term)"

You may be correct about wording, it was a life time ago and I only spoke about this in Swedish. I think one of the trackers I used called itself a chip composor, there's a nice archive of these things things (some of them quite recent) here https://dhs.nu/files.php?t=chipeditor

Re: Chiptune.app

#120

Post by Pathogen-David »

wiradikusuma wrote: post #103
Jakob wrote: post #23

If you are on macOS, download the .mid file and open it in Garageband and listen for how much (free!) MIDI synthesis has improved.

You're right! Why is that? Shouldn't regardless of the app (Chrome vs GarageBand) the sound be the same? I mean the underlaying player should be the same right?

That's the nature of MIDI files. They don't encode audio, they encode a set of instruments with a list of notes. It's up to whatever's playing them to provide what those instruments actually sound like.

Here's an example of the same MIDI file being played back on several different devices: https://youtu.be/eiMP-PlL6VM?t=954 It's clearly the same song on all of them, but it sounds slightly different.

Modern browsers do not support MIDI playback on their own, so chiptune.app is presumably doing it on its own with its own (likely intentionally retro) sound font providing the instruments.

Additionally even if macOS had its own system-level MIDI synthesis (not sure if it does), GarageBand would actually probably still be different since it's main purpose isn't MIDI playback -- it's to be a DAW.

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