10.2.2. - NESdev BBS

10.2.2.
by tepples on 2012-03-30 (#91995)

To try to learn FamiTracker, I made a 2A03 arrangement of an old tracked piece that I had made years ago back when I was still heavily into DDR.

10.2.2. (ogg | ftm | original version)

What if anything could I have improved on?

EDIT: original version link is fixed

by Shiru on 2012-03-30 (#91996)

Don't ever use vibrato.

by Dwedit on 2012-03-30 (#91997)

There's a lot of games with really good soundtracks that don't use any vibrato.
But trying to come up with a list of them is hard, because when you go to verify the game, you can hear the vibrato

I believe that Rygar has no vibrato. Tons of other effects, but no vibrato.

Edit:
Went through the top 30 list.
I believe 6 of them don't use vibrato: Contra, Metroid, Faxanadu, Super Mario Bros 2, Castlevania 1, and Super Mario Bros 3.
But I'm guessing here from listening, not importing into Famitracker to confirm it.

by Shiru on 2012-03-30 (#91998)

Vibrato simply sucks.

by Drag on 2012-03-31 (#92002)

If the sound is cold and flat, I'd be quicker to blame the composition, rather than the lack of a feature.

This is similar to my longstanding (mis?)conception that people seem to think chiptunes require warbly arpeggios.

by Celius on 2012-03-31 (#92004)

There is no vibrato in the music of Final Fantasy 1. Love the music, but vibrato would have taken it to another level.

by Drag on 2012-03-31 (#92019)

Hah, conversely, I think the vibrato in Zelda 2 took the music a level too far.

by cak on 2012-03-31 (#92039)

The effects sound adequate to me. I think the bassline could use a little more variation, but overall it's not bad at all.

by Memblers on 2012-03-31 (#92054)

Sounds cool, nothing in particular stood out to me as needing improvement. Newer one sounds better than the old one, but I kinda liked the noise in the intro of the original version.

About the vibrato stuff, it's definitely something subjective and depending on style (would suck if everyone's music sounded the same, right?). I mostly just wanted to point out that the Dragon Warrior series had some of my favorite NES music, and I think only 2 songs in the whole series had used vibrato (both on the triangle channel).

by Dwedit on 2012-03-31 (#92057)

DW3 and 4 use lots of vibrato.

by cak on 2012-04-01 (#92058)

Sounds like tremolo to me.
edit: Ok, there's at least one song in DW4 with square vibrato.

by jrlepage on 2012-04-04 (#92134)

Just dropping in to say this is some great stuff you got there! Shame about the abrupt ending though.

Oh and vibrato is great when used properly. When poorly used, it's horrendous.

by Bisqwit on 2012-04-14 (#92470)

Mega Man and Mega Man 2 used pitch vibrato extensively as well, and it was great.

The Capcom sound engine of that day did not support portamento (pitch slides between two notes), but they rewrote the engine in Mega Man 3 and it's been used since that. Portamento can add a lot to the style and make it sound more natural, but it is difficult to use it right.
(There are a few pitch slides in Mega Man 2, but they approximated it with heavy slow vibrato & cut notes.)

I think they added tremolo (volume vibrato) in Mega Man 4; used in e.g. Dust Man and Toad Man themes in the beginning.