maybe this can be the general creative catch-all, because a place like this needs something like this.
but yeah! post art that you're working on, music, fiction snippets, game screenshots, videos – or code projects, stuff you've cooked recently, interior design… all of that would fit too. as long as it's WIP or fresh out of WIP, it's fair game.
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<span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%'><a href='https://moon-ii.net/infanity/audio/tens ... 240501.mp3' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>tensaishoujo_a1_20240501.mp3</a></span>
i've been taken with the pc-98's soundchip¹ for a couple years now, maybe for the glass marble texture of its sound, maybe because fm synthesis had always felt a bit like a dark art and i wanted to actually learn it, maybe because the technical limitations force me out of my existing aesthetic crutches, maybe because linux kinda alienated me from my normal music production tools and i'm just trying to make do.
after picking at this for far too long, halfway through last month i set a deadline of may 1st to finish this so i could wash my hands of it and move on, though in order to "finish" it in time i had to chop out entire sections i was planning to have and polish the rest as best i could in that time. though even now that i've done that… i'm still not quite satisfied with it.
<span style='font-size:7pt;line-height:100%'>¹ technically the opna chip, most popularly used on the pc-9801-86 soundcard but i'll spare you the infodumping</span>
What Are You Working On?
Oh this is insanely pretty! The soundfont is really pleasurable and I have to confess FM synthesis feels like a dark art to me, though @sarah and @sinku I think both know more on that than I do?watermoon wrote:<span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%'><a href='https://moon-ii.net/infanity/audio/tens ... 240501.mp3' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>tensaishoujo_a1_20240501.mp3</a></span>
<span style='font-size:7pt;line-height:100%'>¹ technically the opna chip, most popularly used on the pc-9801-86 soundcard but i'll spare you the infodumping</span>
I like this a lot, watermoon. It reminds me a bit of this song from Rockman and Forte, I find that sort of two chord (is it IV-V? I don't know) repetition really soothing.
I've talked to a lot of people about my own work lately, but I don't mind showing it here on Paralogue.
So I've been working on a visual novel for a while. I think ideation started last May; I found collaborators in June and July, got character sketches through the summer, tinkered at it getting the UI right somehow spending Sep/Oct on it, wrote on it passively Nov/Dec, wrote on it nonstop in January, wrapped the first act sometime in Feb/Mar?, and now it's sort of in stasis until I can pick it up again to write act 2. That said I'm also waiting on assets from both artist and composer who are infrequently around, so it could just end up being a project I'm picking away at for ages, though I want it out this year honestly.
This is where the general look and feel pinned itself down to:
I showed the entire route to @meri recently and got a little bit of feedback, mostly on how the look and feel plays together?
As for what it's actually about ... well, I was inspired a lot by Subarashiki Hibi's structure; it's a bunch of short stories overlapping a few time periods, and I wanted to tell some stories that ended with questions that found answers from the next story, which itself posited more questions, and each one would gradually unfold a bit about the metaphysics of the world. It's in a composite Quebec town -- somewhere where the church still haunts us as a lost father -- and it focuses on the relationships between people where ghosts, spirits, gods, the loops of reincarnation, our astral fragments across time, all intercede and interrupt them. In each one something is a bit off about what's going on, but it's not really apparent to our characters. Their lives are just normal to them. I find that the most fun thing to write: when you're just stuck in someone's head and they aren't doing so hot.
There's a bunch of stuff I want to do this year if I can just get the space to do it. I want to make music, though I think it may best be done just ... tinkering at a track to warm myself up into the creative spirit before writing proper, over and over again.
We don't care what you say but we care what you do.
We’re the invisible entity that looks out for you.
what are you using for composing? deflemask or something else? this is a very pretty piece.watermoon wrote: <a href='https://moon-ii.net/infanity/audio/tens ... 240501.mp3' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>tensaishoujo_a1_20240501.mp3</a>
it is a dark art. there are complexities you dont get with normal synths. though, some stuff is simpler. Its easy to overcomplicate a tower and make a cheap or unusable patch. and thats just with sine waves, once you introduce other waveforms it becomes way weirder. :blink:maru wrote: I have to confess FM synthesis feels like a dark art to me
are the party rockers in the room with us right now?
awwwww thank you both~
the rockman and forte song, i'd describe that loop as I - VIIb, but V - IV also describes those exact same chords yeah. and VIIb is really the IV of IV, so it all ends up related in the end.
ok so bambootracker emulates just a bare ym2608, which is used in either later pc-88 models or a specific pc-98 soundcard that nobody really bought. that's fine, i think. but the later pc-98 soundcard that everyone remembers used a 2608 minus its adpcm capabilities, because the ram that the 2608 used as an adpcm buffer was instead rerouted to a separate pcm chain instead (lol). sites report the soundcard as having two pcm channels, which furnace interprets as meaning two monaural channels of "Generic PCM" that can be softpanned, but i'm thinking it might be more realistic to consider it as a single stereo channel. i had to look through multiple datasheets to come to this conclusion.
but i dunno, stuff like this is fun for me! i find it really really cool that an fm instrument here is just a set of 40ish numbers, and you can create so many different sounds from how you configure these numbers. and even though i haven't played many pc-98 games, i do adore this soundchip. it's essentially a mega drive with the world's cheapest-sounding drumkit bolted on and that's cool.
in my mind it fights with the pc engine's soundchip as being the one i love the most…
(i really don't know why i haven't done much with chipmusic when i could gush about this for hours)
i'd describe what's going on in my ending loop as like I - iim7?, or just G - Am7/C for normaler people. so, basically a variant of I - IV, which is pretty common and always cozy when it shows up.maru wrote:I like this a lot, watermoon. It reminds me a bit of <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeJmHodEB00' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>this song from Rockman and Forte</a>, I find that sort of two chord (is it IV-V? I don't know) repetition really soothing.
the rockman and forte song, i'd describe that loop as I - VIIb, but V - IV also describes those exact same chords yeah. and VIIb is really the IV of IV, so it all ends up related in the end.
i've been using furnace, which is like deflemask but without the moral baggage. though in the past i've also used bambootracker for pc-98 stuff, but…sinku wrote:what are you using for composing? deflemask or something else? this is a very pretty piece.
ok so bambootracker emulates just a bare ym2608, which is used in either later pc-88 models or a specific pc-98 soundcard that nobody really bought. that's fine, i think. but the later pc-98 soundcard that everyone remembers used a 2608 minus its adpcm capabilities, because the ram that the 2608 used as an adpcm buffer was instead rerouted to a separate pcm chain instead (lol). sites report the soundcard as having two pcm channels, which furnace interprets as meaning two monaural channels of "Generic PCM" that can be softpanned, but i'm thinking it might be more realistic to consider it as a single stereo channel. i had to look through multiple datasheets to come to this conclusion.
but i dunno, stuff like this is fun for me! i find it really really cool that an fm instrument here is just a set of 40ish numbers, and you can create so many different sounds from how you configure these numbers. and even though i haven't played many pc-98 games, i do adore this soundchip. it's essentially a mega drive with the world's cheapest-sounding drumkit bolted on and that's cool.
in my mind it fights with the pc engine's soundchip as being the one i love the most…
(i really don't know why i haven't done much with chipmusic when i could gush about this for hours)
Wait. How much music theory do you know? I figured we were all fumbling around in the dark.watermoon wrote:awwwww thank you both~
i'd describe what's going on in my ending loop as like I - iim7?, or just G - Am7/C for normaler people. so, basically a variant of I - IV, which is pretty common and always cozy when it shows up.maru wrote:I like this a lot, watermoon. It reminds me a bit of <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeJmHodEB00' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>this song from Rockman and Forte</a>, I find that sort of two chord (is it IV-V? I don't know) repetition really soothing.
the rockman and forte song, i'd describe that loop as I - VIIb, but V - IV also describes those exact same chords yeah. and VIIb is really the IV of IV, so it all ends up related in the end.
[...]
(i really don't know why i haven't done much with chipmusic when i could gush about this for hours)
I think for making anything it's just a matter of when it calls our attention. It's more a matter of lifestyle than of motivation. Suddenly we remember we love it, but we have to be reminded, we have to make it a part of ourselves, our life ... I envy those who have. I feel like maybe I will one day.
We don't care what you say but we care what you do.
We’re the invisible entity that looks out for you.
i took piano lessons for eight years while growing up and have been writing music since maybe 14–15, so i've learned a few things… though i also go back and forth on how much that actually matters. after all, this is a medium where a band can keep going and gaining more experience and critics will say that they're going downhill!…
though i think i also understand that feeling, that envy… there are just some people who seem naturally prolific – who treat picking up the brush as a joy – and i wish i had what they have. i wish it wasn't always such a struggle.
it's also been hard to drum up motivation when i don't really have anybody to show my work to these days. i have no following, no creative community… i think this is also why i wanted to make this thread: to have a low-pressure environment where i and others could dump stuff off, and hopefully have that be encouragement enough to want to make more stuff to dump off.
though i think i also understand that feeling, that envy… there are just some people who seem naturally prolific – who treat picking up the brush as a joy – and i wish i had what they have. i wish it wasn't always such a struggle.
it's also been hard to drum up motivation when i don't really have anybody to show my work to these days. i have no following, no creative community… i think this is also why i wanted to make this thread: to have a low-pressure environment where i and others could dump stuff off, and hopefully have that be encouragement enough to want to make more stuff to dump off.
