Hello! Working on my last post made me think about how, even though GBA ripping is very easy and reliable especially compared to other consoles, the process could still be improved. For example, GBA_Mus_Ripper has a bug that causes the generated soundfonts to sound horrible in fluidsynth, and it often adds vibrato to songs that aren't supposed to have vibrato.
I...
Many guides on how to create SiIvagunner-style "high quality rips" for Famicom/NES games state to use FamiTracker. A "tracker" is an unconventional music editor in which notes are typed into rows of text.
Did you know that a more conventional side-scrolling music editor for Famicom music exists? It is FamiStudio.
In FamiStudio, you can import NSF or NSFe files containing chiptune music, and then freely edit the chiptune music.
overcast07's guide "Obtaining sources for creating a high quality rip", which is one of many helpful documents that the "Ripping" page of the SiIvagunner Wiki links to, also mentions that FamiStudio can be used to create rips.
He states that rips created in FamiStudio should be exported as NSF then rendered to an audio file using Game Emu Player and foobar2000, because FamiStudio's audio export has "substandard accuracy".
overcast07 stopped updating this document in February 2024, so FamiStudio's audio export may have improved since then;
but if you wish to try this method, I believe the "download WAV" button on my Web-Chiptune-Player demo page should render NSF files with the same accuracy as foobar2000 and Game Emu Player because they are both built off of the Game_Music_Emu library; please export an NSFe file from FamiStudio so Web-Chiptune-Player knows how many seconds of audio to render!
I love the aesthetics of Kirby: Canvas Curse. One might think that a game about travelling into a world of paintings would have an art style matching the Renaissance or Impressionism, and have orchestral music; but Canvas Curse embodies the true spirit of art: experimentation. The user interface is geometric abstraction, sprites of characters appear to be pre-rendered 3d, and the art style of the level background changes constantly from level to level.
The music is electronic; but while most electronic music may have a focus on bass and sawtooths, Canvas Curse focuses on high pitch, tinny, slightly wet sounds (reminiscent of water splashing and bubbling).
I haven't heard much music like it (though I don't often go out of my way to listen to new music). However, there's one song I've heard that strongly reminds me of Canvas Curse's music: TECHDOG by Patricia Taxxon from the album TECHDOG 1. TECHDOG is very different from Canvas Curse music, it's much more atonal for example, but the instruments have that tinniness and wetness. Patricia Taxxon is very good at making intricate and lovely soundscapes.
TECHDOG 1 is tagged as "IDM" and "Glitch" on Bandcamp. Maybe the Canvas Curse soundtrack can also be described as IDM? Most of Canvas Curse's music doesn't fall into the Glitch genre, except for Drawcia Soul.
Whenever I notice a vague similarity between two songs, I add them to a list of mashup ideas. I was looking back at old entries in my list, and I saw "Beginning of Tera Raid Battle X Beginning of Untamed Heart". I wrote this entry before hearing the Area Zero theme, and upon reading it again I realized that Area Zero and Untamed Heart might go quite well together. I made a little musical sketch in Signal of how a mashup of these two songs might sound; I'll probably never finish it, but I hope you enjoy it. If you want to, feel free to take this idea and finish it (credit to me would be appreciated). Download midi. The soundfont I used is A320U.sf2, the default soundfont in Signal midi editor.
