Please help me with the pros and cons of different chiptune formats
Wednesday, December 13, 2017 - 03:56
Hi, so I've started making games again, but I'm having some doubts about the soundtrack; specifically, what format would be best for playback, and would like to hear people's thoughts about it. The formats I've tried so far and the pros and cons I see with them are:
.ogg (Digital Audio):
- Pros: Flexibility, can be played back by anything, good performance
- Cons: Size increases hugely with quality and length of a song, can't set loop point, really boring to make (imo)
.mod, .it: (Tracked format, originally Amiga)
- Pros: Easy to integrate into games, good performance
- Cons: Based largely around pitchshifting of samples, so can't replicate synth sounds that well
.sid: (C64)
- Pros: Best sound imo, very small size
- Cons: Hard to find a reliable playback method
.nsf: (NES/Famicom)
- Pros: Easy enough to find a way of playing back
- Cons: Undesirable sound quality compared to the sid (imo); virtually every other chiptune game uses this format
.a2m, .rad: (AdLib)
- Pros: Very small size
- Cons: Hard to create decent instruments (for me at least), they all sound really harsh and jarring
.vgm (Sega Genesis/Mega Drive)
- Pros: Easy enough to play back
- Cons: Undesirable sound quality compared to the sid (imo)
(I actually have a feeling that the last two formats might be able to produce what I desire with some advanced techniques which I don't know about :P) Do you have any thought about this? Are you perhaps aware of some sort of modern "custom chiptune format" I could use, especially? -Thanks in advance! ~Spring
I can't figure out how to prevent the last lines I wrote from wrapping around and looking stupid like that :P
The sound design I would like to achieve with vgm at least, is somehting like the intro song in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xijiQ26vKME
I like .ogg for its versatility, personally. However, I'm using a framework that allows me to programmatically handle loop points (still, its a pain). I'm guessing you're using RPGMaker or a less code-heavy framework?
--Medicine Stormwhat about WAV?
I can make you something like that. :)
helps if I know what type of game, but I'll make something nice. :)
@Earthsdefect
Waw and ogg can be freely converted between each other. I appreciate your offer, but I need to think a little bit aobut my sound design first. ^^
@MedicineStorm
I am using GameMaker.
what kind of game are you making?
What are you using to make the music? Sounds like your restricted by file type. You dont have that in a professional DAW you can expect the music file to whatever type you like and make it loop that way. I would use ogg for best quality sound. But I guess you dont know how to code the file play as a loop and thats the problem.
@Earthsdefect
The game is a shameless ripoff of Super Mario Bros. 1 :'D
And it's not the program where I make the music that presents the file type limitation, it's how it should be played back within the game, that's the issue.
If you would like to make a game together let me know, like a platformer like duke nekem or something, also just waiting for money to go in today ;)
if you would like to work together to make something we should use discord :)
Well this is not gonna be duke nukem for sure, it's a platformer about a cute little puppydog, of course he could have weapons like duke but I don't know about that yet. But having FM synthesized music like Duke 2 could be pretty cool.
My discord is Spring#6354. I thought you were making a game yourself but now you seem really determined to work with me! What a surprise!
@Earthsdefect
This is my newest and best chiptune ^^ Think you can figure out something like this, in .vgm format?
https://opengameart.org/content/sn-takes-the-lead
Waw would also be ok, though vgm is preferred. But of course, only if you want to do it ^^
that song is really good very retro, I like to put more of a modem twist on my game music but still use 8bit-16bit sounds. I make my game for fun for myself. but if you wanted to make something to put on playstore I'm keen, we can work on something together, I had a really good idea for a game, but if I told you I would need to kill you hahah :)
Thanks! I don't really know about the modern twist thing for the game I'm making right now. I actually like the very retro thing. :P
But still if you have like an old track or something I can hear, I'm very curious to check out your style :)
I just use more modern drums etc, to give it more of a modern beat, with retro sounds etc.
Hmm. I'd be interested in hearing what you can do ^^ if you feel like bothering with it
Think I will just go with .ogg format.
I haven't messed with it much, but have you tried klystrack? It's a more modern chiptune tracker+format that might be the sort of thing you're looking for.
As for the formats you listed, I'm a big sucker for .mod and .it myself, but I generally prefer sampled music to synth music with everything else remaining the same. Would definately stay away from .nsf, since like you've said everyone and their mother are making retro-styled games using NES-esque melodies, you'd be better off going with something that would feel far more unique, like the Genesis/Megadrive .vgm or the Commodore 64 .sid.
I actually would recommend not going with .ogg unless you're going with songs that have vocals, or some other effect that's hard to get with samples (like synths as you mentioned). Most things can generally be done with samples in a module format, like .mod and .it, with about the same amount of effort, and with a far smaller file.
You are right about that. There are many disadvantages to .ogg like you say. If my tracks were sample based, then I would've chosen .it obviously. But they are not, they are FM synth based relying on some modulation effects and such which cannot be replicated faithfully with samples, I think. I tried .vgm in the meantime, but executing the playback was actually rather costly performance wise, however .it definitely isn't, so I might try and see if any of my songs let themselves transcribe into a sample based format.
And with .sid I found the player unreliable and unable to replicate a track faithfully as it sounded in GoatTracker (understandable, since every SID chip is different, but undesirable)
I've tried Klystrack, however the problem with it is the unlcear documentation on how to actually implement the Klystrack format within games, at least I can't find anything useful.
Right now I was just going with .ogg temporarily, but I am up for the challenge of either turning the songs I have into .it, or maybe trying to figure out the Klystrack thing, though I have no idea where to begin with it. We'll see. ^^
But I did once hear about a trick that could be done in old trackers to achieve 2-OP FM synthesis, by hacking the vibrato effect and using a sample as the vibrato waveform. I wonder if that can be done in OpenMPT; it would make for some truly unique sound.
I don't see why it couldn't. I've seen really nice synth-y sounds come from .mod files that play around with intense effects. You may be able to get something similar by using a basic waveform as your sample. Would be nice and small to boot!
But I feel ya on the .sid thing, since I like the sound of the synth from demoscene tunes I've heard, and have wanted to play around with it for a while now.
You're likely right, I should probably think of the sample not as a "sample intrument", but just a waveform which can be manipulated. Normal samples could be reserved just for percussion. IT has resonant filters so that's already the start of a basic SID-like sound. Perhaps by adjusting the sample offset of a square wave it would even be possible to create commodore-style PWM sound, but I'll have to play around with that for a while.
@ImpossibleRealms, you were right all along.
I only use samples to compose chiptunes now xD
And my game ended up using the .it module format!
Gonna need to revive this thread now I think.
After Kymiball, which used .ogg, I'm thinking of using chiptune format for my next game again.
And AGAIN, I can't find the right format that I want to use..... if only Klystrack had that game maker wrapper that they promised, it would at least give me a start.
Maybe I will just use .ogg again, even though I kinda dislike the idea of it.
And we're back with this same issue for my new soundtrack, I've made 4 versions of the same tune in different programs, and I've no idea how to decide what to use - there's a comparison video here, but only 4 versions so far:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMw5TYxVU38&feature=youtu.be
There's also the mega drive sound and master system, Atari POKEY , even commodore 64 SID remaining..... so many choices and how do you decide what is best ? O_o
Having thought about it for most of the night and made a couple more test tunes, I realize that it should probably be .ogg again...