I was wondering if anyone’s ever messed around with alternative means of mixing chipmusic beyond mere cosmetic treatments of a chip’s own stereo mix? I’ve developed, over the years, a strong appreciation of raw VGM (.vgm, specifically, but also more generally the unadulterated sound of vintage console and computer sound chips–.spc, .sid, or what have you), but the more I considered the implications of converting VGM directly into PCM tracks via emulation, the more I became interested in distinguishing the two at a deeper level than in the mere embellishment of a chip’s stereo mix.
While when dealing with hardware, there’s a great deal of room for creative mixing and processing in simply treating one or more consoles or even their respective stereo channels separately as individual synth voices, composing for the consoles themselves can be a bit more constraining due to the rather strict stereo (or even mono, in many cases) profile of the chip’s mix. This constraint is intriguing to work with in composition but lends little in the way of creating compelling aural space beyond its simple idiosyncratic charm. I sought the best of the both worlds: to compose within these constraints and then break that composition out into a more dynamic spectral and stereo image.
Luckily, as I’ve discovered again and again, almost anything one can think of has been or will be published on the Internet in relatively short order. I considered first how I occasioned to encounter videos like the following which display an oscilloscope for each of the individual channels of a chip or chip-set (the Mega Drive’s own in this case):
And since there’s fundamentally no difference between being able to display a waveform or play it back in audible form, I had to imagine that what I was seeking for was already well-trod ground in at least this respect. I would find the tool of my preference only a short while later in the RYMCast, which simply allows one to drop in a .vgm file and export each channel to PCM (.wav or .flac). I believe this works by either sequential or parallel emulation of the chip multiple times over with each channel in solo for each instance (or all other channels muted or their commands purged), though if their is some deeper magic, I’d sure like to know about it (i.e., virtually modding the soundchips or something akin to this). Only just recently, however, have I put it into practice with the latest iteration of the track mentioned in my previous post:
While the video of that track in the aforementioned post contains a raw sampling of the original VGM (as produced through Deflemask’s own emulation), with this new iteration I attempted to embellish what I felt the original VGM insinuates, mainly through gain staging (obviously), parametric EQ, and Mid/Side processing (as the VGM was essentially mono), though I did use a bit of wave rectification in the side channel to widen out a couple of the voices and distinguish them in from their middle while processed in parallel (a pretty experimental means of stereoization, for my part). Essentially, I attempted to preserve to original character of the track while otherwise taking creative liberty in deepening and widening its sound-stage.
I’m fairly pleased with this approach to chipmusic and think I’m likely to apply it to any and every VGM track I happen to compose, and while this single does not include the original .vgm in its download, its forthcoming album definitely will.
Does anyone else do anything like this?
