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SMWC Idol 9 - Rules & Discussion

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Music

Yeah, almost not done in 70%
Sorry to hear that, Sinc-x. I've been there.

I took a back seat on this one too. I'd at least like to hear the entries, but if you want to wait until you can resume Idol again, that's fine. Perhaps, someone else can run it if you don't feel you're able to? Just a suggestion. But if you plan to resume it yourself when stuff is sorted, then we can wait.
Make more of less, that way you won't make less of more!
well. by some miracle i actually managed to get my computer back up and running--a few hours ago i was certain i was doomed haha. in any case since i already said id be lenient this round im not gonna bckpdl. voting will just run slightly shorter (likely starting weds afternoon). apologies for any inconveniences
soundcloud / bandcamp / twitter / buy/stream my EP / buy my touhou music / buy my NEW album!!!
voting has been extended by a week in light of both my issues and the recent site problems. the votepack link is currently down but i will upload a mirror as soon as i am home from work
soundcloud / bandcamp / twitter / buy/stream my EP / buy my touhou music / buy my NEW album!!!
Can you please make a youtube playlist of the entries, just to make it easy for anyone to listen.
I wonder what a HFD opcode would do in ASM...
The SMW Idol Voting Thread is expected to be updated with an mp3 listing but for now you can find a link here. Just about anyone [who didn't enter the round] can vote!
Originally posted by TLMB
Can you please make a youtube playlist of the entries, just to make it easy for anyone to listen.


Your wish has been granted.

Round 1
Round 2
Hey everyone,
Apologies if this is not the proper place and time to bring this up, but it is something I just noticed and it intrigues me. While reading votes on the entries, someone described a barking dog sound in the zzz entry. I didn't know what that was about, but I decided to check the mp3s and the Youtube playlist, and sure enough, that song has weird effects that kinda sound like barking dogs where the channel modulation is used. On my copy of Snes SPC700 player though, that sound, while raspy and kinda bark-ish, is far more musical and I hope? is what the porter intended. Here's a comparison. The first half is from the mp3 provided and also the Youtube playlist which sounds similar. The second half is that same section on my copy of Snes SPC700 Player. I wonder what was used to make the mp3 versions and if there are known differences between how different players handle channel modulation? I wouldn't be surprised if there are differences because channel modulation seems very susceptible to that sort of thing, especially on melodic sounds. I've tested the SPC also in Foobar's old Snes plug-in (the one that doesn't use Snesapu), and it sounds fine there too, so the only other thing I can think of is, maybe an older version of Spc700 Player, or maybe Snesamp, which I used to use, but haven't done much with lately.

I'm not trying to make an issue out of it since this is the only time I've noticed this. I'm just curious about it, mainly as a porter who wants to experiment with the effect more. Any ideas?
Make more of less, that way you won't make less of more!
I listened to the entries in a few different players and I can confirm that the culprit is indeed SnesAmp. I'm guessing the issue is SnesAmp either emulating SPC Noise too loudly or pitch modulation is too powerful in general. (I'm guessing the former since the pitch modulation on rest of the entries sounds mostly normal--though zozo's rain effect is slightly ear-grating on SnesAmp as well.)

For future reference I think these youtube videos should use the renders from SPCPlay, as those are more true to the actual hardware.
This is why you should always use SPC700 Player for doing SPC recordings IMO; dunno why would people use other programs when it's, like, the best SPC700 emulator at the moment ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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SPC700 Player doesn't seem to have any easy exporting functionality, so you'd need to record the output using another program which can be pretty annoying. IIRC WinAmp (and thus SNESAmp) has the option to export the played audio to a WAV file.
Originally posted by randomdude999
SPC700 Player doesn't seem to have any easy exporting functionality, so you'd need to record the output using another program which can be pretty annoying. IIRC WinAmp (and thus SNESAmp) has the option to export the played audio to a WAV file.


nah, it actually can export to WAV; you just go to SAVE (or File > Save) then select Wave Sound (*.wav) and save the song that way lol

I think the more surprising thing is how you're not the first one to not know about this tho (at least for me anyway) #wario{-_-?}
Layout by Mathos
Originally posted by musicalman
On my copy of Snes SPC700 player though, that sound, while raspy and kinda bark-ish, is far more musical and I hope? is what the porter intended.
As stated by Jimmy it's an issue with how Pitch Modulation is handled. My SPC700 Player treats it as the "barking" sound. The sound you got is somewhere between having pitch modulation off (melodic) and on (total "barking") for some of us.

I THOUGHT I had updated my SPC Player to the latest version but looks like the directory wasn't linked correctly. I believe your version is correct musicalman... With that being said we'll know next round to make sure our equipment is more accurate.

EDIT: That being said the SPC Player (on my machine) was fixed/updated.
Round 2 results are in:

1. YuzuMSX - SNESDEMO with score 89.15
2. Jimmy - zzz with score 83.06
3. Sinc-X - niceday with score 70.46
4. Gloomy - zozo with score 62.29
5. Giftshaven - KalosPowerPlant with score 60.33
6. Ultima - aquaillusion with score 49.08

Votes definitely seemed pretty varied this time around, congrats to YuzuMSX on the win!

Personal comments

Now for round 3:

ROUND 3 CHALLENGE

The Choosing Of The Challenge

Port a song from a non-SNES game, unsampled.

Yeah, something nice and simple after the last round.
Reminder: You're still free to submit new challenges for rounds 4 to 6!

Round 3 is due Tuesday, July 3rd at 16:00 PT / 19:00 ET!
soundcloud / bandcamp / twitter / buy/stream my EP / buy my touhou music / buy my NEW album!!!
"""spcplay is most accurate""" That is incorrect.

- foo_gep is 100% accurate, since it's based off Higan's slow but hardware-accurate SPC emulator core (cycle-accurate and sample-accurate down to the last bit).

- SPCPlay is based off a faster codebase with more non-hardware twiddle-knobs and a less-accurate track record.
- A few years ago, I actually reported a pitch modulation bug to the author, who *increased* the strength to match foo_gep and SNES hardware. (Kefka's laugh wasn't rough enough in spcplay).

Recommending people use spcplay as a reference point for how things *should* sound is dangerous misinformation.

----

foo_gep has a few twiddle-knobs, which should be set this way for hardware-accuracy:

- Remove surround effect (disable)
- Interpolation: (Gaussian)

It hides several extra twiddle-knobs under Advanced/Playback/Game Emu Player/SPC:
- Enable Blargg's analog filter simulation (enable)
- Enable 1.4x floating point gain scale (don't know, disable)
- Enable optional oversampling by setting a count above 1 (1)
- Enable SPC echo emulation. (enable)
Originally posted by idol
the synth lead is really h

What? The synth lead is decently h!
Twitter
Hmm, with foo_gep I've had weird issues with Gaussian interpolation and samples that hit full scale. It often makes clicking/crackling sounds. I normally don't maximize to full scale, I aim for -0.5dB which eliminates the effect but I do remember this was an issue, especially with simple waves like square. I didn't try the advanced options though, I'll give them a go. And not saying this is inaccurate, I have hardly ever heard a real Snes so maybe the hardware did this too, but this was the only time I ever noticed such odd behavior. With exception of the sample thing I described, I've found little reason to really fret about whether to use foo_gep or Spcplay. In fact I test my ports with both, mainly for curiosity's sake, and have gone back and fixed some samples because of related oddities. The main thing I take from this is that, if you are going to use Spcplay, just make sure it isn't an old version!
Make more of less, that way you won't make less of more!

Music

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