Tue Sep 03, 2024 11:55 am
Question #1
For over a year now I've been thinking about writing a tutorial on chiptune techniques using, fittingly, the 2A03 sound-a-like "Nescaline" that comes as a default instrument with LMMS. Mainly because in my experience it required a few workarounds and a bit of background knowledge about chiptunes and the 2A03 to really get the sound out of it that I wanted.
I remember briefly looking for documentation back then and finding nothing. Now that I've actually found the time and come around to the idea of writing this tutorial again, I gave it another good look, and there doesn't seem to be anything.
The best I could find was this entry in the LMMS user manual, and it just shows a picture of the interface subtitled "NEScaline":
https://docs.lmms.io/user-manual/5-buil ... -nescaline
Also this thread on Github requesting documentation:
https://github.com/LMMS/lmms/issues/6532
Does anyone know if documentation exists? It would really help in answering some technical questions. If there really is none, and I get around to finishing this tutorial, I'll probably preface it with a short overview with explainations, as I don't really feel I can assume knowledge of something that isn't explained anywhere.
The only thing that comes close seems to be a section of this tutorial on "Game sounds and game effects tuts (For game devs)" by brandystarbrite:
viewtopic.php?t=27415
Question #2:
Am I perhaps alone in finding the default sound of Nescaline harsh and distorted? It seems especially evident in the square-wave channels. I've written for the 2A03 in Famitracker and DefleMask, and listened to all kinds of old chiptunes for years, and in comparison it sounds a pretty nasty to me. I've made two tracks using it quite prominently and had to opt for putting it through an EQ-curve to get the sound I would have expected as default.
I also tried looking up if other people were having similar experiences, but it was really hard to find any search results that weren't people reporting on actual bugs and defects with the program. Also there seems to be an (expensive) NES emulator by the same name? https://toucharcade.com/games/nescaline This also muddies up search results.
Again I'm also thinking about adding my eq-adjustments as a recommendation to the tutorial, if one wants to get closer to the sound of the real NES hardware.
For over a year now I've been thinking about writing a tutorial on chiptune techniques using, fittingly, the 2A03 sound-a-like "Nescaline" that comes as a default instrument with LMMS. Mainly because in my experience it required a few workarounds and a bit of background knowledge about chiptunes and the 2A03 to really get the sound out of it that I wanted.
I remember briefly looking for documentation back then and finding nothing. Now that I've actually found the time and come around to the idea of writing this tutorial again, I gave it another good look, and there doesn't seem to be anything.
The best I could find was this entry in the LMMS user manual, and it just shows a picture of the interface subtitled "NEScaline":
https://docs.lmms.io/user-manual/5-buil ... -nescaline
Also this thread on Github requesting documentation:
https://github.com/LMMS/lmms/issues/6532
Does anyone know if documentation exists? It would really help in answering some technical questions. If there really is none, and I get around to finishing this tutorial, I'll probably preface it with a short overview with explainations, as I don't really feel I can assume knowledge of something that isn't explained anywhere.
The only thing that comes close seems to be a section of this tutorial on "Game sounds and game effects tuts (For game devs)" by brandystarbrite:
viewtopic.php?t=27415
Question #2:
Am I perhaps alone in finding the default sound of Nescaline harsh and distorted? It seems especially evident in the square-wave channels. I've written for the 2A03 in Famitracker and DefleMask, and listened to all kinds of old chiptunes for years, and in comparison it sounds a pretty nasty to me. I've made two tracks using it quite prominently and had to opt for putting it through an EQ-curve to get the sound I would have expected as default.
I also tried looking up if other people were having similar experiences, but it was really hard to find any search results that weren't people reporting on actual bugs and defects with the program. Also there seems to be an (expensive) NES emulator by the same name? https://toucharcade.com/games/nescaline This also muddies up search results.
Again I'm also thinking about adding my eq-adjustments as a recommendation to the tutorial, if one wants to get closer to the sound of the real NES hardware.