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neilbaldwin
Account closed
Registered: Sep 2009
Posts: 48 |
Plogue Chipsounds is released.
I'm really surprised nobody has mentioned this yet.
Plogue Chipsounds is a VSTi/AU plugin that emulates several different old systems (including NES/GB/C64/Atari 2600). It's been a couple of years in the making and they seem to have gone to great lengths to make it as accurate as possible.
http://www.plogue.com/?page_id=43
http://ploguechipsounds.blogspot.com/
I've just bought my copy and will be giving it a test soon.
I've been quite excited about this for some time but it raises interesting discussion I think:
- what does this mean for purists who think you should only use the original hardware?
- does it mark the death of the "chip sound", making it available to the masses with none of the limitations/work-arounds we are so fond of working with?
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SIDWAVE
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238 |
Neil:
>I don't want to sound like I'm down on the VST - I think >it's an amazing technical achievement and the developers >should be congratulated.
>
>I just wonder what the knock-on effect will actually be.
Good sounds will catch on and be used.
The effect will be, as i wrote, that average joe is more likely to accept a raw sid tune as is, because he gets accustomed to the sound and feel of it.
Over here in denmark, chip music made with gameboy, sid, etc. is becoming widely accepted. Its especially the minimal music style that attrackt people, because it usually has more musical creativity than a 50 track sample copy/paste job.
And boys and girls grow up with a gameboy, wii, and so on, and they know these styles and sounds, just as our generation grew up with the C64. |
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Linus
Registered: Jun 2004
Posts: 639 |
Quote:One fine day not too soon, a tune like JT in space, or another funky tune by Jeroen tel, written in 1988, has a very good chance to become a real world hit, in its original raw form.
"World hit" and "raw" don't gel too well.
There might be even more mainstream tunes using typical 8Bit sounds in the future but I don't see raw sid/nes/gameboy/whatever tunes entering the charts *ever*.
Also, I think it's a trend quickly passing by again. Does anybody remember the DnB hype back in the 90s? :) |
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Hate Bush
Registered: Jul 2002
Posts: 462 |
Linus OTM. quite unfortunately. |
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goto80
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 138 |
Really looking forward to see what will be made with this VST. I'm assuming that more hardcore things can be done than what was featured on the EP.
Nitro2k01 - the techy kind of musicians - tried to convert a song from LSDj (Gameboy), but it was one of his few that was even possible to do, he told me. Even if the soundchip is perfectly emulated doesn't mean that the specialities of software on the original machine can be done.
But I hope that Chipsounds will promote new uses of soundchips (trackers might be real good, but hey - there are other ways of making music too) but not shallow ones for that sake. |
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neilbaldwin
Account closed
Registered: Sep 2009
Posts: 48 |
I had a good play around with it last night, mainly with the SID stuff.
You can do quite interesting wavetable stuff (not limited to just notes and waveforms but can also sequence MIDI control changes that are mapped to sound settings - needs more investigating) plus set the speed of the table independently of the song tempo (up to ridiculous speeds). Looks like it could be very useful.
PWM is there but it's not possible to directly set a minimum/maximum pulse value and so you have to balance the start value with the depth of the sweep to avoid sweeping to 0, which produces quite a horrible sound.
Filters - you can set type/resonance/cut-off but there are no modulators/envelopes. You can assign a MIDI control message to affect the cut-off but that's about it. You could also use the wavetable to sequence a list of filter parameters, like a manual filter sweep, but this is a bit crude. So, a lot of work to do for the developer in this area to make things interesting. Actually while on filters, they sound pretty crude at the moment and are very easily distorted (which some will find useful I guess, some not...). This is noted in the manual and improvements are apparently planned.
Away from strict chip emulation, some of the preset sounds that use combinations of chips and some of the more esoteric applications of parameters/controls are really fantastic. My feeling at the moment is that this is where it's strengths are. Personally I don't think that's a bad thing.
The Chimera preset made me chuckle. :) |
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SIDWAVE
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238 |
I have 0 money so im not getting it before nov 1 :D
But you telling me that it dont comply to VST standard, so you can automate everything ? |
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neilbaldwin
Account closed
Registered: Sep 2009
Posts: 48 |
Quote: I have 0 money so im not getting it before nov 1 :D
But you telling me that it dont comply to VST standard, so you can automate everything ?
It seems you can control pretty much all the parameters via dedicated MIDI controller number assignments so......probably :) |
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SIDWAVE
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238 |
Neil, the VST standard includes, that you can control ALL. it dont use midi CC, but you can hook a midi CC to a function in automation.
The renoise tracker has direct automation on any vst, you just open automation, and assign a vst param to a command in the tracker, or to a painted envelope.
You can automate the vst with commands, painted envelopes, oscillators - anything that generates data, that is sent to the chosen vst param.
its a lot more circumstancial in f.ex sonar. but it works same way. |
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neilbaldwin
Account closed
Registered: Sep 2009
Posts: 48 |
I use Logic Jan which is not VST based.
I do have Renoise though - I'll give it a try (though I'm not that familiar with it!)
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SIDWAVE
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238 |
If you need help with renoise, fire an email. |
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