SynthStation Nakamichi is dead ??? Enter "Synth Dynami

nakamichi · Post by **nakamichi** » Mon Jul 14, 2003 2:03 pm

BTW,I also have a "beast" of a PC(an AMD XP2600+ overclocked to over 3000+),a SB Audigy 2 and some music software,but I still make the music with my DC.
(I want music made with a DC,not with a PC to be used in DC H.B. games).

DJ Geki · Post by **DJ Geki** » Mon Jul 14, 2003 3:30 pm

I'd like to have a good midi implementation for use with our next game, but it just doesn't sound good enough to me to warrant using it. There just isn't enough sample RAM, and you can't stream samples off of the disc into the RAM. At least, as far as KOS goes you can't. I don't know about Katana.

So, you used Music 2000 to produce music on a PSone? Okay...I've never even heard of it. Is it like MTV's Music Generator where you have a bunch of samples already on the disc and you put them together to make something? That's kind of like any of the eJay products. What are you using now for production on your PC?

Also, I don't see any msgs in my inbox... so...um...well, post me some links!

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Tue Jul 15, 2003 10:21 am

Katana, as far as I know, loads all the samples into SRAM. The set on the browser discs is around 1.5MB, but the browser uses all of the funky tricks that we haven't managed to use yet, so it sounds a lot better than it should. Of course, that leaves you with pretty much no space for sound effects.

DJ Geki · Post by **DJ Geki** » Tue Jul 15, 2003 2:20 pm

BlackAura wrote:Katana, as far as I know, loads all the samples into SRAM. The set on the browser discs is around 1.5MB, but the browser uses all of the funky tricks that we haven't managed to use yet, so it sounds a lot better than it should. Of course, that leaves you with pretty much no space for sound effects.

Is that SFX samples or a MIDI sample set?

nakamichi · Post by **nakamichi** » Tue Jul 15, 2003 2:38 pm

DJ Geki,Music 2000 and MTV Music Generator are the SAME thing !

Music 2000 was the European (PAL) version which was released WAY before the US version.There was also a PREQUEL to MTV Music Generator called just "Music".
It's better than E-Jay,because it allows you to compose everything by yourself,without using a single loop,if you are "advanced".
I've even sampled sounds from CDs,and edited the WAVs that much,they sounded like nothing ever heard before.

But,even before using Music and Music 2000,I used old-school TRACKERS with note input to compose music,and even before that,the old-school SYNTHESIZER/Keyboard

Remember those Crappy CASIO ones,or those even older FUJITONEs?

)))))))

I also made music with a tracker for Super Famicom (Japanese SNES) called "Ongaku Tsuku-ru Kanade-ru".I'll send U a few demos of that too

Hehehe...6 channels of low-low quality ADPCM sound with awful "samples" can produce WONDERFUL music!

The MIDI set implemented in the browser sounds MUCH CLEARER and better than that which I use now.
DreamPassport has 44.1kHz samplerate.I use only 22kHz

And,the MIDI engine implemented in GAMES,like REZ or IKARUGA sound waaaaaay better than the DreamPassport thing.
Hmmm...THAT'S the true sound of the DC Yamaha chip.
We'll never be able to use such powerful REALTIME DC MIDI sound

Synlor · Post by **Synlor** » Tue Jul 15, 2003 4:38 pm

nakamichi wrote:But OGG is VBR,and I hate VBR.
I use CBR encoding for everything...VBR encoded tracks always vary in quality in every part of the track,while CBR is more like CD-DA or DVD-Audio.

Um.. thats the point of VBR, it gives more space for a complex part of a song, while silence takes up very little space. If you encode something that is all blank sound with cbr, it will be huge, while with vbr it will be very tiny. Same thing with complex parts of a song, VBR will give that extra bitratige(heh heh, great word I made up

) so it sounds like it is meant to.

az_bont · Post by **az_bont** » Tue Jul 15, 2003 5:01 pm

nakamichi wrote:DJ Geki,Music 2000 and MTV Music Generator are the SAME thing !
Music 2000 was the European (PAL) version which was released WAY before the US version.There was also a PREQUEL to MTV Music Generator called just "Music".

And yet we still got a PS2 version of MTV Music Generator, furthing confusing things. Anybody seen that new one with a USB microphone?

DJ Geki · Post by **DJ Geki** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 12:55 am

az_bont wrote:
nakamichi wrote:DJ Geki,Music 2000 and MTV Music Generator are the SAME thing !
Music 2000 was the European (PAL) version which was released WAY before the US version.There was also a PREQUEL to MTV Music Generator called just "Music".
And yet we still got a PS2 version of MTV Music Generator, furthing confusing things. Anybody seen that new one with a USB microphone?

I almost bought that microphone. I used to work at a video game store, and we bought used stuff from customers. I almost bought it because I'd never seen one come in. Anyway, I tried to screw around with MTV's Music Gen on the PS2 and it was pretty cool. The interface, however, sucks a whole buncha booty. I didn't like it at all. Making music tracks scroll vertically just seems wrong. I've gotten too used to scrolling horizontally with music.

So Nakamichi: SEND ME STUFF ALREADY!! I'm waitin!

nakamichi · Post by **nakamichi** » Sat Jul 19, 2003 4:36 pm

DJ Geki,I will

I don't like the PS2 version.Not only the sequencer isrunning in the wrong direction,but the samples are almost the same as in Music 2000 (The first MTV Music Generator).The microphone doesn't help,because you can do that in Music 2000 on PS1 by using a CD of your vocal samples made with a PC

So,even you've used this piece of dung before,eh?

Just one thing about MTV Music Generator: there's no real MIXER,and that's TOO BAD.

And the PS1 samples,although good sound very "washed out",because they're highly compressed.

nakamichi · Post by **nakamichi** » Sat Jul 19, 2003 4:42 pm

DJ Geki,I have a fresh new *exclusive* track made with PC software

Just to hear the difference PC quality makes.
It's a HOUSE track this time,so you'll be more than satisfied.
I use only OGG now.I'm tired of MP3.
OGG files at 350 kbps VBR sound just like the real WAV thing !
I can send you the tracks only on IRC.
So,be on #dcemu at irc.cheatlist.com:6667 and I'll DCC send you the files in 320kbps VBR OGG.

OggDrop XPd rules.What an original idea and design for an encoder.
OpenSource software is amazing.

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Sun Jul 20, 2003 12:05 am

320Kbps OGG files! Ooh... high bitrate.

I usually use about 160 to 200Kbps, and they sound absolutely fine to me.

Oh, if you want it to sound identical to the original WAV file, and don't mind too much about compression, you could try FLAC - it's a lossless encoder, but it's files are usually between 50% and 70% of the original uncompressed version. No good for distribution, but it might be more suitable for archival, so you can recompress it to something else later.

Is that SFX samples or a MIDI sample set?

Both, I think. There's a file on the browser disc (about 1.8MB) which contains a set of ADPCM compressed sound samples. I managed to play them back, and most of them sound like MIDI instruments. There's a load of piano samples, then a load of other instruments, drums, and then a few sound effects (standard beeps, boops and alerts mostly). As far as I can tell, it just loads the whole thing into the sound RAM, presumably with the standard Katana code for controlling the ARM CPU, and plays stuff back. There's just about enough space left to store a MIDI file in there, and that'd explain the file size limit on MIDI files that people have observed.

az_bont · Post by **az_bont** » Sun Jul 20, 2003 7:01 am

Didn't Daniel Beddingfield make his entire first album on Music 2000? APart from the vocals, I'd imagine.

nakamichi · Post by **nakamichi** » Sun Jul 20, 2003 12:58 pm

320 kbps VBR is not that high,because my files are not 44kHz,but at 48 kHz samplerate,and this extended samplerate needs at least 320 kbps to sound good.
For 44kHz,256 is enough,but for 48 kHz,you need 320.

And,DJ Geki,where are you?
I can't find you on IRC.

az_bont · Post by **az_bont** » Sun Jul 20, 2003 2:41 pm

nakamichi wrote:320 kbps VBR is not that high,because my files are not 44kHz,but at 48 kHz samplerate,and this extended samplerate needs at least 320 kbps to sound good.
For 44kHz,256 is enough,but for 48 kHz,you need 320.

I thought it worked like this:

( 256kbps / 44KHz ) * 48KHz = 279kbps (to nearest whole number)

nakamichi · Post by **nakamichi** » Sun Jul 20, 2003 3:23 pm

no,320,since it's VBR.
That applies to CBR.With VBR you get less than 256kbps on the beginning to up to more than 320 at the end.
OGG doesn't work like MP3...so it's better to up the bitrate a bit.

Hey,Az,do you know of a good lossy compression algorithm encoder for 24bit/96 and 192kHz files?(DVD-Audio quality)

DJ Geki · Post by **DJ Geki** » Sun Jul 20, 2003 3:39 pm

az_bont wrote:Didn't Daniel Beddingfield make his entire first album on Music 2000? APart from the vocals, I'd imagine.

No, his first album (as far as i know) was made with a program for PC called "Making Waves". I don't know what equipment he used in addition to MW, but that was his main studio piece.

DJ Geki · Post by **DJ Geki** » Sun Jul 20, 2003 3:42 pm

nakamichi wrote:320 kbps VBR is not that high,because my files are not 44kHz,but at 48 kHz samplerate,and this extended samplerate needs at least 320 kbps to sound good.
For 44kHz,256 is enough,but for 48 kHz,you need 320.

This isn't necessarily true. Most people can't tell the difference between 44 and 48KHz. Hell, in order to ME to be able to tell, I have to have a REALLY good speaker setup and two source files (one encoded at 44 and the other at 48) so that I can compare them.

nakamichi wrote: And,DJ Geki,where are you?
I can't find you on IRC.

I idled/amused the people in the chan last night for about 3 hours.

nakamichi · Post by **nakamichi** » Sun Jul 20, 2003 3:51 pm

I have a good pair of HEADPHONES,which are far better than any speakers (Headphones produce far less distortion and can produce frequencies up to 30,000 Hz.
48kHz sounds much better at the high frequency spectrum (above 12 kHz)
There you can hear the difference

And speaking of quality,do you hear a difference between 44kHz/16bit and 192kHz/24bit ?

"Most people can't tell the difference between 44 and 48KHz"
most people cannot even tell a difference between 128kbps MP3 and the real 1440kbps WAV

,but some can be so sensitive....even 320 is too low for them

Hey,DJ Geki,I'm now on IRC.Why don't you join?
I will send you my latest track which I made TODAY

az_bont · Post by **az_bont** » Sun Jul 20, 2003 4:25 pm

nakamichi wrote:no,320,since it's VBR.
That applies to CBR.With VBR you get less than 256kbps on the beginning to up to more than 320 at the end.
OGG doesn't work like MP3...so it's better to up the bitrate a bit.

Hey,Az,do you know of a good lossy compression algorithm encoder for 24bit/96 and 192kHz files?(DVD-Audio quality)

I see. But surely with VBR it won't matter if it drops a bit on low-audio parts? And I don't know of any audio encoders that can go that high. Maybe Windows Media Encoder, as I think it supports lots of channels, and I think it can do 96KHz or more if I remember correctly.

And by the way, if you're into quality audio, why not try Monkey Audio or another loss-less compressor?

az_bont · Post by **az_bont** » Sun Jul 20, 2003 4:25 pm

DJ Geki wrote:
az_bont wrote:Didn't Daniel Beddingfield make his entire first album on Music 2000? APart from the vocals, I'd imagine.
No, his first album (as far as i know) was made with a program for PC called "Making Waves". I don't know what equipment he used in addition to MW, but that was his main studio piece.

Oh, it was someone else then. I can remember somebody mentioned in the UK OPM.