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[Saga Musix]

Well, I just checked and Impulse Tracker supports this as well.

[raina]

IT is a nice file format...

[Saga Musix]

sure it is ;p

[Oliwerko]

Okay guys, holidays are here and I have plenty of free time to experiment, so I'm gonna ask some further questions, if you don't mind. I'm in the phase I understand what is what, but I am not yet sure how to get hang of things. Specifically, what is the best approach to making chiptunes, Amiga tunes and SID tunes?

I recon there are many possible ways, but I would like to know what are the most popular ones. For SID, I've found this QuadraSID thing some time ago. Do you have any experience with it? For now it seems to me that buying this thingy can be the best you can do for SID composing, on modern platforms, that is. I know I could always do SID in odintracker or so, but it's more...comfortable to do it in modern trackers. But is it worth it?

What about chiptunes? Do chip-artists draw everything themselves? Do they use some basic VSTs or what?

And the greatest question mark for me is Amiga. I simply don't know how to achieve that Amiga sound. I know, 4 channels, 8-bit samples, but what else? This limitation does not give it that recognizable sound. Where can I get samples that sound like that? (I love that deathjester sound)

I would be grateful for any help you could share.
Thanks.

[raina]

The best approach is what suits you the best.

SID sound cards are an interesting subject. Sweet things for anybody to own for sure, and if it gets your creative juices flowing, certainly worth it. (For an example on how to not use SID hardware, see Timbaland.)

What about chiptunes? Be more specific. Whether we like it or not, the term is now more wide-ranging than ever. It can mean many things, I think it means all of them at once. The key is the easily generateable basic sound waveforms we all know and love from our belowed 8-bit systems, and things that sound like that.

Do artists draw everything themselves? No. In many cases that's not even an option and you're stuck with whatever parameters you can control on a sound chip. If you're using a sample based tracker, you have that option, or you can use generators, synths, whatever to produce the sound you like. Using a VST, why not? Enforcing specific platform limitations might become harder with more advanced tools but that's not always the point either, you can just make chip-influenced-whatever-tunes (still falling under the broad definition of chiptune). Just as there is no set destination, there is no one path there. You decide what you want to make and how. If it's not working, you'll know, or somebody will come and tell you.

The classic Amiga sound you're probably thinking of is not a chiptune sound. The hardware specs contribute to sound quality but since it's already all sample based and realistic the sound is defined by the unforgettable, cheesy, lovable and godawful '80s/'90s samples. Dig in: http://aminet.net/search?query=st-%3F%3F.lha

[Oliwerko]

I guess the hardware SIDs are a bit too much for me as a beginner in this stuff, so I thought I would try some payware software first and perhaps then move on HW...

About the chiptunes, I was just wondering how and where do artists get those 8-bit sounds. I guess that these sources are just like with everything else - simple waveform generators/VSTs/drawing. Good point with the fact it does not have to fulfill the limitation specifications though.

And yes, I know that the Amiga sound is not the chiptune one. But I was wondering, what actually makes that sound. The hardware? The limitations? Or just the 80s/90s samples? So thank you, for you enlightened me with the knowledge that it's the samples. And that packs on the link you provided look kind of huge 
I love that. If you have any other good sources, please share.

Thanks

[m0d]

Oli: I would like to make a suggestion; write this up into a full article, it's a pretty cool article all by itself already, and it would be a nice addition to post up on the archive article section (coming soon). What do you think?

[Oliwerko]

Yeah, that's a good idea, maybe some kind of FAQ-form?

[eldorado]

to me Old School tracking

there is nothing like a good neat

AMIGA 500,

or a old Pentium loaded with the magic of a SB16... plus FT II 2.04 or 2.06

for maximum power...

A commodore C64. even though it may limit a bit more on the memory and etc...

but hey get one of each???

( i dont know much about c64 so rant on! )

peace and love...

john

[Saga Musix]

A commodore C64. even though it may limit a bit more on the memory and etc...

writing music on a C64 is normally a completely different approach as you program a synthesizer and not a sampler, so memory is not important there.