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[MrRhythmMaster]

Hey all,

I'm a newbie to this forum, but wondering if there are any other fans of Sega's 1986 arcade game Outrun on here.  The game was also notorious for having a particularly poor Amiga conversion, and I was always certain that sound-wise the Amiga was capable of doing better.  So, in 1996 I fired up ProTracker on my A1200 and tried to rebuild what the arcade version of "Magical Sound Shower" sounded like from memory.  I didn't get particularly far, especially as I had no way of getting hold of the original tune to listen to. 

I switched to 8ch FastTracker2 XM early on after reluctantly building my first Wintel box, mainly because I figured it'd be easier to do without having to worry about channel count.  Over the years I'd come back to it occasionally - little knowing that I'd be doing it in fits and starts for the next 20 years!   So now it's about 99% done, I'd love to know what folks think!

https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=180248

 

[Nikku4211]

This remix sounds great. I was blown away by the accuracy and the nice conversion to PCM. This module could've been an 8 channel MOD(and yes, those do exist), but still pretty awesome.

If you wish this could've been more faithful to the Amiga, than I recommend practicing channel mixing.

Again, I love this remix, and it sounds like something from a DOS port trying to emulate the Amiga way, which is pretty close if you ask me, and that's great.

[Nikku4211]

I am not a big fan of Outrun, rather I like general 16-bit or less racing games. I do like the original song, which got surprisingly good starting in the middle, despite hating the genre it's trying so hard to emulate.

[MrRhythmMaster]

This remix sounds great. I was blown away by the accuracy and the nice conversion to PCM. This module could've been an 8 channel MOD(and yes, those do exist), but still pretty awesome.

If you wish this could've been more faithful to the Amiga, than I recommend practicing channel mixing.

Many thanks for giving it a listen and even more thanks for the encouragement!

Couple of questions :

• Was there an actual 8ch MOD format?  I know there was Oktalyzer and OctaMED, but they required halving the samples to work...
• What do you mean by "channel mixing?"

As it happens, this is the first step in a mad dream I've long held of trying to do a decent version of the game for the classic Amiga - I've been teaching myself Amiga 68k in the spare time I have,but it's going to take me a while.

I do intend to convert the other tunes and eventually rework them as 4ch MOD for the project - though there's going to be some lateral thinking required.

For shits and giggles (via YT's Cannonball utilities at reassembler.blogspot.com) :




I'll keep this thread posted with updates when I can - and thanks again for listening!

TRM/AIS.

[Saga Musix]

Was there an actual 8ch MOD format?  I know there was Oktalyzer and OctaMED, but they required halving the samples to work...

Various PC trackers later introduced MOD files that have essentially the same structure as ProTracker's "M.K." 4-channel MOD files, but replacing the "M.K." magic bytes with "8CHN", "16CH" or whatever number of channels they have. ProTracker itself will of course not load such files. There are probably various Amiga players capable of playing the format, but of course it would require software mixing (like in OctaMED).

[MrRhythmMaster]

@Saga_Musix :
Cheers for the info - that's interesting...

Of course, the 8ch versions are mainly a precursor to trying to make 4ch versions which will hopefully be close enough (with a bit of lateral thinking) to the originals.

TRM/AIS.

(It feels really weird going by this handle as I haven't used it since I was about 18! )

[Nikku4211]

By the way, when making a module, channel mixing is just that. Mixing the notes for several different channels into 1 channel. The result doesn't always sound exactly the same, but sometimes, it does sound close enough. Usually, when mixing channels, if notes overlap, 1 channel must be proritised over the other. The best channel to prioritise is the channel that is the most important of the 2 at each time they overlap. Practising this would be a good thing to do. Trust me, I have practised this too. I was able to modify Ghidorah's Toilet Story 4 to use 8 channels instead of 16 and I've tried my best to make it sound like the original.

[MrRhythmMaster]

By the way, when making a module, channel mixing is just that. Mixing the notes for several different channels into 1 channel.

I figured that's what you meant, but wanted to check.

As I said above, I went to 8ch XM because working the tune out by ear was difficult enough without having to worry about channel count!

To get MSS into 4 channels I'm going to have to pre-mix some drum samples and create chord samples where currently I'm playing chords manually.  This part will probably make it sound a fair bit different from the original, but I'll get as close as I can.

If you have a look, I am doing a little bit of "channel mixing" on the current 8-ch version.  Check out Channel 3 in patterns 1,2 and 15 - you'll see that the floor tom played on the accent is on the same channel as the bass.



TRM/AIS

[Nikku4211]

 

[MrRhythmMaster]

As the 4-channel versions are in various stages of beta, I've set this up if anyone would like to hear how they're getting along (click 'load song' ):

http://psychodelicacy.net/modplayer.php