SHMUP music Re-orchestration (and other games)

[Logan Jones]

I'm a big fan of music form shmups like Gradius and Thunder Force. However, some game soundtracks are in mono, and when I listen to them, I can't help but feel like they could sound far better.

There is a guy on YouTube (who's channel names begin with "grad1u5") who remasters great retro game soundtracks from many old game systems, preferably the NES. What he does is he takes the original lossless sound files, (if they're in mono he seperates the audio channels into stereo or surround in some program,) then he adds a hint of reverb, and I think he even boosts the bass a little. What results is an EXCELLENT re-orchestration of the game soundtrack! He makes a game soundtrack that was already good sound even better.

I wish to do the same. There are websites that house lossless .vgm files from many great game systems, (NES games also use a different sound format called NSF). I wish to re-orchestrate these soundtracks via certain sound programs in the same manner that grad1u5 does.

If possible, I would like to know how to do a process like this, and I would like someone to show me how.

There are many shmup soundtracks that deserve re-orchestrating. Mono-only soundtracks like Hyper Duel, Gradius II, Kingdom Gran Prix, and many more. If anyone knows how to do this, please reply. Thanks!

[mamboFoxtrot]

There are websites that house lossless .vgm files from many great game systems, (NES games also use a different sound format called NSF).

"Lossless" isn't the right word here. Older videogame systems, and by proxy the computer programs that emulate their playback, synthesize the sound using their soundchips instead of playing back full audio files. The VGM, NSF, and host of other files like this are the note and instrument instructions, not audio. But it's easy to convert them to audio just using something like Winamp + Chipamp or whatever else is out there for Chiptune file playback these days.
Once you get the audio file, you can probably just use Audacity for the Reverb, Bass/Treble (aka EQ) adjustments, etc.
For stereo panning, I remember that being an option with NSF files at least with the playback plugin (NotSoFatso) in Winamp.

why is this in Hardware, though?

[Logan Jones]

I knew about the VGM and NSF simply being the emulated command logs being played, I just called it "lossless" to indicate a distinction from lossy MP3 files.

Anyway, I'm aware that programs like Winamp can play the VGM (and NSF?) files, however, what audio players can enable stereo panning?

[mamboFoxtrot]

It depends on the chip in question. Like I mentioned above, NotSoFatso (NES) has per-channel pan controls in its configuration GUI, so that one's ez-pz. For VGM, well, it seems the biggest VGM file plugin (in_vgm) only supports panning control on GameGear (specifically GG, not other consoles that used the same chip) and the YM2413. All other chips have the panning menu grayed out. I've seen a few other chiptune players out there, like one that just takes MAME roms directly, but I didn't see anything about panning in their ReadMe files.

in_vgm does still allow per-channel muting, so, if you're really determined, you can solo each track when audio-outputting and then assemble it in Audacity. When writing audio instead of playing it, Winamp will go through the song as fast as possible, so it's not like this will take 30 minutes per track, but it'd still be on the tedious side. There is also an option labeled ("Surround" Sound), which... doesn't really sound that great, but it's there.

[Logan Jones]

It depends on the chip in question. Like I mentioned above, NotSoFatso (NES) has per-channel pan controls in its configuration GUI, so that one's ez-pz. For VGM, well, it seems the biggest VGM file plugin (in_vgm) only supports panning control on GameGear (specifically GG, not other consoles that used the same chip) and the YM2413. All other chips have the panning menu grayed out. I've seen a few other chiptune players out there, like one that just takes MAME roms directly, but I didn't see anything about panning in their ReadMe files.

in_vgm does still allow per-channel muting, so, if you're really determined, you can solo each track when audio-outputting and then assemble it in Audacity. When writing audio instead of playing it, Winamp will go through the song as fast as possible, so it's not like this will take 30 minutes per track, but it'd still be on the tedious side. There is also an option labeled ("Surround" Sound), which... doesn't really sound that great, but it's there.

I did what you suggested and used the Winamp-Audacity method. I think I did a good job, and had a lot of fun making the stereo sound just right. I'm going to make more "remixes" soon. What do you think?

https://soundcloud.com/logan-jones-5667 ... duel-remix