First chiptune

[DR_Acula]

So a few weeks ago I discovered chiptune/8-bit music and fell in love with it. I also herd dome covers of some black metal band songs redone in chiptune. So i wanted to try it, now I know my samples are not that great but It is after all my first time.
https://soundcloud.com/feverhouse/lord-vaati-into-the-frozen-night

[LPChip]

Right from the first notes my instinct turned off the tune.

Reason is that the samples are not in tune. Because I have pitch perfect hearing, this is a big toll for me to listen to. It is even more noticable because at some point, the sounds start to resonate with each other which is a clear case that the samples are not tuned to the exact same frequency. I bet fixing only this will increase the quality of this tune a lot.

And fixing it is not that hard either.
Create a new pattern, place two sounds at the same row in different columns at the same note, eg:

Code Select Expand


|C-4 01    | C-4 02    |


Now play this pattern and go to the samplescreen. You'll find a Freq. (Hz.) setting. Pressing the up and down arrow on one of the two samples will alter its frequency, and thus the toneheight. These steps are incremental by 48 steps (hz). Press the up or down arrow enough until the sounds are the same or at least closely the same. Once you get to the sweet spot, the sounds will resonate like a flanger is applied to it. The closer you come to the center, the slower this resonation becomes until it stops resonating, and then both samples are tuned exactly the same.

You'll probably figure out that at some point pressing the up and down arrow will not get to that point and the sound seems to resonate more rather than less. This means you went past the sweet spot. Remember that the up and down arrows skip in 48 steps. Once you are close, you'll need to enter the numbers manually until you have the right frequency. You may need to press F6 (play pattern) after each adjustment to hear its effects. I usually go in steps of 2 because that way you go fast enough to your target, yet you clearly hear if you're going the right way. Once I'm close to the center, I move with 1 step.

It is possible that the two samples won't tune and both numbers closest to the center are resonating even if very slowly. Use the slowest and you'll be fine.

Now, repeat this for every sample, but make sure you all match them against the same sample. So if Channel 1 has sample 1 and channel 2 has sample 2, then change sample 2 to 3, then to 4, then to 5 until all samples that have a steady tone (not drums) are covered.

It may be that after you fixed this issue, some notes are now not right anymore because apparently due to incorrect tuning you placed them half a note up or down than they supposed to be. (I think I'm hearing this, but not sure) then alter these tones.

I can't give you more feedback to your song than this, because this problem puts my mind off.

[DR_Acula]

that's nice, thank you

[LPChip]

You're welcome. If you fix the song and reupload it, I'd gladly give it another listen and give better feedback.