Headphones! Pls.
Composed for NEC PC-9821 by Ryu Umemoto C's Ware 1994
This song has too many names.... Main Theme/Prototype/Xenon No.02 "Xenon", XEN86_02.M
😂And it took 28 too many revs to get it remotely right.
Must say, it's kind interesting to see technics like using PSG to add more flavour to FM, Detuning leftright channel for stereo beating effect, using one channel only for percussion to make the perceived volume of drums higher which overcomes the limited channel.
Modulator TL 'modulations' modulates modulator's modulations passband, for more expressive bassline.
Splits the Ch3 like it's two OPL channel on original, but here uses two channels to emulate that, to get more polyphony out of it.
Not to mention the actual song is on fire! Just sticks to one ostinato and build around it the most epic way.
Chord progression and structure are more concise than something modern. But it's still doing its job well on covarying the storytelling of the song. Solid.
Like... if AdLib choose OPM/N like IBM did, could have this on PC as well.
Now, boring time!
Must say, I never played this game on PC98, but I did get to play Desire for just a bit, lol.
Came across this song by pure luck of YT autoplay, following completions of OPL2/3 YM3812 YMF262 music, it was refreshing, astounding even to get initiated on OPN family music.
Drawn by the incredibly well polished intro with the dynamic phasing bassline, and very different very sensational timbers that are 'better' than OPL chips could do, at the time I thought.
This song is very unique in its rights, there's nothing like it on YT back then.
I find myself would play the song in my head during classes, listening to it on the bus, breakfast, doing homework. Wondering what makes it ticks.
How could it be so expressive while others is MIDI on FM?
There was very little info on this song, mostly just repeating that it's used in game Xenon and the composer revolutionized PC98 Videogame music. Little studies about how this song works.
Highschool was short, soon I've moved on to Synthwave which is a whole new can of worms.
But the idea that FM could sound so good, keeps growing.
A year back, I finally got the time to study this song closely.
Un like OPL3 stuffs where I'm comfortable and have an idea of what's up, OPN family is so very different.
Tools for OPL3 don't work. So is the experience.
No idea what to do, I slowly gathered emulators, PMDMML manuals, how FM works on OPN/M.
Accumulating information.
At some point, I feel I've got enough info to analysing it. I was soo wrong.
The instrument patches I decoded from the .M file is wrong, the DT1 values don't match what the driver writes to OPNA.
This ruins everything, at the time I'm still think in OPL way, don't think it matter that much that I should check.
Tho I got all the notes right, it don't sound right.
In no idea what's going on, I published the workinporgess in hopping to let someone to tell me where I've gone wrong.
: • Xenon (YM2151 + VERA) ...
I did get some replays telling me that OPM and OPN should be mostly the same apart from DT2 and SSG-EG. And I should check again.
But if I could tell what gone wrong, I won't go wrong, right. 😂
So, I shelved it and keep studying on FM in general.
A month ago, there was a ESFMcon, I got lured to the Furnace discord, then
Furnacediscord/Skaphantom was there, surprised to see I'm part of (veryyyyyyyy somell amount) it.
Somehow, perhaps it's destine, I asked him if he's familiar with PC98 PMD stuff.
To my surprise, he actually is, and offer to take a look where I gone wrong.
Somehow. PMDDRC returns one patch, the lead in the intro, should have a DT1 value of 7777, but when PMD writes it to the chip, it's actually 7733???
Same with some other ins, got a DT1 of 4030 from DRC, it really should be 7363.
The DT1 changes the timber dramatically, especially on higher octaves.
Rest is history.
The cover is licenced under CC-BY-SA 4.0
Free to use more.
Ryu Umemoto 1994
GTR3QQ 2023,2024
Files: cx16forum.com/...
#music #chiptune #vgm #gamingmusic #videogamemusic #furnacetracker #commanderx16
Composed in Furnace: github.com/til...
Rendered with Corrscope: github.com/cor...