> Thinking of writing a little script that can generate every possible waveform

That’s 2¹⁹² possible wavetable combinations to generate. An absolutely massive lot of combinations. Roughly 6 followed by fifty-seven 0s. Too much to process and play out loud.

At this point, you should probably just find some nice-sounding waveforms online. The wavetable system of the Virtual Boy is a primitive form of PCM, so you could sample a single cycle of a musical instrument wave (scaled to 32 samples with 6-bit quantization) and have it sound close.

Great job getting this out before VB Music Tracker did!

Yeah, even me has still been waiting for a word on this.

I guess so! Remember, the VB suffered from one problem: eyestrain. So it’s probably a good idea to not make the green LED’s too bright then. At least this was the case for mid-90’s technology, can newer LED’s cause less problems?

[A Red Stinker]

Oh, I’ve used this death generator once before!

• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by A Red Stinker.

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Well this is some great news right here! 👍

Now all we need is another document that goes into various programming techniques that are applicable for VB (code, graphics, sound, etc.), so the system’s homebrew scene can have less-inferior games (and various demoscene stuff as well, which is something it’s extremely lacking in).

The Virtual Boy is almost 25 years old and it still has some love!

The Virtual Image Processor (VIP) in the Virtual Boy is only capable of outputting monochrome images. I doubt the VB hobbyists here will make a color version that can output better graphics, but Nintendo’s own attempt was too expensive in 1995, so they just used red LED’s as they were the cheapest kind, and that disappointed everyone from the beginning.

I’m concerned about him too.

Do you have his email address? I’d absolutely want to play around with this tracker in its “finished” state! Also, I wonder how Bombenleger goes.

There’s a VB hardware reference made by Guy Perfect:
http://perfectkiosk.net/pvbemu/stsvb1.html

One of the main differences is the CPU. The VB has a 32-bit NEC V810 CPU (with a few custom instructions added). It’s essentially a cut-down MIPS CPU.

The Virtual Image Processor (VIP) has a 50 Hz interrupt used for timing. Note that the mirrors in the VB scan horizontally, instead of vertically.

Can you please send Martin an email as to why the binaries aren’t publicly released yet, although you obtained the “final” version from him? He needs to be focused more on the tracker and Bombenleger than just staying silent during whatever free time he has.

I don’t want to say this like a million times, but we’ve needed a proper way to make VB chiptune music for a long time now. But his procrastinating and all that is making me all more worried, and is leaving all of us left behind without this tracker even being publicly downloadable.

As far as I know, procrastinating is bad. Releasing the tracker on time for all the chiptune artists who’ve been begging for it, is MUCH better.

1. Is it possible to change the noise channel’s tap location within an instrument? I’d really want to do some noise+bass tricks so that I can play bass notes lower than the wave channels can while also mixing drums in. The trick is done in some SN76489 chiptunes for exactly the same reason.
2. Does the tracker export to VGM files? The VSU has been supported in it since VGM v1.71.
3. Can you mute or solo channels at all?
4. Wouldn’t M.K. mind if you share songs you make with the tracker online? I’d like to hear what you make!

Can you share us some screenshots and videos of the tracker? I’ve always wondered what the interface looks like beyond the waveforms tab.

OMG! I would want to try it out!!! But my computer isn’t even connected to internet.

Ah, it is strange.. Does this happen with other games?

God, what’s hindering the release, and why? Waited for ages, yet the tracker still isn’t anywhere near its “finished” state yet.

I hope the man really didn’t pass away for sure… If we find out that he did pass away, then his whole $1,880 crowdfunding campaign will immediately fade into obscurity.

Good software is released early and often. Don’t forget it.

Why wasn’t M.K. active here for several months now? His projects are all die-hard-waited stuff, including his music tracker and Bomberman clone for the VB.

Although the VUEngine project had recently got a music/sound update, M.K.’s tracker will be more powerful, I think.

This guy has made a few SN76489 covers that rely heavily on the trick I’m talking about:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Yh9LZaiTYk3F8x1WjiOoQ

The tap locations 4…7 have a very short sequence length, which means they’re great for melodic uses. One such use is playing notes below D#2 (as anything below that note on the first 5 channels will be capped to ~76.294Hz).

Now, lets look at the SN76489, the PSG chip that was responsible for the Sega Master System’s sound. This chip has 3 square channels that can go as low as A-2, and a noise channel.

As SN7 enthusiasts knew better, they realized that the noise channel can play low-frequency pulse bass notes, well, not at the same time as percussion. So they quickly alternate between a frame or two of drum noise, and then the pulse-bass note they desired to play. The same thing can be said with the VSU’s noise channel by quickly changing the tap location.

EDIT: Here’s a Lua script I made that generates the eight waveforms:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wkwoosjb8ajc87y/VSU%20Noise.lua?dl=0

1. Do you have a ROM with the music for me to test in an emulator?
2. Does the engine allow all 8 waveforms on the noise channel?

By the way, awesome work so far! This could potentially hold us off from waiting for VB Music Tracker to come out.