JediMasterThrash
Well-Known Member
I started the bitcrusher rabbit hole after hearing someone demo a super mario tune on a WMD geiger, and that got me on the kick of trying to recreate old 8-bit audio using 8-bit/low sample rate pedals.
My goals are to hit tones reminiscent of NES (SMB theme), Genesis (Sonic/SOR etc) and old arcades (pacman, etc).
However, I'm starting to think that that's not really the right path to take. The NES isn't really 8-bit audio, it's analog audio created with 4-bit adjustments of square/saw/white noise waveforms (or something along those lines). The characteristic sound is not really due to the bit rate or sample rate (neither of which really exist in the analog chip), but moreso due to the fuzz distortion from square/sawtooth waves. And probably some inharmonicity when multiple channels are summed together.
The Genesis is a 16-bit/32khz PCM audio, so that sounds is really from the samples and processing, not bit depth or sample rate. Really it's the synthesizer tones with light fuzz and pitch modulation.
The Parasit Arcadiator really does hit those old pacman sounds, but primarily due to the octave pitch modulation and fuzz.
I had bought a Meris Ottobit Jr. It does what it probably is supposed to do, but not really what I was envisioning it to do. "Crushing" the bit depth doesn't really make any noticeable effect until it quickly jumps into just being a fuzz circuit. And at the same time it becomes a fuzz circuit, the noise floor is brought up considerably as well. In fact it really just sounds like the noise floor is rising before it even sounds like a fuzz distortion.
The sample rate causes aliasing, which is a really cool effect, but it's hard to tune. If you get a nice aliasing tone with 4th octave notes, your 5th octave notes sound horrible and your 3rd octave notes not enough. The low-pass filter does what it should, but as I mentioned, the old video games didn't really have a low-pass filter, the analog circuits or 32khz sampling meant it was pretty high bandwidth output. It doesn't have that telephone muted affect like an 8k LPF.
The last bit is why I noticed the EHX Mainframe, as that has an auto-sample rate mode that tracks the note your playing and keeps the sample rate a fixed interval above, so you always get the same alias tone. I really like the idea of that feature.
The bit crushers/sound destroyers also have two other features that I was interested in. One was the arpegiator. The Ottobit arpegiator is pretty powerful and programmable, but in the end I found limited use for it. The best sounds I got where just using it to create the octave oscillation ala pacman/arcadiator tones. I think the EQD Arpanoid probably sounded more usable in youtube videos, but I was hoping to get an all in one solution..
The other feature is stutter/glitch. I thought this would be cool, to have that max headroom affect going on while I play. In practice at least the Ottobit vs. doesn't jive, it's either underwleming ot too much. The Catalinbread Cdisman I think was better in youtube videos, but I was hoping to get an all-in-one solution.
So on to the Synth. I think that the real core of 80's/early 90's video game music is the waveform and synth tone, not the bitcrushing. I had got an EHX Synth9, as it had all the great 80's synth tones. And a number of them are real good. My problem is that most of them are based on a slow attack. I can't play any fast notes, not because of tracking issues, just because of slow attack issues. Also, only a few are polyphonic. I also have the Digitech Dirty Robot, and for slow-attach/sweeping/80's sci-fi synth I think that does a much better job.
Originally I thought I could do the video game by using a synth tone into a bit crusher. But now I'm kind of thinking I Just need a better synth, and that's probably all. The g-system can probably do octave modulation if I need it.
So I've been looking at the Boss Sy-1. It looks like it tracks fast attach and polyphony real well.
I'm wondering what others think about this whole retro video game sound on guitar rabbit hole/
My goals are to hit tones reminiscent of NES (SMB theme), Genesis (Sonic/SOR etc) and old arcades (pacman, etc).
However, I'm starting to think that that's not really the right path to take. The NES isn't really 8-bit audio, it's analog audio created with 4-bit adjustments of square/saw/white noise waveforms (or something along those lines). The characteristic sound is not really due to the bit rate or sample rate (neither of which really exist in the analog chip), but moreso due to the fuzz distortion from square/sawtooth waves. And probably some inharmonicity when multiple channels are summed together.
The Genesis is a 16-bit/32khz PCM audio, so that sounds is really from the samples and processing, not bit depth or sample rate. Really it's the synthesizer tones with light fuzz and pitch modulation.
The Parasit Arcadiator really does hit those old pacman sounds, but primarily due to the octave pitch modulation and fuzz.
I had bought a Meris Ottobit Jr. It does what it probably is supposed to do, but not really what I was envisioning it to do. "Crushing" the bit depth doesn't really make any noticeable effect until it quickly jumps into just being a fuzz circuit. And at the same time it becomes a fuzz circuit, the noise floor is brought up considerably as well. In fact it really just sounds like the noise floor is rising before it even sounds like a fuzz distortion.
The sample rate causes aliasing, which is a really cool effect, but it's hard to tune. If you get a nice aliasing tone with 4th octave notes, your 5th octave notes sound horrible and your 3rd octave notes not enough. The low-pass filter does what it should, but as I mentioned, the old video games didn't really have a low-pass filter, the analog circuits or 32khz sampling meant it was pretty high bandwidth output. It doesn't have that telephone muted affect like an 8k LPF.
The last bit is why I noticed the EHX Mainframe, as that has an auto-sample rate mode that tracks the note your playing and keeps the sample rate a fixed interval above, so you always get the same alias tone. I really like the idea of that feature.
The bit crushers/sound destroyers also have two other features that I was interested in. One was the arpegiator. The Ottobit arpegiator is pretty powerful and programmable, but in the end I found limited use for it. The best sounds I got where just using it to create the octave oscillation ala pacman/arcadiator tones. I think the EQD Arpanoid probably sounded more usable in youtube videos, but I was hoping to get an all in one solution..
The other feature is stutter/glitch. I thought this would be cool, to have that max headroom affect going on while I play. In practice at least the Ottobit vs. doesn't jive, it's either underwleming ot too much. The Catalinbread Cdisman I think was better in youtube videos, but I was hoping to get an all-in-one solution.
So on to the Synth. I think that the real core of 80's/early 90's video game music is the waveform and synth tone, not the bitcrushing. I had got an EHX Synth9, as it had all the great 80's synth tones. And a number of them are real good. My problem is that most of them are based on a slow attack. I can't play any fast notes, not because of tracking issues, just because of slow attack issues. Also, only a few are polyphonic. I also have the Digitech Dirty Robot, and for slow-attach/sweeping/80's sci-fi synth I think that does a much better job.
Originally I thought I could do the video game by using a synth tone into a bit crusher. But now I'm kind of thinking I Just need a better synth, and that's probably all. The g-system can probably do octave modulation if I need it.
So I've been looking at the Boss Sy-1. It looks like it tracks fast attach and polyphony real well.
I'm wondering what others think about this whole retro video game sound on guitar rabbit hole/
