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On the off chance somebody is going to need somebody to do Lemmings music for them, I'd be more than happy to do the job. I'm obsessed with the original (Amiga) Lemmings soundtrack and very dismayed at how virtually every port I've played has gotten the music wrong. I've always wanted to make a modern-sounding Lemmings soundtrack that kept the spirit of the original sounds.

- Kef

furrykef wrote:

I'm obsessed with the original (Amiga) Lemmings soundtrack and very dismayed at how virtually every port I've played has gotten the music wrong.

Possibly a licensing issue. I've seen a lot of movie to game ports, especially on the 8-bit and 16-bit systems, that had to use different music because the soundtrack rights were too expensive to acquire in addition to the rights to the movie itself.
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No, every port I've played used essentially the same music but with different sounds. (Sometimes a note was changed here and there or a keychange was different, but that doesn't usually bug me if it still sounds good.) For example, the Super Nintendo version could have sounded as good as the Amiga version, but fell way short due to using very silly samples.

(Getting further off-topic, even ports like the NES version sounded worse than they should have. Compare my own arrangement of one tune, http://www.furrykef.com/music/lems-tim2.nsf , to the official version in the NSF you can get from Zophar (it's track #4)... er, not to toot my own horn or anything... it doesn't sound totally awesome, but it's still a serious improvement.)

- Kef

furrykef wrote:

No, every port I've played used essentially the same music but with different sounds. (Sometimes a note was changed here and there or a keychange was different, but that doesn't usually bug me if it still sounds good.) For example, the Super Nintendo version could have sounded as good as the Amiga version, but fell way short due to using very silly samples.

In that case, part of the problem may have been that the Super NES sound chip's RAM was only 64 KB, and that had to hold the playback code, the music data, and the samples.

Quote:

(Getting further off-topic, even ports like the NES version sounded worse than they should have. Compare my own arrangement of one tune, http://www.furrykef.com/music/lems-tim2.nsf , to the official version in the NSF you can get from Zophar (it's track #4)... er, not to toot my own horn or anything... it doesn't sound totally awesome, but it's still a serious improvement.)

Could you do that one without the DPCM channel? Perhaps there wasn't enough ROM available to hold samples, or not enough address space to bankswitch the samples in.

Splitting...
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Thanks for the thread split; now I can go on about this longer ;) I think it had more to do with how they used the same samples for every song. Though 64 KB is indeed a small space to work with, surely they could have switched samples in between songs? After all, it's 64 KB RAM, not ROM.

tepples wrote:

Could you do that one without the DPCM channel? Perhaps there wasn't enough ROM available to hold samples, or not enough address space to bankswitch the samples in.

Sure I can. It doesn't sound as good, of course, but it still sounds better (to my ears) than the original NES version: the arpeggiated chords, the simulated hi hat, the way the melody instrument changes timbre, etc. I don't know how long I'll keep the link up, but here it is with the DPCM channel removed and the white noise channel modified accordingly: http://www.furrykef.com/offsite/lems-tim2-no-dpcm.nsf

Anyway, the point is I'm invariably disappointed by other renditions of Lemmings tunes, and I'd like to see it done right. :)

Getting back on topic, I'm working on a MIDI-playing engine for DS (no promises or guarantees, so don't anybody hold your breath yet), so I'd be able to contribute to that aspect of a Lemmings project as well.

- Kef

furrykef wrote:

Thanks for the thread split; now I can go on about this longer ;) I think it had more to do with how they used the same samples for every song. Though 64 KB is indeed a small space to work with, surely they could have switched samples in between songs? After all, it's 64 KB RAM, not ROM.

The bus between the Super NES's main CPU and the sound CPU is very slow. It can take three seconds to fill the RAM, and the sound is usually silenced and gameplay stopped while this is happening.

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Sure I can [get rid of the DPCM to meet technical requirements for the rest of the game engine]. It doesn't sound as good, of course, but it still sounds better (to my ears) than the original NES version: the arpeggiated chords, the simulated hi hat, the way the melody instrument changes timbre, etc.

All those things take ROM space. A lot of NES publishers tried to save money by using minor variations on Nintendo's playback libraries. Such libraries were written by people unfamiliar with the C=64 demo scene, which is responsible for the widespread (ab)use of arpeggio and variable duty cycles. Notice that music from C=64 composers (e.g. Silver Surfer and most Codemasters games) sounds different from just about everything else on the NES.

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I don't know how long I'll keep the link up, but here it is with the DPCM channel removed and the white noise channel modified accordingly: http://www.furrykef.com/offsite/lems-tim2-no-dpcm.nsf

Good job. By the way, here's what I've done using the NES tone generators, which (ObTopic) are similar in principle to the GBC/GBA tone generators:

Quote:

Anyway, the point is I'm invariably disappointed by other renditions of Lemmings tunes, and I'd like to see it done right. :)

Given that the owner of copyright in the Lemmings soundtrack makes disc-based consoles, it would be trivial for this company to get the sound right: just reencode it in ATRAC format. Otherwise, you'll have to compose new songs using new samples, but in the same style. Good luck doing this without getting sued.

Quote:

Getting back on topic, I'm working on a MIDI-playing engine for DS (no promises or guarantees, so don't anybody hold your breath yet), so I'd be able to contribute to that aspect of a Lemmings project as well.

What's the big advantage of MIDI over, say, XM or vice versa?
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tepples wrote:

furrykef wrote:

Thanks for the thread split; now I can go on about this longer ;) I think it had more to do with how they used the same samples for every song. Though 64 KB is indeed a small space to work with, surely they could have switched samples in between songs? After all, it's 64 KB RAM, not ROM.

The bus between the Super NES's main CPU and the sound CPU is very slow. It can take three seconds to fill the RAM, and the sound is usually silenced and gameplay stopped while this is happening.

Ah, but gameplay is stopped when the game changes tunes, which is between levels. Also, the game fades out and fades in between levels, so the actual increase in waiting time would probably be negligible.

Also I think even if the sample set had to be the same for each tune, they could have chosen better samples. The snare drum in particular sounds more like some kind of toy than a snare drum. Kind of like a Mario Paint snare or something, heh :P

tepples wrote:

All those things take ROM space.

True. It could be that they squeezed all they could out of that 256 KB cartridge, although it seems more likely to me that they just wanted to get a port out quickly and cheaply, since that seemed to be a common mentality for handling ports. Maybe I'm wrong. Most likely, the truth is somewhere in between, but what I do know for sure is that I find the NES Lemmings soundtrack pretty boring.

BTW, I know that one of the appealing aspects of Lemmings was its massive number of levels, but in a way I'd rather axe a few levels if it meant I'd be able to stand the music enough to actually want to play all the levels, if you know what I mean. 'Course, if I were actually working for them at the time, and I said that, they'd have called me crazy, and not entirely without justification (besides, I am crazy ;)).

I do understand that there are technical reasons why the games sound the way they do, and it's very well possible I'd have done no better if I were in exactly the same circumstances. That still doesn't change that I find almost all Lemmings ports to have unsatisfying music, though.

tepples wrote:

Quote:

Anyway, the point is I'm invariably disappointed by other renditions of Lemmings tunes, and I'd like to see it done right. :)

Given that the owner of copyright in the Lemmings soundtrack makes disc-based consoles, it would be trivial for this company to get the sound right: just reencode it in ATRAC format. Otherwise, you'll have to compose new songs using new samples, but in the same style. Good luck doing this without getting sued.

Isn't porting Lemmings a violation of copyright in the first place? I don't think the music would be the big point of contention unless it were the only element to really violate copyright.

In the end, it's really a matter of what Sony will tolerate.

tepples wrote:

What's the big advantage of MIDI over, say, XM or vice versa?

Well, different tools make them, of course. The practical differences are pretty minor and it really only matters to the composer and the person writing the sound code (or linking in a library). Me, I'm definitely a tracker person, but I'm going to be writing a MIDI player anyway (I'm hoping to make a crude implementation of DirectMusic -- not the API, just the basic idea), and from a technical standpoint I do find MIDI a bit more logical, for example, how it decouples the music sequence from the sounds used (making it easy and natural to use sounds from one song in another), how notes aren't rigidly separated into ticks the way they are in a tracker, and so on.

- Kef

furrykef wrote:

Isn't porting Lemmings a violation of copyright in the first place?

Porting Lemmings and redoing all the graphics and level layouts isn't copyright infringement; it's Pingus.

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from a technical standpoint I do find MIDI a bit more logical, for example, how it decouples the music sequence from the sounds used

Then have the S3M use empty samples, and load them at play time from the "filename" field.

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(making it easy and natural to use sounds from one song in another), how notes aren't rigidly separated into ticks the way they are in a tracker

MIDI uses ticks too. In S3M, you can use the SDx effect to make a note start later in a row or the SCx effect to make a note end later in a row, and other formats probably have the same effect available.
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tepples wrote:

furrykef wrote:

Isn't porting Lemmings a violation of copyright in the first place?

Porting Lemmings and redoing all the graphics and level layouts isn't copyright infringement; it's Pingus.

If you redo all that. :) I suppose we probably would, although I haven't heard of any cases of publishers going after freeware homebrew authors even when a clone is very blatant.

Also fuzzy is the matter that many of the songs in Lemmings, like the can-can dance, are public domain. (Kind of ironic that the tune most associated with Lemmings isn't one of its original tunes!) So we could probably get away with using those same tunes as long as the new arrangement sounds suitably different.

tepples wrote:

Quote:

from a technical standpoint I do find MIDI a bit more logical, for example, how it decouples the music sequence from the sounds used

Then have the S3M use empty samples, and load them at play time from the "filename" field.

Oh, I know, that's what I'd have done more or less. I just like how MIDI is actually designed to be used that way. Very minor point, I know, but when you talk technical specifics, you're mostly splitting hairs in preferring one to the other anyway...

Quote:

MIDI uses ticks too.

Yes, but I generally don't think in terms of ticks when I use a MIDI sequencer. In Noteworthy Composer, for example, I input notes on a musical staff, so I can have a score that uses mostly quarter notes to 16th notes, then introduce the occasional runs of 32nd notes without worrying about having to expand a pattern and increasing the tempo or reduce the ticks/row count to ensure it plays at the same speed. This always felt kind of fudgy to me, and although I still prefer trackers, it may make some prefer MIDI. I'm not too familiar yet with editing a piano roll, but I think you'd just temporarily change the size of the note grid or something. Or, even better, you use a musical keyboard and actually hit 32nd notes on the fly and not even worry about the question of quantization at all. I don't use a MIDI keyboard, myself, but other people do...

tepples wrote:

In S3M, you can use the SDx effect to make a note start later in a row or the SCx effect to make a note end later in a row, and other formats probably have the same effect available.

Ah, but then you couldn't use another effect at the same time. ;) I know, it's not that big a deal.

Again, I don't really think a discussion of the technical aspects of MIDI vs. module is going to be particularly enlightening. The most major difference would be the tools you use to make them. I'm making a MIDI engine because DirectMusic uses MIDI to represent music, not because I feel MIDI to be superior. I don't think I'd use DirectMusic for a Lemmings project, but I figure I may as well use my MIDI engine with it, because, since I'd be familiar with the code, I'd be able to manipulate it any way I want. (I'm not great at working with other people's code, heh.)

- Kef

furrykef wrote:

Again, I don't really think a discussion of the technical aspects of MIDI vs. module is going to be particularly enlightening. The most major difference would be the tools you use to make them. I'm making a MIDI engine because DirectMusic uses MIDI to represent music, not because I feel MIDI to be superior.

And I use S3M because enough users cannot be taught how to install a custom sound font in Windows. But on the DS, where the sound font is stored on the Game Card anyway, it shouldn't make a difference.
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Quote:

although I haven't heard of any cases of publishers going after freeware homebrew authors even when a clone is very blatant.

Have you heard of the strange situation with Grid Wars?

Also, don't you find the changing of music tracks between Lemmings levels to be a little jarring? Especially if you're playing the same level over and over and you have to listen to the same start of the song over and over because you mistime something the second Lemming is supposed to do. Lemmings 3 has Escape so that it restarts the level without restarting the music, come to think of it. (Lemmings 2 has Escape so that it restarts the level without the level briefing screen, but it restarts the music if I remember)
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MrD wrote:

furrykef wrote:

although I haven't heard of any cases of publishers going after freeware homebrew authors even when a clone is very blatant.

Have you heard of the strange situation with Grid Wars?

I see it as analogous to the situation between The Tetris Company and homebrew tetromino game developers. Something was copied. Expression is protected by copyright; so are binaries and source code. But game play methods are not so protected (17 USC 102(b)). Companies send cease-and-desist letters to developers of clones; these letters often make arguably false claims as to what is an expression. Only a judge can reliably tell ideas from expression, and it costs a lot of money to get the opinion of a judge. So it depends on whether by "going after" furrykef meant sending a letter (which has happened) or filing a lawsuit (which has not).

My advice (not legal advice): change the graphical style.
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gbadev.org forum archive

Audio > Lemmings music

#90174 - furrykef - Wed Jun 28, 2006 7:35 pm

#90209 - tepples - Wed Jun 28, 2006 10:49 pm

#90227 - furrykef - Wed Jun 28, 2006 11:17 pm

#90245 - tepples - Thu Jun 29, 2006 2:01 am

#90265 - furrykef - Thu Jun 29, 2006 2:57 am

#90272 - tepples - Thu Jun 29, 2006 5:22 am

#90279 - furrykef - Thu Jun 29, 2006 6:42 am

#90310 - tepples - Thu Jun 29, 2006 4:04 pm

#90315 - furrykef - Thu Jun 29, 2006 4:43 pm

#90317 - tepples - Thu Jun 29, 2006 5:34 pm

#99589 - MrD - Tue Aug 22, 2006 3:56 pm

#99613 - tepples - Tue Aug 22, 2006 6:26 pm