psycho.somatic.generator

you be first, i be second...

2009-03-03T05:29:06Z

Hi! If you came stumbling here from nanjamonja.com out of hasty recommendations from some dolled-out waloli fool holding a couple of abused EPROM-socketed NES carts in The Tank a day ago, welcome to my blog! Sorry the /nsf/ directory is SOOOOOO horribly outdated; a lot of its material doesn't reflect my newer work nor matured abilities anymore. Actually, I've been long meaning to revise the whole site in general! This will be remedied soon, I promise!

Anyway, I had some emails from a couple of cool folks who were wondering what I played in my set. Here it is!:

ub1P☆ib2P
Kirakira Commandi
(from ゼロの使い魔　ファンタジーフォース　2nd Impact)
夏祭り (edo castle crashers mix)
(from squarewave surfers -memory of 8bit-, set with prozax on hyper-shred guitar)
きみはホエホエむすめ (8ddictive 8p 8bit 8x)
(theme song remix from the Famicom game "Idol Hakkenden", original by KYOHEI SADA & TOMOO PSG MISATO)
お兄ちゃんだからいいよ～♪ (Hardcore TERRORISTS live ver.)
Virtuous View (I♡II arrange)
(remix of a track from ゼロの使い魔　ファンタジーフォース　2nd Impact, set also with prozax on guitar)

Also, as a present, here's two of the songs from my set (mega-thanx to mandichan for the super-awesome チビテクちゃん character design!):

Chibi-Tech - ub1P☆ib2P
Chibi-Tech - Virtuous View (I♡II arrange)

Hope all you guys had fun with all the performers's sets! Also sorry if you had to put up with my horrible bronchitis fits!

tell me what's the most ideal EQUIP for some moé-tal kombat

2009-02-09T00:31:09Z

I'm NYC-bound at the end of this month! If you're going to be around the Manhattan area at February 28th, make sure to come by The Tank in the evening and check out this month's PULSEWAVE for some lovely chiptune fury from Anamanaguchi, Starscream, Saskrotch, and my own set!

noteNdo and VBLANK will be supplying some HAWT glitchy visual fun, so there's no excuse to spend your Saturday night freezing over elsewhere! Maybe I'll even slip in something for some MAJOR BRAIN BUFFER OVERFLOW... who knows!?

In any case, please check out the flyer here, exquisitely pix'd out by minusbaby:

It's cold outside!
We're warm inside!
At PULSEWAVE We dance all sides!
ANAMANAGUCHI make us jump to the right!
CHIBI-TECH make us boogie boogie boogie!
SASKROTCH make us bump bump bump!
STARSCREAM make us swish to the left!
We face forward!
NOTENDO and VBLANK wow our eyes!

Meet us at THE TANK, February 28th at 9:00pm!

=====

Saturday, February 28th 2008
Doors at 9:00pm Show at 9:30
@ The Tank
354 W. 45th Street (between 8th and 9th Aves)

BY SUBWAY
A, C, E, N, Q, R, W, 1, 2, 3, B, D, F, V, S, or 7 to 42nd Street

=====

As a passing note, there will be some rather major things coming up hopefully within the next coming months. I'll just leave it at that for now. EXCITING TIMES!

before the world of blue robot protagonists, two young girls magically roamed the pixelated skies...

2008-11-06T16:11:05Z

Yes, the date with the aggressive yet demure noble lady continues! Only this time... her silent & calculating accomplice with distinctive glasses rides along to help readily keep treacherous foes and crazy familiar dogs in check!

Within the depths of Marvelous Entertainment's newest Zero no Tsukaima PS2 ADV game in the series, "Maigo no Period to Ikusen no Symphony," marks the return of the tsundere shooting game! Its sequel, "Fantasy Force: 2nd Impact" now takes form in a top-down 2D vertical shooter form. Perhaps the most notable addition is that Tabitha now accompanies Louise in a simultaneous 2-player shotfest!

And yes... just like the previous Fantasy Force, the "8-bit" music makes a return once again! My chiptune technique had refined itself ever since, so I vowed to outdo the previous venture -- both quality-wise & quantity-wise. With the addition of symphonic passages and much more overdriven rawkouts, hopefully you'll enjoy the soundtrack's more intense pace!

Although this is just a small role I contributed for the whole game package meant for diehard Zero no Tsukaima fanatics, I've dedicated a lot more time and heart into the 8-bit PSG soundtrack than ever. Hopefully this can be enjoyed by as much fans of the much-lauded "retro" audiovisual aesthetic as possible. After all, blue heroic robots can't always hoard the torch all day!!!

Anyway, here's the backstory of the ADV game itself (shamelessly taken from Play-Asia with quick corrections LOLOL THASH RITE THE POWER OF AN INTERNET!):

Louise and her gang accepted a request from Queen Henrietta to exorcise the spirits hidden within a prestigious library. Due to the delicate nature of the books and the prospects of an adventure, the gang agreed to intervene.

The gang knew that they were going to encounter spirits, but they never thought they would encounter a large amount of unfinished magical books.

Intending to give themselves an ending, the spirits of these volumes seeked the dormant power within Louise. Upon her entry, the proud but shy girl has her heart taken -- split into small pieces and seeped into the books. To rescue his friend and summoner, Saito has to enlist the help of his classmates and enter the world of these texts.

THA' TSUNDEREBOMB BABY:

Title: ゼロの使い魔　迷子の終止符（ピリオド）と幾千の交響曲（シンフォニー）
Maker: Marvelous Entertainment
Platform: PlayStation 2
Genre: Tsundere ADV
Release Date: November 6, 2008
Price (Limited Edition): 9429yen*
Price (Standard Edition): 7329yen
CERO Rating: B (12 & up)

* = As like previously, only the limited edition has the Bonus material, which includes the minigame 「ルイズ・フランソワーズ・ル・ブラン・ド・ラ・ヴァリエールのツンデレレッスン」(Louise Françoise de la Bamue le Blanc de la Vallière no Tsundere Lesson), and of course the STG game 「ファンタジーフォース 2nd Impact」.

Although my announcement is already late, reserving also nets you a "Costume complete ＆ Set Material" artbook, as well as bonus telephone cards depending on which storefront in Japan you purchase from.

P.S. I recently did an interview with Denpa no Sekai -- in which I touch on quite a lot regarding the chiptune scene. Please check it out! Hopefully you'll get a good kick out of my little ravings and self-conceived debates between different styles! In fact, please check out his entire site -- you might learn a thing or two on a kickin-rad yet still misunderstood genre of music!

most epic soundtrack of the year

2008-10-04T07:42:17Z

<tumult> mmm burrito
<chibitech> ohhhh man.... do you have a 2sf player?
<tumult> what is 2sf
<chibitech> ds music container format
<tumult> oh, no
<tumult> i didn't even know it was rippable now
<chibitech> lol the soundtrack to sonic chronicles
<chibitech> holy shit
<tumult> uh oh
<chibitech> it has to be heard to be believed
<chibitech> let's just say having a "famous film composer" (who probably flaunts his gigastudio symphony hardwarez like it's bling) do a DS soundtrack is bound for [some very interesting material]
<tumult> oh god
<chibitech> i'll render some for you real quick
<tumult> is it entirely streaming?
<chibitech> only some of them
<chibitech> the gamut though is sequenced
<tumult> haha excellent
[...]
<chibitech> the sad thing about this is that tim follin actually praises the guy "for his meticulous attention to detail"
<chibitech> i don't know what the hell he was smoking :'(
<tumult> dollar bills

[...]

<chibitech> currently uploading, didn't bother to normalize volumes or even finish rendering most of them (i only did like 1-2 minute excerpts of all the songs)
<chibitech> but it should be enough to get my point accross
<chibitech> across too
<tumult> excellent
<chibitech> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-qjT9Cb10g - here's a trailer while you're waiting, notice how the pace of this SOOO THEMATIC soundtrack uhhhh.... takes its time
<chibitech> also, it does not resemble the actual soundtrack
<tumult> HAHA this trailer
<tumult> SO FUCKING BAD

<chibitech> http://www.nanjamonja.com/muzak/the_most_brilliant_sonic_soundtrack_ever.zip
[link deprecated, go here for individual mp3 downloads instead. -ed]

<chibitech> good examples are [central city], [kron colony], and the you_win/you_lose strm stings
<chibitech> er victory*
<chibitech> and the main_theme is classe too
<tumult> sega has no quality control
<tumult> they shelled out for this guy and he blows now
<tumult> and they didn't want to pay someone else to do it
<chibitech> also the stuff that ARE streamed are just generic techno hits probably done with garageband / apple loops or acid
<tumult> this is fucking insane
<tumult> boy and his blob quality
<chibitech> HAHAHAHAHA
<tumult> this bass sample is completely out of tune
<tumult> this can't possibly be the same guy who did sonic r
<tumult> those songs had insanely complicated songwriting
<tumult> this guy can't even use more than 3 chords
<chibitech> i love how the victory sting uses that one "yaaaaaay!" sound bit that's featured in countless commercials
<tumult> HAHA i knew exactly what that sample was as soon as you described, then i played it and yep
<tumult> are you sure this is playing back right
<tumult> it sounds like it's broken or something
<tumult> like in [metropolis ground zero] it sounds like the wrong drum samples are triggering
<chibitech> nah, it really does sound like that
<tumult> what the fuck???
<chibitech> i thought that too!
<chibitech> if you watch the gameplay vids in youtube, it really is the same thing
<tumult> so ridiculously bad
<chibitech> the mod_shrine guys are already up at arms to try personally mailing the dude how much the soundtrack [is very representative of quality]
<tumult> haha
<chibitech> [rj.txt]
<tumult> apparently he's going to be at magfest, hahahahaaa
<chibitech> ohhh maaaan
<chibitech> everyone ought to commemorate him for revolutionizing sonic music all over again

ebisumaru frantically pounds his tsuzumi as goemon barges in the gates...

2008-09-03T09:09:35Z

Not long after the galaxy had faced a terrible war of epic proportions, our hero grazes thru a barrage of bullets as the final boss explodes into oblivion. The celebration of victory is short-lived however, as the numerous abrasions from all the buzzed bullets sends our hero's craft in an uncontrollable divebomb towards Earth! Hours later with ruins smoldering off the distance, our hero brushes sand off and wakes up to the beach shorelines of what appears to be... feudal Japan! Trying to regain all senses, our hero suddenly sees a young figure with spiky blue hair and an oversized smoking pipe run with determined fervor as he showers coins to the nearby peasants of the shoreline town -- along with an older & chubbier figure draped in a purple costume whimsically prancing about as he pounds a tsuzumi with reckless abandon!

"To Akihabar~~~~ er, EDO CASTLE!!!" can be heard as the duo makes their way towards the mainland...

Yup! This is the other contribution! Just released today in Japan, "squarewave surfers ~ memory of 8bit" is a chiptune arrangement collection of popular American & Japanese summer-time songs! From hally's charismatic vocoder lyrical flows -- to Bud Melvin's sweet dobro slides over pulsewaves -- to K->'s lovely mixture of Gameboys & Hatsune Miku (lol rival idol singer lol) -- to gwEm's Atari ST grooves in the city, this album is sure to put some blippy zest in your next beach party!

Also, my track is a NES arrangement of Jitterin' Jinn's famous summer festival song "Natsu Matsuri", YAY! When presented with the project, I thought to myself, "Hmmm, I wonder what would it sound like if the late-80s Ganbare Goemon programmers at KONAMI decided to kidnap the MOSAIC.WAV crew and force them to jam a skankin-hillbilly denpa song full of the series' signature synthetic tsuzumi doinks... with some wailing pulsewave guitar wankery added to boot!?" Hopefully this would be the result!

ANYWAY PASS THA' TEQUILA MAH MANG:

Release: RSCG1043 "squarewave surfers ~ memory of 8bit"
Label: GemmatikaRecords / VORC Records
Product Cooperation: Voice & Heart / D4 Enterprise
Release date: September 3, 2008
Price: 1,905 yen (excl. tax)
Artists featured:
she (Sweden)
K-> (Japan)
Chibi-Tech (US)
hally (Japan)
Nullsleep (US)
Bud Melvin (US)
USK (Japan)
gwEm (UK)
撲殺少女工房 (Japan)
Saitone (Japan)
suge (Japan)
Tanikugu (Japan)
Site: http://www.vorcrecords.com/squarewave_surfers/

Now, as the sun starts to set against the shimmering ocean, our hero suddenly sees two additional figures swoop down from the sky! The first figure leading the way is a young girl sitting on top of a flying broom. Graced with long pink hair, a white dress shirt & a black skirt, a flowing cape draped on her back, and black stockings... she softly lands down as another girl riding a flying dragon makes her own descent. The girl with short baby-blue hair finally climbs down from the creature as the hero notices her pair of glasses adorning her emotionless eyes. Unfortunately the hero's fixation is cut short as the girl's pink-haired partner raises up a small stick -- followed by a not-so-subtle face of irritation directed at our hero. What can be heard next is a challenging yell:

"ばか犬ううぅぅ〜〜〜〜！！！"

The glasses-donned girl's only reaction to this? Just a soft-spoken utterance:

"STAY TSUN..."

buzzing thru asteroid fields with an arsenal of FM

2008-08-16T09:41:35Z

Yo! If in the slight chance you're going to be at Comiket, make sure to drop by the 4th floor in the West hall commercial area, and visit D4 at booth 334. They'll be selling "PSYVARIAR: THE MIX", featuring remixes of Tetsuro Sato's music from both SUCCESS' PSYVARIAR and PSYVARIAR2. The remixes are done by some pretty well-known videogame musicians and chiptune artists alike, so the album should cater to all ends of videogaming music tastes!

Also yes, I contributed a remix to the album too. Mine is the FM synthesis progwank overload one with heavy influences to Tecnosoft's Thunderforce series for the Genesis/MegaDrive, so look out for that 80s seering guitar cheez!

It might be a bit too late now relative to my announcement, but exclusive to the pre-sale at comiket are limited edition T-shirts (100 of them to be exact), so keep an eye out for that too!

BUZZ POINTS!:

Release: EMCA0004 "PSYVARIAR 'THE MIX'"
Artists featured: Zinger & Bacter, TECHNOuchi, Manabu Namiki, Loser Kashiwagi, Saitone, Ryu Umemoto, Naoto Ishikawa, Keishi Yonao, Blasterhead, hally, chibi-tech, WASi303 (Tetsuro Sato), Dong, Kplecraft
Price: 2800Yen
Early release: August 15 @ Comic Market 74, located at 4th floor West Hall 334 D4 Enterprise
General release: August 18 in the following shops:
AC-MALL (EGG MUSIC's online shop)
D-STAGE
Toranoana
TRADER
Messe Sanoh
amazon.co.jp
Site: http://www.amusement-center.com/project/emusic/records/emca0004.html

Whoohoo! With all said & done, I should announce that I'm now a free agent once more! Considering it's a far-fetched attempt for freelance sound designers, I'm actively looking for full-time opportunities. Now as much as I love making audio for hardcore & niche genres that ask for the intricate details I try to accomplish, I'm also seriously looking to dive into the casual / flash gaming market. So if you're an upcoming indie developer or even an established company looking to hire an in-house audio designer for your products of the masses (or if you know a developer / company looking for someone to spark some fun in said products!), please don't hesitate to give "chibitech" an offer at his gmail, and hopefully we'll brew up something from there! Yes, I can & will travel if needed.

There's more fun stuff to be announced soon! For now, just grab yourself your bathing suit, a NES hooked up to your portable boombox, relax with the sunset over the ocean horizon, and STAY TSUN...

"rollin' with tha' fatty-electro-retro-exo-skeletal team from tha' get-go"

2008-02-07T08:54:27Z

I know I'm a little bit late on this announcement, but if you guys are going to be in the San Francisco area this coming Thursday night, make sure to drop by Mighty, as the local Bay Area chiptune crew is brewing up a big performance to kick off Micromusic SF HQ!

From x|k's ever-amazing MidiNES explorations, to Tumult's monome twists, to Starpause's GP2X Piggy trax-snax, it'll be one insane night of pure chip wuv.

Hell, if not for the crazy-cool guest stars nullsleep & Trash80, you should definitely come over at least for A_Rival's set. His NES + rap combination, as cheesy as you might assume at first, is in reality PURE AWESOMENESS. Screw all that vox-whore / clan-nads / sounds-like-megaman / do-the-mario tripe: THIS, LADIES & GENTLEMEN, IS KICKASS NES MUSIC.

(... as well as possibly the first nerdrap that isn't insulting to the parent genre it tries to parody, since his lyrical flows are... you know, unlike most other nerdrap out there... actually really damn good.)

Anyway, here's the hookup, cycle-flyer by starpause (LOL THANX MANG FOR THAT COSPLAY SNAP orz):

micromusic.net is a long time watering hole for party people gone hacker, turning consumer electronics into machines of rowdy sound. the recently founded san francisco headquarters will follow in fine tradition, bringing you a night of electro, techno and hip hop produced with classic game consoles & amplified on a righteous soundsystem. move your body or geek on gear, either way see you there!

PERFORMANCES BY:
Trash80 (Debut SF performance)
Nullsleep (8bitpeoples, nyc)
Starpause (mp3death, hexawe)
A_Rival (planetskill, wavetheory)
X|K (midines, wayfar)
Chibi-Tech
Tumult

LOW-TECH VISUALS BY:
Voltage Controlled
Aaron Harbour

no it's not "oniichan's paradise 12-sister hanya~n" like i promised earlier...

2007-10-01T10:12:57Z

... but it IS a shooter game! TSUNDERE SHOOTING!

It's a Playstation 2 game by Marvelous Entertainment, based on the light novel & anime series featuring everyone's favorite short-fused magic student Louise, & her familiar Saito! Yes, somehow I'm still pinching myself if this is really just a wild dream or if I really did involve myself with such a cool project...

The main game itself, called "Zero no Tsukaima: Muma ga Tsumugu Yokaze no Gensoukyoku", is a visual novel with a twist: Alongside your standard path-choosing options that determine the storyline's fate, a "tsundere meter" also determines if Louise will either raise living hell to Saito at certain events like she's known for, or start to show her reluctant affection for Saito... ehhhh, like she's known for. ;)

My part doesn't involve the main game though. Rather, the limited edition box version of the game will include a bonus game called "Zero no Tsukaima: Fantasy Force", featuring an old-school-style 2D horizontal shoot-em-up -- complete with tile-based pixel graphics & sprites, layered parallax scrolling, and bleepy sound FX to boot! The gameplay itself is a tribute to shooting games of the era -- such as R-Type, Cotton, Magical Chase, and Parodius. So if you've played those titles before, this game will definitely feel right at home.

Needless to say, my involvement is the bonus game's soundtrack... which is all original RP2A03 NES-based PSG music. Whee! :D

My style for this soundtrack strays from the old gurgling high-speed arpeggio crap & vocal technique waxing that I'm usually known for, as I tried approaching this soundtrack with more of a vintage Konami-esque feel. I touched on a whole barrage of styles -- ranging from chip-pop happiness (stage 1's music), to J-rock flavor (OP theme), to jazzy verves, to clashes of baroque/ska/denpa-kei/hip-hop, to even power-chord wank sessions that grace the most frantic boss fights. All and all, this was a very fun project to do!

Now, unless the rest of the world is willing to give visual novels a fighting chance, this probably won't venture outside Japan anytime soon. But if you're a fan of old-skool 2D shooters, charge-up shots that literally threaten you, NES-based PSG music, or characters with ideal zettai ryouiki, please enjoy this in any way you can when it's released this November 29th before all the fat otaku scoop up every limited edition copy and post their bounty on something like DigitalPress or SealedGameHeaven or any place where the buttertrolls just love to churn their so-called investments! We just can't let those collector fatties hog all the fun!

Title: ゼロの使い魔　夢魔が紡ぐ夜風の幻想曲
Genre: "Tsun-Dere" ADV (Visual Novel)
Platform: Playstation 2
Release Date: November 29, 2007
Price (Limited Edition): 9429 yen*
Price (Standard Edition): 7329 yen
CERO Rating: B (12 & up)

* - Keep in mind that the bonus game 「ゼロの使い魔　ファンタジーフォース」 is only available in the limited edition box...

lol rival idol singer lol

2007-10-01T10:12:41Z

OK, I know how everyone out there is starting to jump on the Hatsune Miku bandwagon and flood Youtube & Niconico Video full of remixes and quick MIDI conversions possibly swiped off vgmusic.com or sites like that. Believe me, I simply couldn't ignore it either! And neither could Tibitekuchan -- as she started to give off a high and terrorizingly loud ear-piercing 12.5% duty cycle pulsewave scream off her RP2A03 picopico sound source whenever I clicked on each video & mp3 link relating to everyone's new favorite idol-singer-for-hire!

But! Tibitekuchan was willing to make amends with her new rival. After all, she was overtly curious about Mikuchan's "Frequency-domain Singing Articulation Splicing and Shaping Synthesis" technology -- which although made her feel queasy about her own 1983-vintage "Programmable Sound Generator Synthesis" vocal cords becoming a bit long in the tooth, reassured her that she still has enormous room to improve upon. She even picked out her favorite song out of the whole pack! I can only wonder why she was so fixated with this one!

So yeah, Tibitekuchan started to socialize with Mikuchan, attempting to resolve their differences. Even though she still displayed her subtle form of jealousy (something I've noticed when I was forced to confinscate a pixelated Contra spread gun labeled "property of jake kaufman & your mom" that Tibitekuchan tried to hide behind her back), they did share one thing in common: their love of Yamaha DX100 keytars! After finally finding a mutual bond together, Tibitekuchan gave me the go-ahead and let me spend some studio-time with Mikuchan.

And after much painful stints with the user interface, these were the quick auditions:

Whoohoo one of the first things I've done with hatsune miku omg stop me before i start to replace the whole troutman family with an army of electro-funk-singing robot clones

See everyone else tries to use mikuchan for remixing every animu tune or moé-kei internet meme out there. i make her kick it with tha' doggz.
(the VSQ file was accidentally lost, so this abortion was what's left of it...)

guyz what have i done orz

As I started getting the hang of the otherwise horrible excuse of a piano roll step-sequencer (jeez and all this time i kept complaining about nerdtracker), Mikuchan was ready to start reciting the whole steamy intermission part of the oniichan song. I gave her my standing ovation as she started delivering each oscar-winning phrase of the intermission -- followed by an innocent giggle.

But suddenly, I would hear an extremely irritated square wail somehow resembling the words "No bitch that's MY LINE!" as I soon witnessed Tibitekuchan engage in a violent catfight with Mikuchan. With Tibitekuchan eventually asphyxiating Mikuchan with a Famicom controller's cord wrapped around her neck, tears started rolling down Tibitekuchan's cheeks as she yelled out that I wasn't giving her enough attention nor promotion.

As I attempted to step in and quell the situation at hand, Tibitekuchan only cried more as she choked Mikuchan by pulling the cords tighter. With Mikuchan gasping for every bit of air she could get, she rasped that perhaps I should make a screen capture video for Tibitekuchan. Knowing that Mikuchan always basked in the glory of that luxury with her countless youtube & nico videos, I felt that it was finally time for me to promote Tibitekuchan once again.

So, I'm now obligated to post this long lost arrangement, and a video capture of NT2 delivering Tibitekuchan's latest vocal folly:

君はホエホエ娘　〜8ddictive 8p 8bit mix〜 (MPEG-4)

However, Mikuchan still wanted to finish up the arrangement of the oniichan song. Not wanting to hurt Tibitekuchan's feelings once more, I felt that this task could be handed over to someone else more competent with the vocal intonation program.*

* - honestly now the reason i'm backing down on this is because i'm waaaaaaay too preoccupied with job searching at the moment. the market sucks orz

So as a request, I would love to see someone arrange this song with Hatsune Miku. Here's the old NSF (please try your best to mute the vocal parts... orz ), the scenario script in all its mistranslated glory, and the strangely-fitting yet uber-fun song lyrics (please thank G___orz of AVSS for them. ;) )

So yeah, Tibitekuchan and Mikuchan eventually called a truce, the gangs returned to class and became honor students, and everyone lived happily ever after. THE END.

dude thats some dOPE pHREAKY cRAZEE mOFOZ youse got there dawg

2007-08-14T05:19:22Z

Whee! Yeah it's unusual for me to plug like this, but Blasterhead's newest single release definitely deserves some mention...:

Everyone's favorite Gameboy chiptuner & TB-303 tweaker Blasterhead (music), visual novel/anime theme singer extraordinaire Rita (vocals), and famous musician/lyricist Aki Hata (Lyrics), got together and made a really catchy and kickass old-skool happy hardcore tune, "Into the Sky"!

Not only that, the single also features cool remixes from familiar Japanese hardcore artists such as Groovetune, MUZIK SERVANT, PSYBA, WARST, Buzzmasta, and m1dy!
also i made a remix too using strictly only a NES' 2A03 APU sound source yay!!!

The single will be sold at Comiket 72 this Friday. So if you're visiting the Tokyo Big Sight at that time, make sure you drop by their booth over at East Hall, 45a!!! Also, bonus points for me if you can speak to them about "MTV Pimp my Ride" and "Moetan" in the same conversation! :DDDD

OFFICIAL STATS COMMENCE!:

Release: BHCD09 "into the sky/Blasterhead feat. Rita"
Price: 2000Yen
Early release: August 17 @ Comic Market 72, located at East Hall 45a Blasterhead
General release: August 20 in the following shops:
GUHROOVY
L.P.U.STORE
Toranoana
Melon Books
Messe Sanoh
White Canvas
Yamagiwa Soft
Akibaoo~
Site: http://www.blasterhead.com/

more like idle composer am i rite lolololol

2007-05-29T06:24:13Z

im sorry i know ive been neglecting this place for so long orz

but yeah i'm performing my music at kyoto this june 1 wish me luck super cool fellas :o

gawd i'm so tense right now OKAY YOU'RE IN A STATE OF SHOCK JUST BREATHE

NO U

2006-11-28T12:54:52Z

Thursday thru Sunday @ The Tank, NYC. Bring lots of friends.
my set is at thursday night / friday morning @ 12:40am hope i don't crash and burn guyz!!!

Oh! And LEGENDARY CHIPPY WUV INCOMING...

そうだ、樹海へいこう… （しかし最初にChipotleに行きましょう！）

2006-11-01T10:06:18Z

Forget watching psycho-thrillers or playing survival-horror games in the dark, just imagine coming across one of these in your lone midnight stroll:

"Your life is a precious gift from your parents,
think quietly about your parents, brothers, sisters, and children.
Don't agonize by yourself -- please consult help."

Oh, it can't be complete without seeing abandoned cars and random books about "methods" on the ground, no we just can't ignore those!

Of course, I'm WAY too far off from lamenting about a sea of trees; right now I'm too busy reaping in the rewards from wrapping myself with tinfoil, and exploiting a bunch of non-authentic mexican restaurants in the bay area for their free ~~burrito~~salad Halloween costume deal!

ERIC PERSING'S ABOUT TO MAKE YOU HIS BITCH.

2006-09-11T05:08:25Z

OK, I have a confession to make.

I have a dirty little secret that I've never shared to anyone. But now, I feel it's time for me to fess up.

No, it's not my tendency to roll down my Prelude's windows at every GaNgStA ThUg cruising along with their "pimped-out" ride sporting the MOST EXXXTREME scraping ground-effects, and blast out the most cutesy-coated & insane denpa-kei material I can find. No, it's not my relentless pursuit for calculating the ideal absolute territory ratio (after all, it's a significant importance when you bust some MAD B-BOY SKILLZ with a skirt, over-kneesocks, and a keytar!). And no, it's not my habit of overengineering my horrible side jokes whenever I write my blog posts!

What it really is... is that I have a guilty pleasure for cheesy synthesizer factory demos. Preferrably the late 80s / early 90s era of consumer synths.

...

OK, fine! Mostly Casiotone demos. There, I said it!!! (つд⊂)ｴｰﾝ

But seriously, though! The synthesizer demo genre is sooo underrated! For all the restrictive boundaries that the programmers had to overcome in these consumer synths (such as the lack of key velocity & pitch modulation), a lot of these synth demos are meticulously crafted to gather your attention and invite you to play around with the synthesizer's features! As an indirect result, you got to admit that these synths feature the most cheesy yet fondly memoriable melodies that would permanently engrave on your big shiny forehead because YOU KNOW YOU MISS THEM!

After all, I surely do! When I was younger, I would visit my neighbor's house just to play around with her Casio MT-540 keyboard. It would be much to her annoyance, as I would visit her house every day just to listen to the fantastically-programmed 4-minute-long demo arrangement of Shakatak's "Night Birds" on loop for hours on end until she finally threw me out by dusk.

A few years later, I would learn with dismay that she had long sold the keyboard away to someone. After many years of feeling painfully alone from missing that Casiotone, I was VERY delighted to find out that Synthmania had recorded the demo tune of a Casio CSM-1 module, which had the same exact synthesis engine & tune as the MT-540!

HOORAY! Time to set this baby on loop once again!

With all things considered, I feel bad for all the lil' nameless Japanese kitties who compose and arrange such wonderful music in said restrictive boundaries, which unfortunately then get dismissed as "crappy toy sounds" just because the synths reside on a lone corner of Radio Shack. (Which, come on now... I bet even YOU were drawn in to the store by the blaring demo tunes, and became immediately impressed by the Casio Chord auto-accompaniment features! I know I was whenever my family drove us to the mall!)

In the end, you just can't help but feel sorry for these synth programmers and all the undeserving flak they receive!

Well, OK... unless you're SOUND DESIGN MASTER EXTRAORDINAIRE ERIC PERSING!!!, for which you always have to brand your name on the credits whenever your trademark ~~Los Angeles~~Linear Arithmetic synthesis patches grace every AIRline commercial, your next sappy new age track, half the "ST-01:" sample library of Karsten Obarski's Soundtracker (the other half consisting of sampled Yamaha DX100 patches), or even the latest Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z episode*, until every patch gets so cliché and sickening that your yandere instincts go in full overload every time you hear that gawdforsaken drum loop, which then you finally go off into a murderous rampage with an axe, stalking every man whose name just happens to go by SOUND DESIGN MASTER EXTRAORDINAIRE ERIC PERSING!!!

* = Yes, ep. 4 used "DigitalNativeDance". Jebus, that patch just never dies!

Which, speaking of him, even professional keyboards and rackmount synths sported their own factory ROM demo sequences! Synth manufacturers had magically discovered the wonders of multitimbrality by the late 80s, and took full advantage of this. The Roland U-110 rackmount is a prime example of a saving grace: Although this synth is usually labeled as the classic archetype of an uninspiring PCM rompler, The inclusion of T-Jazz #1 and Swing High did a fantastic job of showcasing the samples. Even Cloud 9, for all its polyphony-pushing flaws, at least gave the illusion that the rompler had pad-esque warmth inside. I believe NoOne Home was even arranged in a tracker MOD file by someone!

Hell, even the sickingly-popular Korg M1 workstation had a few factory demo sequences as well, complete with a common melodic motif! Screw the belief that "Universe" was responsible for it all -- "Ms. Muro" was most likely the one that whored out millions of M1 keyboards to every studio out there!

Still, the influence that synthesizer demos had in many young musicians traces to the humble consumer keyboard! Now, for you 20-something-year-old American musicians: I'm willing to bet that your first MIDI keyboard that got you started was a Yamaha PSR-500, bought by your parents in 1991-92 from Costco after much begging and pleading. You may laugh about it now with your fancy-scwancy Korg Tritons / Roland Fantoms / Yamaha Motifs / blablabla, but admit it: You hung out with the demo model tucked in the electronics corner of Costco all day as your parents shopped around for their bulk groceries.

Even though it was yet another rompler (I finally popped the case open recently, and let me tell you: IT'S FULL OF DEAD AIR), It was one of the first consumer keyboards that actually had a decent instrument set (record-skratching on a key? HOW CAN THIS BE!? OH MY GOD IT EVEN COUNTS FROM 1 THRU 4 TOO!!!), and its much-desired features (such as key velocity & pitch-bending) even made it more tempting. The price was fairly cheap, but still professional-looking enough that it could serve as your main sequencing workhorse!

However, the ultimate selling points for me (and i'm sure for other kids) were the demo songs. The jazz and orchestrated demos were utterly amazing for the time -- almost unheard of in a consumer keyboard.

Somehow, I should make a "Yamaha PSR-500 Bought-from-Costco Registry" website; I'm VERY sure that many striving & professional musicians out there my age have at least owned this synth at one point of their early-to-mid-90s life, bought by their parents no less! Don't believe me? Guess who I found out that owned one...:

<virt> i begged my parents for a psr-500 too, also bought from costco
<virt> that was what really got me heavily into sequencing!
<virt> its power jack stopped working though and i got tired of spending $10 on batteries every 4 hours, so i begged for an alesis qs7 to replace it
<virt> please tell me you have the psr-500 demo re......yep, you do. i'm going to fucking arrange that
<virt> 4... 3... 2.... 1

virt, I eagerly await the result with drooling fervor.

That being said, I'm now embarking on a long, perhaps futile mission:
I'm going to find every single different Casio Tonebank and Yamaha Portatone / Portasound keyboard model, and record all of their demo songs for everyone to finally enjoy and appreciate! I can't die with a truly fulfilling life until I see sold-out concerts held using only auto-accompaniment chords (Wesley Willis tried his dear best to carry the torch, after all!), or see every thizzed-faced hyphy crunkhead out there ghost-ridin' tha' whip while gettin' dumb with a Casio factory demo tune blaring out of their 12" Jensen subs!

...

OK, scratch that. Maybe it wouldn't be a good thought after all. But still! It's a perfectly valid excuse for a guilty pleasure! Keep in mind you're reading the blog of someone who enjoys listening to CANYON.MID in an OPL2 FM synth card. WITH TRACK 16 UNCORRECTED OF THAT F# DRONE. :)

But anyway... Here is the main reason why I took the time to write this entry. I'm currently looking for the following demonstrations:

Casio CT-670 (This consumer synth had a REALLY NICE, well-programmed arrangement of Paula Abdul's "The Way that you Love Me"! I used to own one (also from Costco!), and I miss the demo song so dearly :( )

(UPDATE: found it yayayayayay jebus this is the greatest song ever please thank Nikki for this FANTASTIC REVELATION OH GOD SO HAPPY YAAAYYAYASLEHRCUWECROWUEHRCISEDNC$*&CY$WE$C
Casio CT-700 (I also remember fiddling around with this synth whenever our family went to Montgomery Ward, and recall its fantastic R&B ballad with a grandiose piano melody.)
Casio CTK-1000 (I remember this keyboard had multiple demos, actually! I recently learned it was Casio's last foray into custom synthesis programming, before they threw in the towel in favor for only PCM romplers because Yamaha decided to sue them THOSE BLUBBERY FM SYNTHESIS JERKS PHASE DISTORTION FOREVER >:( )

(UPDATE: Got one, and recorded them for your enjoyment. Apparently Edward Alstrom is responsible for most of the instrument programming & original sequences in certain Casio synth models! ALL YOU CASIOTONE "EXPERIMENTAL" CIRCUIT-BENDING WANKS OUGHT TO APOLOGIZE TO HIM FOR ABUSING HIS VERY BLOOD SWEAT & TEARS)
Or, any Casiotone/Tonebank or Yamaha Portatone/Portasound demo that you may have recorded, actually!

If only synth makers nowadays looked back into the golden age of cheesy fusion-esque factory demonstration songs... <3

pop a thizz up with ya' sista tis' so hyphy

2006-08-03T07:49:28Z

I'm a horrible human being.
Gawd, what the hell was I thinking when I made this?!?

「お兄ちゃんだからいいよ〜♪」

chibi-tech_-_oniichan_dakara_iiyo.mp3 (96Kbps MP3, 3.46MB)
terrorists.nsf (NSF, 32KB. Festalon, NSFplug on "New Famicom", or VirtuaNSF is good kosher)

And a rather useless script, if you're feeling daring to sing along!:

terrorists.txt (Danger!: inexcusable mistakes and broken Japanese galore!)

Wow. I think it's safe to say that this is the worst song I've ever composed in my entire life.

BUT! It was also the most fun to create too, given the various stressful distractions and roadblocks I had to overcome. ;D

Planning stage:

<RushJet1> any, uh, plans for famicompo 3?
<chibitech> rj1: yeah, it'll be different, i'll assure that :)
<RushJet1> hah
<RushJet1> cool
<RushJet1> though, if it's another jpop song, i'll have to bitchslap you for saying it's different
<chibitech> no it's not!
<chibitech> :)
<chibitech> it's an original, at least
<RushJet1> you say that now...
<chibitech> OH SHIT DEADLINE TIME TO COVER SONG ABOUT LOVING ONII-CHAN ALRIGHT RAKE IN THE VOTES!!!!1
<RushJet1> what do you think I'M trying to do
<RushJet1> STOP STEALING MY IDEAS

Little did I realize I would later be eating my words, and I would be punched in the face while sleeping.

Two weeks after that fateful IRC session (which was logged right after the last day of Fanime), I would eventually decide what kind of song I was going to make for the Famicompo Mini NES music competition. And I knew that RushJet1 would hate me for it. :)

I was very intrigued by the fact that any song that even slightly farted a resemblance to eroge music would draw in the fans by the hordes. You probably know the type: Slow 10-second intro sting with LOADS of 5th pads swirling your ears, followed by some emo-tastic nylon guitar session to set the mood for the living room as the lone hero / older-brother / hitchhiker / long-time-friend-coming-home-from-vacation meets his twelve underaged-sisters / maids / random-schoolgirls / magical-pretty-fighters / nurtured-princesses... which THEN evolves to a bedroom scene where boy and girls do their wild thang while some innocent toybox music charms you out so that it makes you cry and feel guilty because one of the girls has a terminal case of 3-day cancer and also the fact that you're whacking off to this drivel you damn creepy sicko.

In short: Just listen to any Visualarts/KEY game's OST. Bring tissues. For both reasons, of course.

I then decided that if I can't beat this unstoppable force with pure skill, I might as well just join them... then try to add that much-needed pure skill! YOU JUST CAN'T STOP THA' BOOGIE, BEEOTCH.

Eventually, after numerous singing bouts while taking my daily shower, I would come up with a melody that I liked. I then laid the framework for the song in my head, keeping in mind all the blatant clichés and stereotypes that these past songs successfully tickled. With the framework set in stone, and a hearty "BRING IT ON!" yelled out, I thought I was ready for any onslaught!

Turns out I was terribly unprepared for things to come.

Intro (0:00 -> 0:06):

I had started out sometime around mid to end of June, and finished this part in just less than an hour. The pad-like arpeggios did their job well, I must say!

Then, it just sat there with no progress at all for the longest time.

Unfortunately, the tasks of having to organize a musical instrument auction extravaganza in eBay for my school, as well as having to manage promotions and setup for an upcoming hyphy concert for my other work, started to settle in. Having agreed to handle both arduous tasks at once seemed like such a fantastic idea at first! But combine it with Famicompo Mini? Oh boy.

But hey! Listen to my song, and try to guess where this part's cliché was inspired from!

Outside (0:07 -> 0:36):

It was July 2nd. Famicompo submissions had already commenced, and all I had was the first part of the intro! Already, I was pessimistic that I wouldn't finish in time.

... and with good reason. Let me just say that technically, this was the hardest part of the song to deal with. Not only did I have to somehow squeeze the voices in between the comp within one channel, but also had to deal with this lousy problem of trying to fit said vocals in a zig-zagged swing.

Old Amiga demoscener fogeys who remember the pre-Protracker / pre-CIA timer days of using a stream of "Fxx" commands just to get an acceptable swing & tempo in Vblank will know this problem all too well. It's comparable to attempting to fit square ceramic puzzle pieces onto an immensely jagged mosaic tileboard: You just have to find the most suitable area to fit the piece, smash it in with a hammer, and hope that the broken shards didn't distort the picture too badly.

If you solo the vocal / comp part in the NSF, you'll notice that Oniichan's voice starts slurring like some thizz-faced hyphy bastard gettin' dumb-stupid-schizo-retarded. Or maybe I was aiming for that genuine Animalese flavor! The psychotic speech patterns off Animal Crossing is quite infectious, after all!

Anyway, after I used my magical-girl powers to MACHINE TRANSLATE EXCITING~~! my english into broken, overtly-polite Japanese, I tried my hardest to fit this tragedy of a dialogue in the most comprehensible way.

Unfortunately, I was so appalled by the result of programming his voice in this jagged tempo, that I ended up cutting certain syllables short. Eventually I got so frustrated that I yelled to myself, "You know what? Fluck it. At least he's blabbering about something. Maybe Japanese listeners will know that Oniichan has down's syndrome, and think he's warning about an incoming tsunami or a gigantic mecha-penis or some crap like that. Then, the story will be about his last chance to score with his mom until inevitable death pimp-slaps the shore."

I eventually forgot what he was saying in certain areas, so... uh... put your lady mondegreen powers to good use, and figure out what I didn't remember! :D

At least the sister wasn't fazed too badly with this problem; she was IMHO very intelligible, actually. DARE to keep kids off drugs!

Needless to say, I wanted that gawd forsaken part to end really quickly. After she signaled the march inside, I breathed a big sigh of relief knowing that this ordeal was finally over.

Then my heart started racing again, knowing that this small, insignificant part took me around three days to complete. I was not making good time. :(((

Bathing House (0:37 -> 1:41):

<Sam> Wow. So this is how you audio engineers write your scripts. Remind me that I should just deal with the formatting myself if I ask for your help.
<chibitech> Gee, thanks!

YAY! With a consistent tempo and no interfering comp, laying down the voices was MUCH LESS of a chore! The only issue was channel priority with the crickets, but that was it!

Besides, you just gotta' dig those climatic sound effects! (^^;;

It was the start of a heat wave in the Bay Area. Considering that my room doesn't have air conditioning, I wanted to work on my song in a cooler, more comfortable facility. I decided to go to campus early each day with my PC laptop and Yamaha DX100. Knowing that I was working all day in an equipment lab, I installed an NSF WinAMP plugin in my workstation to help in my musical quest, then networked the two computers so that my laptop serves as the sole editor, and my workstation as my compiler / replay box. The DX100 would simply serve as my vocal intonation guide.

With the knowledge that I still had enough time for eBay tomfoolery until the Fall semester begins, I decided to freeze my sell-off project until I was completely finished with the song.

Quickly realizing that machine translation wasn't the best route for me, I decided to start typing up various Japanese keywords in google in an attempt to find particular lines of ero-novels that I knew would tickle the moé-factor up the wazoo. Nerd instincts flaring up again, I even snuck in a few distinct lines that any fat animu fag would immediately recognize. See if you can find the Cardcaptor Sakura reference!

Yeah yeah, I know that the honorifics clash horribly, but in the wise words of Dave Chapelle: "Fuck 'em, that's why!"

:)

This section took two days to make, consisting mostly from work hours, and a nighttime cram session. I retched once during a heated moment of programming the panting noises (Note to self: DO NOT IMITATE IRREGULAR BREATHING WHILE RUNNING ON ADRENALINE). Seriously, it was starting to take a toll on my health!

Main song (1:42 -> 3:56):

"Ohhhh!!! He's growing... so much... so strong... he's gonna get himself some justice!"
- Tim Follin, 'Ultraverse Prime'

Now this is where all innocence was lost, with a perfectly timed "bow chicka bow wow!" echoing across the bath house. Uh oh! Don't cut 'em no slack, we're entering total B-grade zone!

After taking a break for one day by driving up to Sacramento with my friends (and constantly worry about the tune as we visited every Dimple shop across the county), I finally cut my teeth into the main song.

And already, I was pulling my hairs on the funk-guitar parts. I was hoping that sweeping the duty cycle on every downbeat would work wonders for creating some pr0n-shaft wah guitar wuv. Unfortunately, 12.5% duty cycle just wasn't wide enough for a good resonance simulation on the pitch level I was using, giving the impression that the pedal wasn't rocked back far enough (believe it or not, it used to be one octave higher since it gave off more of that "resonance" that I desired, until I quickly realized that it was just plain annoying at such a high pitch level).

Plus, I forgot to twang some staccato pulls. Darn! The wah-pedal imitation was definitely the weakest part of the whole song, I admit. I hope you're not too disappointed, virt! I tried to fix the sloppy portamento, though!

orz

The intermission was quite fun to make, though! Yep, this part is as cheesy as an American smut flick can get. Which is funny, because I've only watched one adult flick in my whole entire life. And this was when I was still a adolescent. THIS IS NOT A LIE. I SHIT YOU NOT.* MY DESIRE FOR THAT STUFF IS REALLY THAT VAPID.

* - Of course, this doesn't count ero and yaoi animation, but even I can still count those with my fingers on a single hand, sadly. :(

So basically, I was mainly inspired by memory of remembering how those 2 Live Crew track intermissions sounded like whenever my old AzN ThUgGiN' high school friends with their BANDPASS-THUMPIN DXType-R Civics kicked in their VTEC yo!!!...

... and TMNTijuana (NSFW). ~~Especially the part with Michaelangelo and Krang making out.~~

Working on this section while at campus in a Monday morning made for some unexpected hilarity among my friends. I would occasionally bust out my falsetto in an attempt to curve just the right syllables for the sister, and it would garner attention at the most inopportune time.

<chibitech> Aaaa~~ oniichaaaaa~~ aaa~~~OH SHIT!!! Hey Sarah whassup!?
<fox> Wow. Heeeey Jason. I saw that you opened the lab early, so I came here just so I can fill out another camera & equipment reservation.
<chibitech> Ah! Sure! No problem-o!

* chibitech hands fox a reservation form, then immediately sits down while looking upward innocently and clasping his fisted hand in front of his mouth in timid succession

<fox> You know, I'm still puzzled to why you didn't bother with it, but that voice could have fit you perfectly a few months ago.
<chibitech> WHAT?!? Really?
* fox nods in agreement, with a sly smirk on her face
<chibitech> Hah! So, you think I should have taken the maid cafe route, walk up to every nearby person, and give my cutest rendition of "Welcome home, master~~!" in a shameless attempt of gathering nerds to our table?
<fox> Oh geez! Well... you'll have to address me as master anyway, since now you have to pull out all the kino lights for my class. Get started, maid.
<chibitech> UNGOW!

Yes, you can tell I lifted the melodic styles of The Artist Formerly Known As NARUTO (uh oh another naruto-wannabe ai bomb ripoff wtf!!!1), and followed the technique of Iwamoo (which, considering we shared the same entry number for our respective sections, made for a hilarious coincidence. Read and analyze both our song titles out loud to figure this pun out. ;) ).

Honestly now, if it wasn't for both artists' excellent sense of style, I probably wouldn't have tried as hard as I did. I think the credit goes to them for sparking the flames for many to follow.

Considering that I had to prepare preliminary architectural plans for building a stage and handling audio rentals for the upcoming concert, this meant that I definitely had to squeeze as much free time as I could muster. Luckily, since I had carefully planned the main melody in advance, I was able to blaze thru this part in roughly three days. It probably would have gone even faster if only Nerdtracker had a much more intuitive interface...

Final (3:57 -> 5:03):

<vrit> also i hope you're planning to end the song instead of just leaving it looping without channel 2, i can't finish masturbating without a climax in the piece
<chibitech> YES THERE WILL BE A CLIMAX

Believe it or not, this whole section took only two hours to make on a Wednesday morning. At the time, I needed to study for an audio theory-related midterm regarding perceptual coding. Regardless, I just wanted to get this project finished once and for all.

It was pure luck that I actually aced that midterm. ;D

I wanted to go for that UBER-AUTHENTIC innocent love for the final part. After all, piercing toybox-esque glockenspiels just scream out tears of OMG EMOtion for the listener as Oniichan gets his silly willy shakin'! I'm pretty sure the folks at Visualarts/KEY would be so proud! <3

So this time, after much googling for vital keywords, I found a couple more lines suitable for the job (featuring good ol' elder brother, of course!), and used that as the main basis to... er-... study!

YOU ARE A COMPLETE NERD IF YOU FIND OUT WHERE SECTIONS OF THE DIALOGUE CAME FROM BY THE WAY

I worked as quickly as possible during the morning, while making sure that the voices wouldn't interfere too much with the double-polyphony glockenspiel pings. Everytime I would need to program a certain wheezing syllable, I would yell "MAGIKARU BREATH TRANSIENT-O!" out loud for everyone to hear. Hey, it was better than having to gag myself by breathing unnaturally. :)

Once the couple smoked their cigarettes and the final breeze had sealed the song's fate, I realized that excruciating deadlines for the hyphy concert was drawing awfully near. So after taking my midterm, and delegating with my co-workers at my certain management job, I did only a modest polish job that evening, and quickly sent off the three NED files to Memblers.

Surprisingly, the whole song didn't require bankswitching as I originally thought! With a little reorganizing of data, the whole thing fit in 32 kilobytes! Good enough to fit on a 27256 for a plain jane NROM board! Whee! Slide another bead in the abacus for Nerdtracker's efficiency! :D

By the way, I just cannot thank Memblers enough for putting up with my last-minute requests. AGAIN. I know, I'm really bad at this habit. Memblers, expect something really cool on your doorstep by next week.

After Memblers brought back a fresh compile, I put the final touches on the header, wrote up THE MOST TRAGIC AND HEART-GRIPPING STORY EVER for my comment, and sent off the lil' NSF to its fate.

Good luck, kiddo!!! ｡･ﾟ･(つД`)ノシ･ﾟ･｡ﾊﾞｲﾊﾞｲ

Epilogue:

So! To tally up the total time taken:
Actual planning of the song took around a month's worth of singing and humming in the shower every day. Execution, however? Well, if you don't count the 2-week hiatus at mid to end of June, it took me a week and a half to execute this project. The whole execution was done in total haste and under constant stress from various unrelated factors.

Let's just say that after this song, and having to manage a hectic concert by the next few days, I was NOT a healthy person at all. FAMICOMPO NEARLY CLAIMED MY LIFE. I'm a survivor, & the story has been told.

But alas! It's finally over with, and we can forget that this song ever happened.

NOW, TIME FOR GITTIN' HYPHY

it's that time of the season again, folks!

2006-07-17T09:56:11Z

It's Famicompo Mini season!
http://midr2.under.jp/compo/vol3/

I absolutely love this year's annual 8-bit NES music competition. Even though there's quite a few entries that use extra sound chips (which stray away from the pure NES tones and noises -- although the originals section is almost completely devoid of extra soundchips... YAY!), there's no denying that a lot of blood, sweat, and tears have been poured in the making of a lot of these tunes!

There's a lot more entries (54 in all, up by 11 from last year!), as the newfound presence of FamiTracker has attracted a plethora of fresh competitors to join the fight (mostly european, specifically the nation of Sweden! ;D ). Let's hope this competition becomes internationally known in every corner!

The voting system has changed quite a bit since last year. You now get to vote on four categories: Technique, Sense, Idea, and Lovin'. The higher the number, the better.

"Technique" is pretty much the ranking of technical complexity of the tune. Did it sound like there was a lot of audio engineering prowess wrenched in? Did the author make good use of echoing or audio trickery? Or was the tune just slapped together with flat instruments that weren't fiddled into more desireable settings?

"Sense" is how artistic and well-thought out the music itself is. Are the melodies catchy and interesting enough that you'll constantly itch to hum it happily afterwards? Or was music theory thrown out of the window into utter chaos? For covers, this can also mean how well the melodies made their point across (which doesn't always have to be faithful to the original song!).

"Idea" is how inventive the song is. Did it break new ground unexpectedly as far as NES music goes? Or was it just simply a rehashed style that everyone else has heard before?

"Lovin'" is your own subjective slant to the tune. Regardless of how well-made or badly composed a song is, does it still appeal to your love of the subject matter? Or do you hate the song simply because it's a genre you don't like (even if the song itself was beautifully composed)? Especially for covers, this can mean that you possibly love the song "just because it's THAT favorite song of yours".

P.S. to hopefully spread the love to NES music to everyone (and to ease the pain of having to preemptively render the songs for your portable music player of choice), I compiled all of them into 96kbps mono MP3 files (which the quality should be relatively comparable to a 192kbps stereo file).

Feel free to get them here, I'm certain my bandwidth will bear it for the time being! LISTEN TO THEM. NOW. SO MY EFFORTS ARE MADE WORTHWHILE! :D
(Update 8/4/2006: Author's names are now included in the ID3 tags)

Originals: fcm3_mp3_originals.zip (85MB)
Covers: fcm3_mp3_covers.zip (66MB)

They were all rendered in the May 5 2006 version of NSFplug, using a "New Famicom" setting with the quality settings to its max. All of them are normalized, although there WILL be some variance of volume (since I didn't bother to use a compressor/limiter). Most of the looped songs fade around 4 to 5 minutes, since I'm into that kind of timeframe. :)

Feel free to comment about the music here, but please don't mention any artists' names! This is meant to be an anonymous competition, so I don't know who's entries they are, I don't know what MY entries were, and YOU will certainly not know yet, either (nor will you try to guess)! :)

In any case, have fun listening and voting!

because ANYTHING can have its posers

2006-06-19T16:30:00Z

Yesterday, I went to go buy some food from KFC for my siblings (yes they insist on poor health decisions). I was served by your typical young worker, caucasian, clean-cut, glasses donned, looking fashionable, very polite... obviously just wanting to make a buck.

I soon notice he had many scratches and scrawls on his right arm, then took notice on... gee wow, a stitched scar running so-called "down the road" on his left arm!

Heh, whiney emo guy I see? Well, I guess I'm feeling a bit sorry for him myself...

... until I noticed that his scar was actually drawn in elaborately. With A RED-COLORED MARKER.

It took me a whole lot of will-power to not snicker, gag, and blurt out "ohmygodohmygodohmygod!" for the next 2 minutes until I finally reached my car.

Fanime 06 recap of wuv

2006-06-09T02:21:12Z

I went to Fanime 2006 as a dealer for my college again. And despite some setbacks, it was majorly fun.

As seems to be the new ritual for Cogswell, we now regularly visit Fanimecon as a dealer, in hopes to get more budding artists into the school. Naturally, there's a whole plethora of anime artists, although we manage to find a lot of 3D modelers, a few electronic or live musicians, and the occasional would-be film director. Basically, the school asks us to pretty much show off every department.

Being in charge of audio, I'm pretty much responsible for causing all the noise disturbances in the dealer room's vicinity. Although It's been a looooong time since I've even touched base with Japanese animation (I am currently reading manga though, thanks Amy! :) ), I simply couldn't pass up an opportunity to get into a convention and watch a bunch of obese nerds get off to their favorite series, all while showing off my own (& other students') work.

Besides, my friends were impressed by the way I was attracting people with our audio setup, so it was an obligation I couldn't turn down.

Oh, and despite having a waning interest in anime, I can still safely say that I'm still a genuine cosplaying fag. Yes, Christine convinced me to dress up again. Since I failed to keep promises last year, here's my fulfillment:

Yay, now you all know.

At least my attire was improved somewhat this time, although the corset was still too big and ill-fitting for me (which explains all the flaps on the sides). Still, the re-arranging of certain things, as well as the addition of an ACTUAL DRESS SHIRT (two of them actually, both sowed with a pair of cuffs, whee!) made things look a bit better. Less slut, more reserved... finally!

Also, the 80's looking keytar I was constantly holding there is my newly acquired Yamaha DX100 (1985 vintage!), affectionately dubbed "Tha' MIDI-schlong". Even though it lacks key velocity, the strategically-placed pitch/mod wheels make this keyboard great for live lead lines! Plus, it has a YM2164 4-op FM Synthesis engine! To say that I love this instrument is a complete understatement. Perhaps in a later post I'll get into the details to why I think it rules so much.

I didn't attempt a falsetto, though. You'll probably find out how I really sound like later. You will definitely be appalled by it.

Friday, Day 1

After a lengthy setup time in the morning, the doors finally open for the public at around 2:00PM.

Surrounding our booth, we find out that the amount of dealers had dropped. Isles were actually split at both axis this time, allowing people to disperse more easily away from our targets. Unfortunately, some of our fellow neighbors from last year were gone. Pen Pals Gift Station was MIA, which was quite a loss: I couldn't dance with Badtz-Maru this year, darn! :(

Even more tragic: the Anime Overdose booth was sorely missing, since I guess con-ops decided that they didn't want competition selling their tickets in their own turf. They were originally supposed to be our booth neighbors again, too! It's a shame, since Theo & Rob really knew how to help set off one hell of a muthafukkin danceoff last year!

But at least both of them showed up to our booth at random times, alongside Jimmy and Panda. Hooray!

In essence, our new neighbors were the Gaia Online booth (which my friends went utterly apes over because I kept mispronouncing the name as "gay-uh online"... purely accidental, really! Just as much accidental as my habit of pronouncing Megatokyo as "poorly-drawn-wapanese-comic-strip-attempting-to-say-'me-too!'-on-moe-culture"), some booth (whose name I can't recall), that played nothing but nonstop live Halko Momoi / UNDER17 videos... and Jpop House, which played continuous visual-kei wank for all the EGA / EGL diehards.

Soooo... what did my fellow audiohead friend Aaron (Vysse), and I, play for the majority of the day?

Aaron provided most of the progressive-ish trance, glitch D&B, and experimental step-sequenced death metal music to set the mood for the passerbys. And endless source of material, it was rare to hear a repeat from his end, which was quite a blessing whenever we took our breaks.

As for myself... Er-... I was performing live improv on top of sequences, using my aforementioned Yamaha DX100, Apple Logic Pro, and its various instruments such as wah-distorted clavs, suitcase rhodes, a majorly-vibed B3 patch, and... of course... amp simulated electric leads.

To put it in another way: I was playing MOSTLY porn shaft funk, alongside a few moments of jazz licks, screaming 80's butt-rock wuv, and lovely sermon heat. I swear, that DX100, with its short-travel pitch/mod wheels, is one hell of a wonder tool!

Screw continuity with visual-kei, I'll play the stuff that I like, not stuff that's dictated from the culture, thanks. :)

The funk music eventually got out of hand, considering that this kind of music was playing out loud while the student ambassadors attempted to solicit any passerby for their business. It got to such a horrible state that my friend Craig, who was dressed up in a knight undergarment with a very notable codpiece, started stripteasing to my wah-wah twanging for everyone. YOU KNOW YOU LIKED OUR PERFORMANCE, CHRISTINE. ADMIT IT.

Later on in the afternoon, a tall, stout man with the writing "Pocky Fairy" scrawled on a mask came over, and handed me a free packet. Now, I'm not a fan of the taste of Pocky at all (much less a fan of a bunch of wapanese fags glorifying the stuff for some reason that I still can't comprehend to this day, therefore bastardizing the product forever), but since I was famished that time (and would continue to play the role of an accidental anorexic for the rest of the whole con), this was at least a snack I was willing to accept.

But more importantly, I noticed it was a familiar person... someone who danced along last year, actually! It was great to see a familiar face again! :D

After learning his real name, Frank eventually swayed our conversation to a freestyle flow. Wanting to be an obnoxious loudmouth, I started beatboxing loudly as he sang his tenor lines. He wants to win Fanime's karaoke session, after all! Eventually, he would play a key role later that week for a certain reason...

Not bad for our first day, as we managed to exactly meet our signup quota from last year.

Saturday, Day 2

After quickly changing at Marissa's apartment into new undergarments such as a new dress shirt and pantsu, HOORJ! (yet keeping on the same un-contoured corset and skirt)... we quickly jetted on to Los Gatos to pick up Mitra (who can really bust out unbelievably fast baroque and classical without a flinch if she wanted! Now if only she would play improv jazz... :) ).

Unfortunately, due to the sudden rush of events, my makeup was put on in total haste. Which, in the end, it made me look like trailer trash just waiting to be hit with a hubcap. Christine had game design class back at campus at the time, so her MAD MAKEUP SKILLZ were not available... :(

This day, I was playing the same twangy DX100 / Logic Pro combo routine all over again, although around afternoon I did eventually pop out two NES machines, and started playing around with them simultaneously -- both routed to a mixer (one of the NES machines couldn't fit on my allotted table space, which made for quite some hilarious contortionist mixing), a pair of NROM plop-carts (with hordes of EPROMS in a bag) and a MidiNES. Unfortunately, the remote for my VGA convertor box lacked batteries (whose idea was it to leave out the console controls from the module itself GODDAMN AVERMEDIA), so I couldn't output any video.

During my lunch break, I then decided to try my luck with the hotel grand, which was located in the first floor of the Hilton hotel (which, in turn, basically is connected with the convention center itself).

I noticed quite a few gothic lolita cosplayers were surrounding a guy who was most likely playing memorized anime & Final Fantasy RPG music for everyone. You know the type: The stereotypical "asian prodigy", who I'm pretty sure was tortured by his piano teacher when he was young by making him stand on front of his lawn with a sign that says "I am stupid" whenever he made a mistake.* Unwilling to give in, he persists with the torture unemotionally. Now hard-edged and battle-scarred, he rises up in hopes that his sacrifices will pay off with others' affection.

* = Believe it or not, this actually happened to one of my Vietnamese friends. He plays classical piano fairly decently. :)

Anyway... obviously, this guy had nothing compared to Mitra's skill, but nevertheless you can tell he was trying to sway himself as the shy type -- yet wanting to stroke his proverbial long-dong in front of the EGL folks surrounding him by playing RPG and animu wank. With the kind of skill he was expressing, I somehow could tell that the poor guy would obviously shit his pants if he was asked to improv something like jazz or even simple 12-bar blues.

Well, guess what? This crossplaying asian here went thru the same regiment (kind of... OK, maybe not I'M LYING), but he's here instead to cause some shock and awe!

After spending a good 5 minutes tapping my toes in impatience, I notice he's about to put his performance into a cadence. I walk by:

<chibitech> Good, good.
<AzNPrOdIgEe> (in a passive, sultry nature) Thank you. I try.
<chibitech> Yeah, I can tell!
<AzNPrOdIgEe> Now, I need to go back and watch anime again. *sigh*
<chibitech> Uhh, yes. YOU DO THAT. Meanwhile... I'll take this!

After he left, I soon sit down on front. Seeing that the EGL cosplayers were still looming around the grand, I start playing some memorized classical junk myself. I believe it was one of Bach's Preludios, I really don't remember. I just knew how to play it. ;D

Then, after around 30 seconds of setting the mood... I suddenly start busting out a mixture of funky junk and heated sermon music.

Not satisfied with that, I soon start singing Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" out loud for everyone to hear as I played clav stabs. Yes, I sang it really annoyingly loud and off-key for kicks. :)

After ending with an intentionally messy cadence, I soon see the EGL folks with puzzled faces. Some of them started raspberry-ing me. Others started talking:

<GothChick69> What the hell was that?
<PuNkHeAd86> That was weird, but so cool!
<Rorigrrl112> Ewww, that was really stupid.
<chibitech> Thank you. I try!

They soon left. I had a big grin on my face.

After dabbing a few minutes more on the grand (playing the ending to Super Turrican!), I soon return to the dealer's room to initiate my NES mix-ups. By 4:00PM, I was kind of amazed that I still haven't bought anything. So I soon persuaded both Aaron, and my gentle-giant friend Jose, to follow me around as I looked for something to somehow waste my money on.

But just as I was about to turn for the first corner, I suddenly see someone docked out in aristocratic attire storm by nonchalantly, alongside a few dealers from the Jpop house booth, and a few stray gothloli girls trailing not too far.

<chibitech> Whoa, who's that?
<Vysse> Looks like a J-rock guy.
<chibitech> I wonder where they're going?
<Vysse> They're going to... the Jpop house booth.
<chibitech> YIKES! Opportunity strikes! Let's go back!
<Vysse> Why!? You want his autograph?
<chibitech> Well, I dunno. Maybe? But I have something even better in mind!!!

Soon, we see a crowd around this gentleman:

Now, granted, this guy wasn't as cute as the actual Jpop House worker guy who managed the booth, but I could tell that there was a sense of unrealistic aura surrounding him that I could only dream of attaining.

However, all thoughts and love suddenly hazed for a moment, as I soon find out that the line for autographs had crossed in front of our booth! At first sight, this would have been a major annoyance for our booth, since most of the line inhabitants were simply focused on meeting Kamijo, effectively blocking out any incoming people.

However, I tried to see beyond that... I spotted a chance to start another dance-off! Theo and Rob's help were sorely missing that day, but I was hopeful that I could captivate a few heads myself! The only question was how in the hell can I divert attention away from Mr. J-rock singer darling, and into my own entourage?

Then again, I'll probably never reach the level of UTTER PURE AWESOMENESS of Kamijo anyway. The uncanny abilities of this guy is just simply up the wazoo! After all, I heard that he can:

miraculously play any instrument he touches (word is known that he can shred some funk on a DX100 too!),
can speak more than seven languages fluently (including 6502 machine code language... not just assembly! oh snap! :( ),
performed his own doriftuuuu stunts in the new Fast & the Furious movie (also featuring EGLs on tha' street... and Lil' Bow Wow!),
can beat Contra in 5 minutes without cheating, losing a single life, or sweating out his immense amounts of makeup (don't forget he's also a natural at ALL Castlevanias!),
can easily school me in a soulful Zapp n' Roger karaoke session (he don't need no damn vocoder to hit me down with some "Computer Love"!),
... and can probably out-breakdance me in a b-boy (g-loli, dawg!) battle -- all while spinning his own viSUaL-RaZorKei aLKaHoLiK SLiDeZ with a pair of his newly released direct-drive LareineTech KAMI-1200MKII turntables (on sale now at most DJ equipment shops! I'm sorry, DJ Qbert. I mean, I know you're Filipino & a Cogswell alumni and all, but dayum...!)

YES, HE'S THAT BADASS. Oh, those gosh darn visual-kei folks and their superhuman charismatic powers! I just cannot compare... orz

But nevertheless, a rival is STILL a rival! And with the line for $5 photoshoots and autographs cutting through the front of our booth, my natural instincts of being an all-american* obnoxious penis-head jerkass in public was starting to flare up in fullmoon. And I wasn't going to give Mr. Jrock singer #18769 the full attention... at least for that moment!

* = is mostly Filipino... but American at heart, and citizenship!

So what did I do? Ohhh, I just started doing my patented lakeside jig, and started bumping some of that denpa-kei NES cover stuff that I did back a few years ago. After all, nothing can captivate the imagination of a stagnant line other than screeching PSG pulsewave voices blaring fake vocal intonations that vaguely resemble keywords like "oniichan", "pantsu" or "your mom is a whore", complete with some EGL-wannabe swinging his arms and legs in a hoedown!

Plus, I put this on my demonstration LCD:

yes i know the sign has improper verb usage the uncanny aura of lareine was starting to hypnotize me shut up shut up shut up

It's so ironic, considering I forgot the fact that I WAS ALSO DRESSED UP IN RELATIVELY THE SAME FASHION AS VISAL-KAY GLOMPABLE HUNK ^____^^; next to us. So a few of the gothloli cosplayers in line started commenting why in the hell am I downplaying their culture, while dolled up in EGL attire at the same time.

And why? Easy: I don't take it seriously. And it's hilarious to see people who try to take it otherwise.

But nevertheless, it was good enough that at least some (in?)sane folks in line started soliciting pictures and information from me (including one lady from "Pen Pals Gift Station" who remembered me from last year when I was dancing with her company's Badtz-Maru Sanrio mascot... YAY!). If any of you reading this snapped me while doing my jig, please mail me the pics, K?

But unfortunately, the aura of Kamijo's AWESOME-A SUPERHUMAN POWAHS overwhelmed such an insignificant simp like me. People were being smart and asking questions about my NES music & setup, rather then actually mindlessly grooving along! The double-edged sword started to bleed my hands!

Plus, I was starting get tired from all that dancing myself. It was just too much for me to bear, dawg! :(((

In the end, Kamijo: 1, Chibi-Tech: 0.

orz

Well, at least we surpassed our signup quota from last year, and this time they didn't ask me stupid questions like "OHHHH! IS THAT'S MEGAMAN MUSIC, MAN!? SO RETRO! REMEMBER MEGAMAAARRRRGGHHASFSDF@$$^

Sunday, Day 3

Another change-back to my now-washed first dress-shirt, new stockings and panties (yes dammit)... and I'm back at our dealer booth. And I'm tired as ever. But at least my makeup looked multitudes better than the day before!

And it probably paid off, too! Out of the blue, I eventually received this badge from a lady cosplaying as Jessie from Pokemon's Team Rocket. Looks like NOT using a falsetto does pay off sometimes. ;D

I felt too embarrassed to even place it on my dealer pass, though...

But at least Christine (right) and her friend Vinnary (left) dressed up in EGL this day, so at least I wasn't alone on my cliche'.

With an Mbox setup, the majority of this day was dedicated to demonstrating the usage of Pro Tools. I did manage to sneak in a few live jams with MidiNES (being monotonal and all with my macro-less DX100, although gathering attention by playing around with the pitch/mod wheels was quite novel), but for the most part, it was just audio engineering wank for any clueless anime-loving sap who doesn't know any better to get all googly-eyed and say "Wow! Look all those squigglies make sound! The lines look like a big, strong, black... KITTY! UHO! II OTOKO NYO~! I LOVE YOU DIGITAL AUDIO PROGRAM WAIWAI! ^_____^"

The pre-planned EGL photo shoot outside the convention center was cool beans and all, but watching that resulting tea party at Guadalupe Park was horribly underwhelming. Thankfully I didn't stick around long for that.

Later in the afternoon, just before the dealer's room closed for the day, I went over to the Hilton's grand once again. Not satisfied with yesterday's fun stint, I wanted to see if I could mess around with more minds at the piano room. It was mostly regular cosplayers this time, but oh well, I could try! Just after playing 30 seconds of some classical piece (which the name and author I don't know, but I just know how to play it anyway), I was about to attempt another 180° into a loud funk-muzak session...

However, Frank, the "Pocky Fairy" from Friday soon waltzed in! Seeing him lean on the piano cover seductively, I could tell I just had to play my role as Johnny. Johnny in a dress, of course. ;o

After discussing about his mission to win Fanime's karaoke night (and attempting to improv some jazz as he sang) and volleying around ways to piss off visual-kei diehards indistinctly with oft-kilter music genres, the conversation suddenly took a veer into nerdality as Frank discovered a mystery plug hooked up to... A PianoDisc player piano module!!! With MIDI input included!!!

Wait a minute... I've always been intrigued with Gigo & Hii's GNES, and its MIDI abilities... I always get giggly whenever I hook it up to my MIDI synthesizers... you don't say...?

With sparks literally striking out of my head, I quickly realized I could finally live my life-long dream of playing NES with a piano! And not just some lameass idea like leaving some sound test on play: I'm talking about including full-on translated sound FX bouncing around the keys! Since I'm still a horribly underfunded college student who can't pay to fit his own player piano module on his upright, this would be the perfect opportunity to test out such a ridiculously simple yet hard-to-initiate concept.

After thanking Frank and his girlfriend for their time (which she'll attend Cogswell next fall!), watching the cosplay show an hour later across the street in the convention hall, and in turn making myself cringe in horror to a cosplayer's performance of some Final Fantasy song (if someone recorded her voice directly line-in-the-box: before you throw out that session, just keep in mind that this would make a GREAT Pro Tools class tutorial for using Auto-Tune or Melodyne!), I went home to hastily plot my new devious idea for the piano...

I would soon learn that I would need more tools than I thought.

Monday, Day 4

Yet another refreshed look of the same re-hash (black thigh-high's this time -- with differing lengths, ick!), but now including video camera and secondary laptop in hand (not pictured... hah!), and I'm anxiously giggly inside.

Rob had visited our booth that morning, much to his delight he found out that I actually did NOT already graduate as originally rumored! (yeah, I knocked out quite a lot of classes within 2 years, but not THAT much... ;) ) He was rather impressed with the way I was mixing NES music around, that eventually I'm now set a date for a gig hookup!

(Unfortunately, I don't know jack shit about live, so this will have to require some thought and planning, and perhaps a crash course on LSDJ. I'm currenly in talks with fellow bay area local x|k... ;D )

Later, after pillaging and taking full advantage of Rhodes and B3 patches in Pro Tools' "Xpand!" plugin for that morning's demonstration masterstroke ("sermon is smokin' up in this bitch!"), I decided to grab my friend, Jose, during our lunch break, and convince him to somehow put his (lack thereof) camera skills into good use!

<chibitech> Okay, you know how to operate cameras, right?
<Nocturne> Well, you checked out a GL-1 to me a month ago.
<chibitech> Sounds good enough for me! Remember to zoom around in certain details once in a while, OK?
<Nocturne> Sure!

(He later told me that he didn't know how to zoom my oh-so-difficult to use Sony Handycam. Go figure.)

Anyway, the piano was (at the time) unoccupied. It was time to experiment.

And here are the results. The adventure was rocky, to say the least:

YOU WATCH THIS VIDEO NOW AND BE HAPPY AT THAT RINGING PIANO OH MY GOD MY FREAKING EARS (MPEG-4, 60MB)

Apologies to the nice cosplaying lady, who eventually sat down when I dashed for my keyboard, and originally just wanted to doodle with the piano keys!

Some technical notes:

Firstly, let me get this out of my system: I know that I have an awful nerdshoe voice! Blame the blend of learning English from my loving parents with thick Ilocano accents, shitty "AzN THuGz" friends I used to hang out with in middle school, and constant imitation of that damn Commodore Amiga "narrator.device" speech synthesis when I was 6 years old.

But I can maintain a steady high-pitched falsetto when singing R&B, diva hip-hop, and Denpa-kei, honest!*

* - may require Melodyne for best effect
I later found out that I could have rerouted all the channels into one using something like a combination of MIDI-OX and MIDI-Yoke. I had the former at the time, but needed the latter in order to make it work out as planned. But unfortunately using MIDI-Yoke turns the multitasking ability of my 2002-vintage Pentium 4 laptop into the consistency of pure goo. I'm pretty sure it's some sort of error in my part, in which I'm working on it.
Yeah, I moronically forgot to resize the emulator screen beyond 1x size for a certain period. Eventually I resized it to 2x, but I couldn't go to fullscreen mode, since there was something wrong with my video drivers -- which I haven't bothered to fix just yet.
The button latency I was complaining about was, in reality, the default keymap working shittastically. It was simply the wrong combination for my laptop to handle (notice a trend here? auuuugggh screw hp buy apple). I failed to realize this beforehand, since I normally use an el-cheapo yet functional PS2->USB gamepad convertor. I forgot it that day. :(
The Pianodisc I was exploiting seemed to ignore "expression" MIDI messages, which GNES uses for volume control for some odd reason. This is the one of the reasons why hotel personnel eventually took notice, since every note message was pounding on the keys at full volume (well, aside from the fact that there was a crowd huddling behind the camera). More so, the PianoDisc's MIDI data buffer overflowed awfully easily, which explained the missed & stuttering notes. This will also require a filter/translator.
Bartenders are most susceptible to irritability of things like this. I really wish Jose had left the camera rolling once I got kicked out; the bartender's sudden outburst was golden.

After my awry experiment, I went back to the dealer's room. Sensing that we only had one hour to go, I figured that we might as well start having a blast as much as we can!

So, I start loudly playing every NSF that DJ Untz would be proud of, gathered Liz and Sarah, and started dancing around with the Hirameki fans that were passed out to us. Seeing that Craig was donning body armor for his Link costume, he ended up being my makeshift taiko drum. Eventually it got to the point that I started breakdancing for the passerbys, until I quickly realized that I'M IN A FREAKING DRESS AND MAYBE I SHOULD STOP DOING FLAIRS NOW KTHX.

Yes, I know someone got that routine on camera. If you happen to stumble on that video, please send it to me! :D

Eventually I had to cut the dance short, since a demoscene programmer had stepped in front our booth (who returned from last year), and it was my civil duty to start talking nerd lingo about audio design and SID / PSG / FM Synthesis programming techniques while in my EGL attire. Hey, it wasn't too off-kilter; Liz, Sarah, Marissa, and Christine were busy volleying hardcore trivia and questions about Star Trek to a respective cosplayer that day. At Cogswell, we ALL have special hobbies!

Then the dealer room closed, and we broke down the booth setup while listening to George Clinton being blasted loudly as ever. THE END.

Epilogue:

Overall, even though there was less dancing excitement than last year, satiating my curiosity with the piano at least made up for it. Ahh well, there's always next year. Plus, Rob was able to hook me up with an upcoming gig! Now, I'll really have to learn the ropes of live... :/

As far as paraphernalia and anime / manga loot bought? I spent nada. Common sense wins this time! YESS! All of it went to either clothing accessories, gas, and parking. At least food was compensated, for whichever scraps I managed to consume. Hah! Take that, three-dollar 12oz cokes and onion rings!

Can't wait for next year, once I finally iron out all the glitches.

i can make it i can make it i can make it OH CRUDDEROOIES INCOMING DEADLINE

2006-02-19T09:34:05Z

2.5 hours. :(

OK, next up in queue...!

a belated lil' xmas gift to share

2005-12-31T10:01:12Z

"We Should Have A Dream" (2.0MB, MP3, 2:56)

Made for my friend BouKiChi. :)
Completely done in a VST-replicated YM-2151 4-operator OPM FM synthesis engine (the same used in the Sharp X68000 computer). I recently had the itch to jump out of PSG synthesis for a while, and twiddle around with something more complex (and sometimes insanely chaotic... ;D )

It's my first time dealing with FM parameters, so the instrumentation is a bit lacking. The 4-op OPM engine can do a whole lot better than what I ended up twisting it around as. (two of the patches were default settings, whee!)

Also, due to the nature of VST's, the song goes beyond the X68000's 8-channel limits in some areas. It will have to be consolidated if I were to recreate this in a real environment. But hey, I tried limiting myself! (i.e. no post-processing plugins -- we wouldn't want any of that frivolous tripe anyway)

Whew! Hope everyone had a good 2005... :)

gee willikers it's certified goon-made so it must be good

2005-12-19T05:49:33Z

Just for the record: The whole thing was NOT my idea!

I could never conceive the brilliant and carefully-crafted idea of grabbing random MIDI's off the internet, routing them thru VST plugins such as Peach & Toad (which, by the way, are PAINSTAKINGLY ACCURATE to that 8-bit flavor so you damn well know it's R_E_T_R_O like Vision Street Wear dawg!!!), and passing them off as "NESsified hit songs!".

I will now drown out my pain with a dash of hekno. :(((((

guys where am i going to fit this :( ~Part II: Electric Boogaloo~

2005-08-07T11:33:30Z

A few days ago... after a session with my financial advisor at Cogswell, I decided to take a trip to the (conveniently located) nearby surplus computer equipment store "Weird Stuff Warehouse" with my friend Sam. We thought it was going to be yet another browsing day, gazing at vintage computer equipment oddities that might garner our interest -- yet become defeated by the evil menace called 'Common Sense'. After fiddling around with various beige PowerMac G3s, Sony U-matic recorders with (simulated!) woodgrain, and dot-com-cesspool era furniture, we were ready to leave the store empty-handed.

But after a sharp glance made by my friend, and a fairly high-pitched shriek coming from my vocal cords, an eerie feeling of 'RDF' quickly hypnotized us. As famed evangelists Guy Kawasaki and Benny Hinn as our witnesses, common sense won't defeat us this time! Thanks to the uncanny power of Sam's patented sly-talk techniques, and my patented weak-willed 'hetare' acting, the store representative eventually let me adopt this lil' setup for $50:

... cause it's MUCH MUCH BETTER than PCs and Macs!!!

Whee! It's a NeXTCUBE! Aside from the nicks & chips on the case, it's not DOA! Yay! At last, I finally get to witness the famed supercomputer for cool kids! Black magnesium case, UNIX-based OS, object-oriented programming, postscript graphics, (up to) CD-quality stereo sound, built-in DSP & ethernet...

ウホ！いいインターパソコン〜〜

It's interesting to note that in 1992, the Atari Falcon030 used a suspiciously similar hardware architecture -- from the Motorola 56001 DSP, right down to the 19-pin D-sub video connector. The differences were that NeXT was an actual cool company, and Atari wasn't. ZING!

Oh! In addition, the NeXT had an elegant, intelligently-designed GUI on top of the rock solid UNIX-based Mach kernel, whereas the Atary had TOS -- which was... um... well... I guess it's dearly loved by obese, masochistic Atari collectors everywhere. :)

Anyhow... This cube is the older 68030/25MHz version, considering that it only contains the 25-PIN D-sub SCSI-I port and 10Base-2 BNC port (missing the RJ-45 port), and the Mach kernel bootup sequence itself simply dictates so. (^^;

No Nextdimension color GFX board, either. Ahh well, it's still interesting with the heavy-as-hell yet snazzy-looking FrogDesign 17" monochrome 'Megapixel' display. :)

Luckily, the machine contained a 700MB hard drive already installed, bootable with NeXTSTEP v3.3 contained within! Considering that these early machines weren't sold with hard drives (and relied on the magneto-optical drive / media to house the whole operating system), this alone made things a whole lot easier for me.

With that being said, I couldn't find any MO media lying around nearby. Therefore, I couldn't test the MO drive. For all I know, it's totally borked to borky bork & the fubar bunch.

But hey! it was nevertheless time to test the machine in general!

Alright... connect all the components... Whoa, nice! The Megapixel display's power source & accessory lines daisy-chain thru the 19-pin cable! Steve Jobs wasn't kidding when he said that he hated messy cables strewn around!
Alright... power-key pressed... fans are whirring... I'm getting a display... it made a bloopy sound!... NeXT ROM Monitor... cool! System test passed!... It has 16MB RAM and a 700MB hard drive!... that spinning beach ball thingy looks familiar... uh-oh...

AWW MAN!!!

Well, looks like my cube's former user forgot to wipe the slate clean.

After typing random login passwords for root in desparation, I realized that I was getting nowhere. However, this didn't mean that I wasn't already amazed at the overwhelming revelations this login prompt had shown me! You mis-type the login, and then BLAM-O! The login box trembles exactly like it does in Mac OS X! If you see it for yourself, it'll totally blow your mind! A precursor for things to come, perhaps...?

Still, I was locked out from accessing this computer. But! Thanks to my mad haxing skillz (read: following directions from a quick google search), I was able to gain root access, and login with a new password.

Well! I already feel quite at home with this interface! Even though it's not as polished as its successor, I can already tell that the underpinnings of the old NeXTSTEP GUI has all the fundamentals that makes Mac OS X so great. First off, a lot of aesthetics had been carried over during the transition to Apple. For one thing, the spinning beach ball is virtually the same as the one in OS X Cheetah (albeit grayscale in my setup). Even the majority of OS X's system alert sounds have originated from NeXTSTEP! I don't know about you, but hearing "Funk" and "Ping" come out of the NeXT somehow makes me grin uncontrollably. (^^;

Furthermore, a lot of the Workspace Manager's aesthetics give slight hints of OS X. Considering that it's an "object-oriented" operating system, "objects" such as picture or sound files can be dragged back & forth within applications, which they automatically know how to interpret them in a predictable manner as they should. Even Amiga Workbench didn't get this fairly right until AmigaOS v3.0 via "Datatypes".

Applications offered for each newly-created user? Yeah, NeXTSTEP has a very decent bundle offered. Its email client is pretty good for its time, albeit I can already tell it's a ripe picking for spam annoyance (if its "Lip Service" audio feature had actually succeeded, i'd think that reading email would be a lot more annoying than it already is). The "webster", "librarian", and "quotations" apps are a big plus; its integration with the universal 'services' contextual menu makes me realize how much this is taken for granted nowadays in OS X. Wow, even Mathematica has its origins here! Oh, and there's the "Terminal" for yah too -- which I don't feel like growing 6-pack bellies & yanking beard follicles down by elaborating further. :)

Its bundled developer demos are a decent bunch, too. There's the mandatory mandelbrot app, some simple drawing demonstration apps (wish it exploited the system's postscript powers more than it seems to imply)... it even includes some collaborative-computing type of apps for rendering, which seems to imply the influence of Pixar's need for 3D render farms. If I'm not mistaken, "Open Sesame" seems to be the GUI shoehorn service equivalent for "sudo".

Hey! It even has three games included: "Chess", "Billiards", and some funky breakout remake called "BoinkOut". Ohhh man! I hope the Mac realizes that it faces stiff competition as far as total number of games go! They'll have to do better than Nanosaur 2 and Marble Blast Gold if they're expected to compete with this unstoppable force!

Oh! and there's a sound recorder! Whee! I can actually hook up my pinku (that's japanese for pink) iPod Mini to the NeXT, and record all the latest Denpa hits whenever I want. YAY! Sooner or later, I'll use up all that ~300MB of hard drive space with quality 8-bit mu-law recordings of thought-provoking Moé-tunes! The possiblities are endless with this machine!

Hold on... Wait a minute... What the hell am I thinking?
I just realized that I've been doing this in my Amiga since the dawn of ages. "Late? This computer is five years ahead of its time!". Oh yeah? Well, my siblings and I recorded our coveted "Fire News" with our Amiga 1000 and a "Perfect Sound" digitizer... back when I was only seven years old! I provided the soundtrack and foley, while my brother was the reporter! In that case, we're a gazillion years ahead of our time! BOO-YEAH!!!

All bad inside jokes aside... as far as my limited experience goes, it's a robust system that definitely deserved more public exposure than it actually received. I'm actually glad that Apple chose to bring back Steve and inherit NeXTSTEP/OpenSTEP's fundamentals & morph that into OS X -- considering that I wasn't much a fan of Classic OS, to put it lightly. As much as BeOS was a capable single-user OS, I believe Apple made a wise decision to use NeXT's technology instead.

Which, speaking of BeOS, I still haven't elaborated about the OTHER computer oddity we found at Weird Stuff! DUN-DUUN-DUUUUUUUN!!!

Sitting right next to the NeXTCUBE... was a BeBox. Not just any BeBox, though; Considering that the machine's rear-sticker explicitly specified that it had not undergone FCC testing -- and was not to be sold in otherwise 'normal' BeBox retailers / distribution channels, this machine was apparently a prototype. Both machines were $50.

Since Sam spotted the two computers first, I gave him first dibs to which computer he wanted. He decided to opt out completely, citing the reason that his parents wouldn't allow him to bring home yet another "piece of junk" (funny, I'm undergoing this very dilemma too... tenfold!). Although the BeBox was in better condition, I decided to slant towards the cube -- out of reasons that its industrial design (& perhaps the power of the Jobs RDF) was too overpowering for me to resist.

The very next day, Sam calls me to inform that he eventually caved in and bought the BeBox, which until then was still sitting at the same spot. We both then decide to show our recent acquisitions to the engineering students at Cogswell, and sure enough we all meet up in the programming lab.

Now, his computer was also a sight to behold. His computer had dual LED meters on the front fascia! Since his BeBox contained dual PowerPC 603/66MHz's, each LED meter represented a single CPU core. Keep in mind this machine was made before the era of EXXXTREME overclockers, so this immediately earned him bonus points.

Looking at the back, his computer wasn't short of any connector possible. It was fully loaded with various serial ports, IR ports, 4 MIDI ports (!!!), and even some big D-sub thingy called a Geekport! Jeebus, even an Atari ST can't top the BeBox's MIDI capabilities! (well, then again... a BeBox is way cooler than ANYTHING put out by Atari, so this situation is pretty moot. :) )

Even the OS / software itself was a sight to behold. The BeBox's operating system is single-user, but nevertheless boots up completely in only 20 seconds -- only ousted by an Amiga with a harddrive. The OS featured a proccess monitor called a "Tracker", which echoed the way proccesses are shown in both MacOS and NeXTSTEP. The demo software included applications that featured real-time 3D-rendered teapots floating around in a window! It could play internal software-wavetable MIDI routed thru a sophisticated audio mixer! It even has an exact copy of Microsoft Minesweeper, pixel-by-pixel!

Jeez, for a prototype, this machine surely packs it all!

Hell, it even included a BeOS theme song called virtual(void).
"Reboot a hundred times"? Amazing.
"Find love down a T1 line"? Wow, that's just like every slashdotter's unattainable pipe dream.

Hmmm... I don't even know if NeXT had any company theme songs. Somehow, I'm distressed by this sudden uncertainty. :(

Throughtout the whole time we were demo'ing our computers to the salivating engineering students, I couldn't help but think what if we swapped computers instead. I mean, after all... the BeOS was inspired quite a bit by the Amiga, while the NeXTCUBE was obviously the brainchild of an Apple co-founder. Both Sam and I are current Mac fans, but Sam was raised purely out of classic Macs, while I was the result of heavy exposure to various Amigas throughout my childhood. The NeXT's strong suite was its operating system's features & usability, while the BeBox's advantage was its strong multimedia creation capabilities. I think we both bought the wrong computers!!!

Although, it seems that Sam was more than satisfied with his BeBox. And apparently, he was stealing the show!

"My BeBox has the ungodly power of teapots floating at a blazing 2 frames-per-second!"
"Spot that 'Be' logo right there when I turn it on? See, VRML definitely IS the future."
"You hear that MIDI? My dual-PowerPCs are blasting at near-100% CPU usage, so you can tell the music is pumping this baby full of power when it stutters!"
"My computer can make love thru a T1 line. Can yours?"

...

Oh yeah? Well... my NeXTCUBE gave me a personal Lip Service greeting from Steve Jobs! Can't you believe it? Steve Jobs himself served me the lip! He actually took the time to greet me... a mere mortal... as his honorable 'New Colleague' in the NeXT world! The object IS the advantage! My NeXTCUBE already makes love... thru a BNC line! Your "GLteapot" has nothing on my... myyyy... Cyclohexane Quantum Wave Function!!!

And... ummm... uhhhhhhh... my cube has recordings of all the denpa hits! In glorious ~8000Hz SND format! Momoi's "Ko Ko Dayo" hasn't sounded better than this! Hah! Take that, Mr. BeBox prototype!

Oh my god oh my god oh my god! Someone stop me before I take this cube to Palo Alto & place it in front of Steve Jobs' house and blare 8-bit mu-law quality SND recordings of every KOTOKO and UNDER17 song until Jobs comes outside, radiates under my own Reality Distortion Field, and screams out in joy: "That's so insanely great! I demand these songs already be squeezed into my iTunes Music Store Top 10! HAIHAI! KYUNKYUN!"

o i get it now they all the same am i rite?

2005-07-20T17:32:20Z

Yesterday, I went to Micro Center at The Mercado of Santa Clara. I found these games appropriately arranged on the shelf:

Ironically, I have the feeling a Japanese person would look at this, and just simply say "Yeah. So what?".

Hello, NES. Meet your long-lost cousin...

2005-07-20T07:59:08Z

Saturday was my lucky day! I visit the computer recycling center, and buy this lil' guy for $5.00:

Yup! It's a genuine Famicom. It came with the original 100V AC adapter, its RF dongle, and an Arkanoid paddle! I couldn't find any games lying around though (only Atary fatty fodder, unfortunately). I've already opened it up, and can confirm the following specs:

Motherboard: "HVC-CPU-07"
CPU: "RP2A03E"
PPU: "RP2C02E"

Surprisingly, as you can tell, it's in excellent shape! Aside from having to clean off the years worth of dust that accumulated, there's nary a scratch on it, nor any sign of yellowing. The plastic cling sheet covering the "FAMILY COMPUTER" sign hasn't even been peeled off yet!

I would love to run some extensive PSG audio testing with the Famicom myself. I can't play around with it yet, though. For one thing, I don't have a voltage converter handy with me, and I really don't want to risk the extra 20 volts that PG&E provides to my outlets. Plus, the NES adapter outputs AC power instead of DC, and I may be stupid sometimes, but NOT crazy. :)

Yes, I also know that I can at least buy a generic US-based 10V / 850mA output AC->DC adapter. I'll consider it. :P

Moreso, the original Famicom is RF-out only, and the Japanese RF signals are completely different from US spec. Even if I were to locate the audio channel on an RF tuner, I just can't fathom the inevitable video crosstalk / interference that would otherwise skew my recordings.

Oh, and if you're wondering... I've already volleyed the idea of de-soldering the CPU's from both the Famicom and my NES, and slapping ZIF sockets on both systems -- which would obviously lead to a highly-accurate testing environment. However, I'm starting to grow a nurturing attachment to the Famicom, and I just don't feel like hurting him with a heated iron. Maybe if I find another Famicom of similar spec... ;D

Since the Computer Recycling Center has had an influx of random Japanese goods recently (they once had a complete boxed Japanese SegaSaturn, for all things), I'm optimistic that they have a decent Japanese VCR lying around somewhere. If not, maybe I can ask the film students at Cogswell for any leads.

Oh! And heeeyy... I know there's a horde-load of NROM-based Nintendo Baseball carts littered on the streets of Japan, and that Japanese households & shops just don't know what the hell to do with them. If there's anyone willing to unload a good amount to me for free, I will love you forever and possibly put your anonymous nick on my Christmas list. (^^;;

If all else fails...
Memblers & x|k: If I'm unable to find said Japanese VCR / RF tuner anytime soon, then I'll be more than happy to donate the Famicom to either you guys. :)

Now, if only a Sharp X68000 would fall from the sky... onto a piled stack of pillows at my backyard, of course! (^^;;

Oh! And related to the pic above... you can also spot my older brother's two lil' turtles in the smaller jar... don't they look so cute!? (^^;; Their names are "Tupac" and "Biggie", given from their former owners. Also, you can see one of our bigger turtles inside the bigger tank (from the looks of it, it might be my sister's turtle "Bowser"...)

Unfortunately, we had to quarantine them from the bigger tank housing our other turtles, since Biggie (bottom on the pic) developed an eye infection on both pairs. I hope the he gets well soon... :(

That 'Musical Baton'... it's so... big...

2005-07-04T09:08:41Z

Edit: Deleted, because my selection of music at the time is akin to the period when I was 5 years old and wanted to turn into a Smurf.

However, I still stand by my point that x|k, maak, & Raito's music still kick major amounts of ass.

... and that Halko Momoi and The Apple Boogie are still my guilty pleasures.

Don't worry! Maybe next time I stroke my musical baton, it will be so well-thought out that it'll instead be akin to wanting to be a girl like Sakura-chan!