what has more authentic sound? - FamiTracker

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## what has more authentic sound?

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Ahornberg
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### what has more authentic sound?

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Post by Ahornberg » Sat Jun 20, 2015 7:29 am

While diving deeper into FamiTracker I made some nsf-exports of my track-in-progress
(when I'm ready I'll post it here. It seems that making a good chiptune needs a lot of time).
I discovered that NSFPlay and FamiTracker do sound different.
I find the sound of NSFPlay being more smooth with less cracles than FamiTracker.
So my question is? Which of them sound more authentic compared to real hardware?
Because I do not own a NES console I can't make myself a picture
(e.g. for me GoatTracker sound much too clean compared to a real C64).
What are your opinions?
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8BitZtunerYT
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### Re: what has more authentic sound?

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Post by 8BitZtunerYT » Sat Jun 20, 2015 11:20 am

Nothing can be too perfect y'know, FamiTracker may be darn close for emulating the chips, but the sound FamiTracker outputs might sound different when comparing other NES trackers.
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HertzDevil
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### Re: what has more authentic sound?

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Post by HertzDevil » Sat Jun 20, 2015 11:55 am

It might depend on your sound configuration...? If you modify "Bass filtering" and "Treble filtering" in [File] -> [Configuration...] -> [Sound], and "LPF strength" or "HPF strength" in the NSFPlay settings, maybe you could obtain similar results for each other.
Emulation-wise, FamiTracker's 2A03 output is hand-written, and so far it does not have any obvious inaccuracy, while FamiTracker's external sound libraries (VRC7 and 5B) are fairly outdated and are clearly less accurate than NEZPlug++. Moreover, NSF players tend to leave out details of NES emulation not encompassed by the NSF specification; for example some NSFs requiring IRQ tricks must be played in VirtuaNSF or FCEUX.
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8BitZtunerYT
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### Re: what has more authentic sound?

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Post by 8BitZtunerYT » Sat Jun 20, 2015 1:19 pm

I think he means the aliasing in FamiTracker's Sound output and NSFplay.
slowly ceasing to exist.
"8BitZ caresses his keyboard as he orgasms to the sounds of Winamp."
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Ahornberg
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### Re: what has more authentic sound?

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Post by Ahornberg » Sat Jun 20, 2015 4:25 pm

So it seems to be a matter of taste
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Project
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### Re: what has more authentic sound?

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Post by Project » Wed Jul 01, 2015 9:37 pm

Well, Famitracker can sound more "low quality" if you lower the Sample rate in config.
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rainwarrior
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### Re: what has more authentic sound?

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Post by rainwarrior » Wed Jul 01, 2015 9:56 pm

As the maintainer of NSFPlay, I compare NSFPlay's sound output directly against recordings of the hardware it's emulating. Aside from the VRC7, everything is very close, in my (very biased) opinion.
Famitracker has the same goal in mind, and jsr also does hardware comparisons, I'm sure. I think both of them are pretty faithful. (As for VRC7, Famitracker uses the exact same code as NSFPlay, written by someone else who is not me or jsr. I plan to rewrite it in the next version of NSFPlay.)
Would it surprise you if I told you there isn't really "one" accurate sound to the hardware? There are a lot of factors that come into play differently on every machine. These aren't precision-made high-end audio equipment, there's a lot of variation between parts, especially in expansion carts. In general all the digital logic is consistent, but analog stuff like mixing and filters is highly variable. The balance of channels is different on every NES and Famicom and expansion cart I've ever measured.
I don't make comparisons on behalf of any other emulators, so I can't really say how accurate any one of them is. It's a lot of work to make these comparisons, and if I'm not involved in improving that emulator I don't see the point of doing it.
As always, if you find a difference between something you hear on hardware and NSFPlay, I encourage you to send me a report about it.
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