I’m going out of town for a few days! I wanted to get a good, solid post out before I left. But I couldn’t really write anything, since everything has been too hectic for me.

I’ve found a good sound editor, Audacity, that seems to be able to do everything I need it to without getting in my way too much. I’ve been without a good sound editor since Cool Edit sold out.

To test it out a little, I decided to put together a little preview of the music that I’m working on for the next Paniflex Jones album. It’s full of annoyingly short clips of songs. There’s about 14 in there, with the first and the last clip being different parts of the same song.

The next album should be longer than the first, and may or may not be called “Secret Identity.”

Goomba is a Gameboy emulator for the GBA. Little Sound DJ is a chip-music composition program for the Gameboy. While I own a Gameboy, there’s no way I could put LSDJ on it, since I lack a Gameboy flash cart. However, I do own a GBA flash cart. See where this is going? Confused yet?

(GB emu + GB rom + GBA cart + DS = original Gameboy on DS!)

Well, it was a success, pretty much. As a test, I ran Alleyway on my DS successfully, and then loaded the LSDJ demo onto it. It worked, pretty much (though not optimally, it glitched out a few times).

But damn.

LSDJ is one complex piece o’ work. I knew there was going to be a big learning curve, but I didn’t expect the interface control to be so frustrating. Still though, I tinkered around with lots of sounds and things. The worst thing is that some commands must be entered in button combos (A+RIGHT/LEFT), but rather than being able to hold one button and hit the other, you have to hit both at the exact same time. This drove me nuts, and caused people to ask me why I was attacking my DS.

Is that how it is? I tried it on my computer with VisualBoy Advance and it was the same. Unless I’m using the wrong software in all cases, I guess it is. I could stick to FL where I know what I’m doing.

(full disclosure: Little Sound DJ 3.1.9 (demo version) was run with Goomba v2.3 on my DS and VisualBoy Advance v1.2 on my 1.6ghz pentium-based laptop. The version of VBA is old because it’s never given me problems before, but I might try it again after I update it.)

Hope you get something nice!

I also hope you experience the joy of giving someone something awesome. I’m going to be.

Stuff follows!
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My Daigasso! Request Selection arrived today! Know what the first song I played was? Yeah, you do.

Some impressions follow! I might be adding to this post all day!
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“Hey did you know the Sega controller has a D button?”

“No it dosen’t.”

“Yes it does. It says so right here.”

“It only has A, B, and C, right?”

“Look.”

The year was 199x. One of my best friends, whose house had a weird smell that I can still taste to this day when I play certain games, had just acquired a Sega Genesis (aka The Sega) for Christmas. He points to a line in the instruction manual for Sonic 2 that says that you move the hedgehog around with the Directional Pad, or D-pad.

I’m paraphrasing, of course. I can’t even remember what year it was and hid it in that Megaman reference. But that was the jist of it. I had never given a thought to what the D-pad should be called. For all I cared, it was not one entity, but a combination of up, down, left and right in the most logical arrangement. But the Sega pad, which I would later learn was round due to Nintendo’s copyright on the “cross shaped pad”, suggested an additional 4 directions. It was compass-like. It was more interesting. It had a name.

I love 4CR, and I love Nintendo a lot. But, as of today, I’m completely tired of posts on 4CR about how great Nintendo is coupled with a history lesson on the evolution of controllers. Maybe it’s just because the information is getting old because I, personally, have experienced it one too many times. The writing felt kinda pompous to me. It’s cool that Nintendo is getting the recognition it deserves for being the industry’s reliable camel for twenty years, but I think that other points of view are neglected.

Innovation itself is not the only thing to strive for. Different isn’t always better. Nintendo knows this, of course. Refinement follows innovation, bringing us not from “the N64 analog” to “the Gamecube analog,” but from “the N64 analog” to “the Saturn analog” to “the Playstation analog” to “the Dreamcast analog” to “the Gamecube analog.” All of which were featured in some way in the Xbox controller. I just felt that the article was missing this kind of “industry group discussion” on controllers. No one company started the analog craze, Sega and Nintendo had analog controllers out around the same time. I think that Sega might have even had one planned for the Genesis at one point.

Still though, Nintendo needs recognition for being the industry’s right brain (or, more accurately, the prefrontal cortex) with the gusto (and money) to do what others won’t. There’s nowhere else to go with the analog stick, and simplifying two analog sticks (to simulate 3D motion) to actual 3D motion is a brilliant play. Personally, I’ll be glad if analog sticks go away completely. Which brings me to my real point. There is a controller revolution going on in the Revolution controller, but who will control the revolution? I want controversial controller discussion, so I will make some for myself.
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This thing. I love the Neo-Geo Pocket Color to pieces. I just placed an order from Play Asia for Last Blade and Sonic Pocket Adventure, along with my Daigasso! expansion. The games are cheap, about $10 on average. I’ve been playing NGPC games emulated because the damn thing was unlucky enough to be born before the era of backlighting. That’s the only downfall of the system. I’ve searched around for a backlighting mod only to hit a few slightly promising message board discussions and dead ends.
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Like many things, I love the NGPC for two fairly superficial reasons:

1. Awesome pocket adaptations of SNK fighters.
There are 2 buttons and a D-pad. And an ‘option’ (’start’) button. With only this, they’ve pulled off fighters that have comparable depth and playability to even the Neo-Geo originals. The click-stick D-pad is actually a little joystick capped with a button. It’s the closest thing to an arcade stick on a portable ever. Special movements are easy to pull off on it.

The 4 buttons of the original Neo-Geo are still here. If A is punch and B is kick, holding A slighty longer is a hard punch and holding B slightly longer is a hard kick. I think this system is so great, it should be used in more games. The timing is about right, it’s deliberate but not too long.

The only portable fighter I’d really give any thought to other than those on the NGPC is King of Fighters EX2 on the GBA. And that is one hell of an excellent adaptation.

2. Sex on a stick sound chip.
The system music makes me wanna dance like a mog. I could listen to that loop for hours. (i searched for a version of it online, midi or mp3, but couldn’t find one! travesty!) The system’s sound sounds like it’s all FM synth, no samples or anything like that. Just good ol’ waveforms. If someone made a program for the NGPC similar to the Gameboy’s LSDJ, I would be able to do a massive amount of aural damage.

In games, the music, like the gameplay itself, is adapted from the full-size versions . Match of the Millennium has all the familiar Street Fighter and KOF tunes, but subtke additional elements were added to the music that capitalize on the system’s strengths. Samurai Shodown! 2 is another pretty good example of the style of adaptation. They incorprate the SS series’ bleak, sparse music really well, and the percussion pops nicely.

Granted, I’m speaking from the realm of only FM synths, so the sounds may not be impressive to the average listener. But I have an ear for this sort of sound, and the NGPC really turns me on.
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If you’re lucky, you can find a package that includes a NGPC and six games for around $50 at your local poorly-lit electronics warehouse (I got mine at Fry’s!).

My NGPC wishlist: a music program, a backlight, and a flash cart. I know that at least one of those exists.

There’s a NGPC emulator, NeoPop, out there, and a DS version is in the works (though it hasn’t progressed since the summer). It won’t ever be as cool as a backlit NGPC would be, but it’s a step in the right direction.
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Edit #1: Blogsome is being really slow lately.

Edit #2: This is post ID#100! Come, sing “One More Time” with me!

Right now, with no school and no work to worry about, I have been spending more time with a controller in my hands than without. I, naturally, had ambitions about finishing the long list of PS2 games that I had only touched briefly. However, with no TV (i use my gf’s bro’s, it’s just in another room and frequently in use), it’s a little awkward. I did play through Parappa, which is just enough videogame for when you don’t have much time. Since that aforementioned person has hooked up a softmodded Xbox in the living room, I have been loving on the emulators. I played a little Legend of Zelda and Kickle Cubicle. I spent all day playing Terranigma and Final Fantasy III (6) with my girlfriend, because she’s an FFXI nut and needs to know where her roots are. XD

Anyway, I got Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time as an early gift yesterday (from a guy that i got MKDS for! woot). My first reaction was to say “omg how will i ever have time to play this with everything else i have”, and then write a long stupid blog post about how I don’t have time or will to play everything that I want to. But I kinda came to peace with that. I’ve played enough of almost everything I have. I just feel like I have too many things sometimes, and I want to throw them all away and start over and not let it get out of hand again.

So, I just started playing M&L2 and it’s so awesome that I don’t really care about any of that anymore! =D Sometimes though, I just get torn. I want to appreciate everything! lol.

Since 4CR and ic have both posted on the demise of Working Designs, I thought I might also. I had a pretty close relationship with the company on a certain level. I’ve played, I think, every RPGish game they translated from the Saturn to the PS2. The ones that I can’t play anymore are the ones I remember the most fondly though. Like Dragon Force. Oh hell yeah. I loved it. I’ve even played a handful of their shooters, and the foilstamped cover of Silpheed: The Lost Planet was just enough to get me to rescue it from a Circuit City bargain bin for $5. I haven’t kept up with WD very well lately, but I would still say ‘hi’ and have a friendly conversation with WD if it passed me on the street.

I thought that Working Designs had already closed up shop. The last things I remember them doing were that Growlanser compilation, and before that, the PS1 Arc the Lad thing that took far too long to come out. They were too old to compete in this modern market, and their site hadn’t been updated in way too long. When I pass WD on the street, I’d probably be surprised to see that my childhood friend had grown up to be a big, nerdy otaku adult that I didn’t have much in common with anymore. “You still in the business?” I’d say. And WD would respond, “Well, yeah, sorta.” At least, before this week, WD would have.
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Thanks to everyone who listened to the music, and extra thanks to everyone who sent in words of praise and awesomeness, because it was a great confidence booster. I’m always working on music like that and will definitely spread more of it around in the future. I’ve maybe halfway through with enough music to put in a better, longer album.

There’ll be a link in the sidebar to the PfxJ post, so that people can reach it easily.

And now back to doing what I do best, whatever that is!

He’s some nut who listened to too much music from the 8-bit and 16-bit days. He dosen’t write chiptunes, though he is very inspired by them. He is also my alter ego. I publish my chiptune-ish music under this name. The music is all original, not remixed, so I can’t put it on Overclocked Remix or anything like that. But I do want to share it, so after sitting on this finished album for a while, burning copies for friends and sharing parts of it with internet friends, I’ve decided to upload it to my university ftp so that other people can hear it.

It’s named “ninety-nine” after the number 99. Click the logo to download a zip file containing all the music.

“Sounds like raw sex with famicoms!” - Kammo.

Also, I have a last.fm page.