Hey guys, just a quick update. I'm taking a few days vacation from active comms like Discord and/or non-urgent messages until the 10th, when I'll be judging Re-Remix Me Comp.
I'm currently working on making some soundfont instruments and sample packs, writing on my book, and teaching myself to format Google Docs. So a lot of drafting and dinking with programs.
I will have quite a few more freebies to share very soon, starting with these:
In YELLOW are NEW soundfonts in draft. GREEN represents finished work.
I've also been working on some samples
Peep the only full sample archive of Wave Race 64 on the internet -- or at least within 14 pages of every search engine I've tried.
If it looks like everything, that's because it is. All the beloved announcer lines (male and female), rider callouts, crashes, splashes, and more await.
GET WAVE RACE 64 SOUNDFONT ON GUMROAD!
Previously, this soundfont/sample rip was not available ANYWHERE. The few files that I could find were partial sound and SFX rips, or sf2s that were plain corrupt. Wanting to have a copy of these samples for myself, I decided to make my own.
It's not perfect, but unlike the alternatives, it has all the sounds, and it works.
***I would like to improve on this library some day. If you come across any information about the synthesizers and equipment used for this soundset, let me know!***
Sneak peek inside another sample project I'm working on:
Thanks to the lovely folks behind N64 Tools, chiptune.app, and XModits, I was able to cobble together the XM files from another of my favorite N64 games, Top Gear Rally.
My objective is a bit different here, as the samples are highly compressed and garbled -- but the XM files (sample cue data) played nice in MilkyTracker. I knew they could be made usable, so I spent a day batch converting the files via XModits to wav.
Then, I upscaled each sample using the minimum required Audacity version (3.7.1) to run OpenVino AI plugins, editing away any resulting hisses and shrieks in iZotope RX.
Note: XModits can be used to rip virtually any tracker files. Should you find any .xm files over on Chiptune App, which is a MASSIVE searchable videogame music and mod library, you can acquire some really cool samples!
I have spent several hours in the last few days alone sifting through cool tracker music on here. It's a jungle head's dream!
Other Sample Projects
Cyclick Guitars
Between my old hard drive, BTDigg, Johnny Pumphandle's index, and seeking after archives of specific Computer Music Magazine, which I have written about (see BBS >> Audio >> Lost Media), I was able to recover some awesome sample sets from Cyclick Samples (now defunct).
These were given out for free on coverdiscs of CMM and various other promotional packs. They are old, old samples, but sound good as new!
My favorites of these were a spacey guitar lead, multisampled, and a beautiful set of spicy guitar chords, which I made into multiple patches with velocity switches. These soundfonts are 90% finished. I may need to edit the gain for each velocity layer and adjust scaling.
Creating the soundfont solved the main problem I had with the latter chord library -- not knowing which chords or inversions to pick, and which flow together. I adjusted the root keys, so that they can play together chromatically, harmoniously, and most importantly easily.
In short, it's going to be a lush, gorgeous set of patches, a real treat!
I also found a range of bass oneshots with slap, pop, and finger articulations, which I expanded in pitch and number round robins using Melodyne. Soundfont is 50% complete. I still need to pitch, splice, and program the pops, and then apply loop data for the many, many samples.
Do I expect the resulting sf2 to fully replace a proper Kontakt or AmpleSound bass? No, the one thing it lacks due to sforzando conversion errors is custom releases.
But it's usable. In fact, I might double up a patch with velocity ranges to get some of these pops and slaps. You can never have enough bass articulations.
Simple Kick, Snare, and Stick
These are quality of life patches I'm making for myself. They include the processed custom layered snare and kick I made for my last single, YOU. Nothing fancy. A few velocity layers and full keyboard range for ease of pitch shifting.
I did these as practice runs for the real challenge, attempting to convert my Free Metal Drums to soundfonts!
No, I haven't done it yet, but since the library is due for an update, I suppose I can start small and work my way to the full set!
I'll be starting soundfonts after I'm finished cleaning sections of samples. I noticed some bleed and room tone here and there that needs to be removed first.
I plan to follow these up with a double-tracked guitar library by the name Poor Man's Metal Guitar, or PMMG for short.
This library is still in the alpha stage, with the same release issues as Service Bass, and some other issues with Nyquist frequency related aliasing.
That's probably on me throwing my favorite amplifiers on the samps. So, this one is about 25% done. I'll see if I can use the melodyne trick to get around it. It worked really nice with the bass lib.
And that's about it for sample project updates! More to come soon!
This and all future projects are free thanks to support from viewers like you.
Thank you: @AED-4, @BrandyBuizel, @CrimsonKero, @Cyberdevil, @Droid, @FarFromSundown, @liljim, @jimmythecaterpillar, @KI1, @Mariogd, @MATRVG, @TeffyD and the Mall Music Collab Team, @theOve, @TomFulp, @Whirlguy and the Newgrounds 30th Anniversary Collab team, @zeroizeroizero, and @Yatsufusa