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Comment by zeta0134 | Hacker News Reader

Jake Kaufman was kind enough to release the entire Shovel Knight OST as an NSF under creative commons, meaning we're allowed to host it and do cool stuff with it. So I'll take this opportunity to plug an NES visualizer I've been working on. Did you know the Shovel Knight OST can and will run on a real FamiCom, using Konami's VRC6 mapper? Knowing that, I can look at the register writes as they're being made, work out the appropriate frequency on the keyboard, and show a piano roll in realtime:

https://rusticnes.reploid.cafe/wasm/?tab=jam&cartridge=Shove...

But I don't have a slick interface or a way to browse chiptunes, so...

chiptune.app: 1

zeta: 0

Clearly I need to get to work :) (At the very least, you can load up most NSF files and even NES games, and the visualizer will still run. If you want to know what notes the "coin" sound in SMB makes, now you can.)

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FX3 [0] is one of my fav albums from Virt, but I don't think he ever released the source? If I get it right it was composed as .nsf files too.

I saw there was a MIDI file for at least one of the songs (Choppastyle [1][2]), so maybe there's a chance to get the rest of them from somewhere? I'd love to hear a version with modern synth instruments to compare and contrast (although my dream is for a cover of the whole album by www.paulgilbert.com and friends hahah).

NOTE: the redirect from links like [2] is a bit jarring, it would feel more natural if the URL remained (instead of the redirect to [3]). It would also make it easier to share a specific song by just copying the URL.

0: https://virt.bandcamp.com/album/fx3-remastered

1: https://virt.bandcamp.com/track/choppastyle

2: https://chiptune.app/?play=Contemporary%2FVirt%2Fv-choppasty...

3: https://chiptune.app/browse/Contemporary/Virt

I had a rationale for this redirect behavior, but not sure it matches user expectations. The URL will reflect the browse location, but not the playing track...otherwise the URL gets too clunky. You can always copy the playing track from the link icon.

Not sure what you mean but I'm sure you have your reasons!

If it was me, I would change it to something like:

* https://chiptune.app/browse/Contemporary/Virt

... opens the browse folder, as it does now.

* https://chiptune.app/browse/Contemporary/Virt/v-choppastyle....

... opens the browse folder _AND_ focus/selects the given track.

Of course, neither one should play anything by default, but! I would put the play controls on the top of the page, and make the play button bigger and more prominent. It took me a while to find the tiny triangle in the bottom left of the page.

My 2 cents. Awesome project btw! :-)

The piano/waveform visualizer is great, and there's a ton of fun to be had here by turning on and off different instruments. It would be nice if the interface were more discoverable/documented though. :)

(EDIT: also, it looks like chiptune.app does have a sort of piano-like visualizer available from the top-right corner, but it doesn't look quite as nice as yours.)

This is a really cool visualizer. Neat work!

I hadn't realized (or maybe just forgot) your visualization was publicly available, super cool to see the Shovel Knight OST in it! I love seeing your music come up on YouTube/Twitter, the retro piano roll and the waveforms are so satisfying to watch.

Wow, this visualizer is awesome!

amazing visualizer! are there any other games or NSF you would recommend to load up in the visualizer? im not familiar with the world of nes music

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