Show HN: Pixeltune, a nicer chiptune and VGM player | Better HN

Show HN: Pixeltune, a nicer chiptune and VGM player | Better HN

52 comments

tlh1y ago

Really love this, kudos for making it! Can listen to the Sonic 2 soundtrack on loop for hours.

Just a note to say that on MacOS Safari none of the icons or fonts seem to want to load. Looking at the console it appears to be lots of CORS-related issues. I.e, "Cancelled load to <a package url> because it violates the resource's Cross-Origin-Resource-Policy response header."

tomaspollakOP1y ago

Will check. Thanks for the heads up.

nyanpasu641y ago

Is it possible to loop a song infinitely? This is a standard feature for chiptune emulation playback programs (vgmstream, GEP, foobar2000, Audacious, Droidsound-E, etc.).

tomaspollakOP1y ago

You're right! This is definitely doable, but... wouldn't you eventually want to listen to _other_ songs?

There's currently a 2:30 min time limit on songs so that they don't loop forever. I plan to make this configurable, so I could allow setting it to a very long timeframe (something like 10 minutes or so).

Alternatively: what’s the reason _not_ to allow this?

I mean, when I played some NES games, I might hear the same level loop for 30 minutes before I hear the next level. My brain can’t compute hearing the song from a level for only one loop. :)

fourfour31y ago

I'd love to see WebMIDI support similar to https://chiptune.app/

I have a SC-8820 - it can simulate a SC-55/SC-88/SC-88 Pro (the SC-55 in particular is what a lot of VGM MIDIs were made using) and I'd love to be able to use it with this collection :)

tomaspollakOP1y ago

This is actually possible already, but I couldn't finish the UI part on time. Give me a few days and I'll add the option.

PS. I also have a SC-55, nothing beats the original!

fourfour31y ago

Fantastic!

Sadly it’s quite hard (and expensive!) to get a real SC-55 in the UK :/

The 8820 is the same architecture etc as the SC-55/88/88 Pro, so the simulation is basically swapping out the sample sets. I can’t tell the difference :)

My next target is a MT-32 :)

bloopernova1y ago

Oh wow, they have U.N. Squadron music from the SNES! Thank you for the nostalgia blast :)

Hey Tom! This is fantastic project, I see myself using it daily. But the best part of it all is your dedication to preserving the midi culture and the art form itself.

(game) Music back then was truly on another level and I'm glad some people are archiving the songs and their chips.

tomaspollakOP1y ago

Thanks mate!

superfamicom1y ago

Love this! I've been working on and running https://sfc.fm for about 7 years now so very similar interests!

One thing I did notice was the in the SPC emulation, particularly in Super Mario World `12a Athletic.spc` there is a lot of echo / reverb that isn't present in the actual file or game, is there secondary effect processing happening somewhere, I couldn't seem to turn it off, you can play it here https://sfc.fm/sfc/super-mario-world track 16

tomaspollakOP1y ago

Yes, as I mentioned in other comment, Pixeltune applies a reverb effect on some of the cores. There's currently no way to turn it off but there will in the near future. :)

Kudos for sfc.fm by the way!

This is a really slick player! I have a feature request though. I noticed almost right away that NSF (NES/Famicom) songs are in stereo and seem to have some sort of reverb filter applied. The original console is mono only, so this suggests that whatever core is performing NSF playback is layering on these additional effects. I'd rather hear the stock audio coming out of the console. Can this be exposed as an option?

tomaspollakOP1y ago

Yes indeed. Pixeltune adds a reverb effect on top of the output of some cores. I'll include an option to turn it off. Good one!

Looks like there are a bunch of Famitracker modules (.ftm files) that are converted to MIDI but should actually be converted to NSF like any other NES song.

tomaspollakOP1y ago

Oh, yes. That's because the Famitracker port I'm using[0] is a bit old and doesn't support the newer .ftm versions. So in case the player doesn't support a given song, there's a fallback to using FTMtoMID so you can still listen to it.

This was all done before I ported Furnace Tracker (that also supports the .ftm format) so I might just use Furnace for playing them. I have to check whether it can play the newer .ftm versions.

[0] https://github.com/nukep/famitracker-cx

Also SID files play for a fixed amount of time, so long-ish ones cut during playtime. I know HVSC has a database that defines track length, not sure for the others though.

tomaspollakOP1y ago

Yes, as I mentioned in another comment, the player has a time limit on songs to prevent them from looping forever. I'll include an option to let you modify this, so you can listen to them _almost_ forever.

s5ma6n1y ago

Reminds me of https://chiptune.app/browse

tomaspollakOP1y ago

Chip Player is awesome. I love the retro-looking UI.

sersi1y ago

This is just lovely. Nice trip through nostalgia, when I was 12 years old, I had a period where I listened to a lot of mods from the amiga demo scene to the eternal bafflement of my parents :) It's a pity I lost the collection I curated of my favorites.

One thing for tracks that have duration, it'd be great to see it.

tomaspollakOP1y ago

Yes, track duration is on the TODO list.

I will also add an "export data" option for you, so you can rest safe that you won't lose your beautifully curated playlists. :)

29athrowaway1y ago

There's also this which you can run on a Raspberry Pi (not a web player)

https://github.com/sasq64/chipmachine

tomaspollakOP1y ago

I didn't know about that one. Thanks!

ugh1231y ago

Amazing interface and player!

I'm finding a lot of this music as great background for work. It seems especially the 16 bit and 32 bit game system music seemed to hit a sweet spot for me.

tomaspollakOP1y ago

Thank you. I have a few minimal/ambient playlists that are great for concentration. I'll include one or two in the featured section!

I’m really digging the background visuals. It reminds me of the old Playstation home screen background animation.

tomaspollakOP1y ago

That's precisely the source of inspiration!

binary1321y ago

Curious, but it didn’t make any sound on my iPhone in safari.

tomaspollakOP1y ago

I still haven't tested the player on mobiles thoroughly. Do you at least see the oscilloscope running?

binary1321y ago

Yes! I thought at first I had audio routed to a Bluetooth device, but that wasn’t it. Oh well. I’ll have to take a look on my laptop, though.

[update] fun stuff!

Works flawlessly, sounds very good. Already improved my day!

tomaspollakOP1y ago

And this comment improved mine!

squigz1y ago

Haha, love the changelog, and love the tunes; nice job!

2024-08-11: The rewrite is done

It took a while but it's finally here. Support for playlists, favorite songs, WASM cores, new formats, etc. The list of supported formats now includes KSS, AY, Furnace and Famitracker songs, and much more (click on Song formats to see the full list).

...

(Time goes by)

2018-05-04: Began work on new version

This might take a while

tomaspollakOP1y ago

;)

squigz1y ago

Out of curiosity, what is the size on disk of the music collection? (485k songs)

webprofusion1y ago

This is rad.

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