Something Unreal

A heterodyne bat detector lets you hear the difference (frequency-wise) between the sounds around it, and a set frequency. So, doesn’t that mean you can make ultrasonic music and then use the detector to shift the frequencies down so that a human can hear it? It sure does! =D

That said, I didn’t actually make the music – it’s the final boss theme (“Septette for a Dead Princess”) from Touhou 06 (Embodiment of Scarlet Devil), as ripped directly from the game (in MIDI format).

[Watch in HD]

I modified BaWaMI, a MIDI software synth that I made, so that you can shift the frequency of all notes up by a linear amount. This is different to simple “pitch-shifting”, which MULTIPLIES the frequencies by a set amount. That’s why it sounds horribly out-of-tune when shifted – the frequency is made to range from something other than 0 Hz. When shifted by exactly the right amount, the detector is able to recreate the sound as ranging from 0 Hz again. Because the detector is designed to be accurate to a few KHz rather than a few dozen Hz, its internal oscillator tends to “drift” a bit, so I have to keep adjusting the tuning on my program to compensate.

This bat detector is the Ciel-electronique CDB 301 (the newest revision includes a built-in speaker).

(Yes, bat videos will come some time, but they might have to wait until next summer, as little Remi is going into hibernation now >w<)

Well, I tried again… and failed again. xD

[Watch in HD]

I know the piano isn’t perfectly in tune, but it was the best I had access to. Plus, if it had been really good, I might not have been allowed to have the front cover off it.

By the way, the piano happened to be in a building attached to a church, so I thought there was a nice irony to starting the medley with the theme of a vampire.

I’ve now finished recording all themes from Touhou 06: Embodiment of Scarlet Devil in MIDI form playing on my old FM MIDI synth.

You can download MP3s of them with the other Touhou FM MIDI recordings (so far from the 6th, 7th and 8th games), here.

For those who haven’t seen (heard) any before, they’re basically very electronic-sounding versions of the music from the Touhou games (they’re not strictly 8-bit, but they certainly do often sound like they’re 8-bit). If you like chiptune music, you’ll probably really like them.

Remilia’s theme being tapped away to on the hardest difficulty, with 2 hands. Since I’ve started using 2 hands, fast streams like ones in here are so much easier. At 01:56, I peered over to make sure my PSP hadn’t stopped due to the old memory stick (it keeps happening every now and then), but it cost me a jump. =/

My camcorder’s showing the view of the monitor and my PSP’s recording view of the keyboard.
I apologise for the not-so-good view of my hands. Next time, I think I’ll put that camera onto more of a side view.

This simfile can be found in the second Touhou StepMania pack:

The theme is Takuya’s “DDR SuperNOVA BT2″ (Beta Tester 2).
You can get the “DDR SuperNova BTw Plus” (for SM 3.9) from here, and Takuya’s site is here.

Please DON’T tell me that his site is unavailable – I’m not even the owner of the place. Geocities sites often become unavailable temporarily. Just try another day (or after a few hours). -_-

Note that this song and most, if not all, other songs in this pack will only show up on StepMania if you have your non-Unicode language set to Japanese, due to non-Unicode characters in the file and folder names. This setting is under “Regional and Language options” in Control Panel (on Windows XP), and you’ll probably need your Windows CD to hand. Setting it is quite a common procedure, and as such, there are plenty of guides around the Internet to doing this – a Google search for “Japanese non-Unicode” should find something.

My latest project, and this is a mere prototype. A computer plays StepMania CVS 4, controlling servos to press the arrow keys according to step sequences in StepMania files. Lots more info and quite a bit of showing off in the video.

It plays “Overdrive” (for the sake of avoiding typing a really long title which I can’t translate) by IOSYS, and even gets a toasty on “Piano Variation for Remilia Scarlet”.

EDIT: Wow, this video’s quality really disappeared somewhere along the line.

For the technically-minded, I’m using an SSC-32 (microcontroller), and 4 Hextronik 5gr (HXT500) micro servos. The program was made with Visual Basic.

A “step up” from my previous DDR vid, using 2 cameras this time, along with audio from my camcorder and an audio stream of the game.

I wished I’d got a A+ or more on “Magical Dial” (I’ve got it before), but with all the previous recording attempts which failed, I thought I’d just go with the flow. “An A is fine too”. =P

More info about the songs is in the vid, but the 3 songs are:
- A remix of Sakuya’s theme (and stage music).
- A remix of Remilia’s theme.
- A trance song unrelated to Touhou.

Touhou StepMania pack 1 can be downloaded here (255.24 MB). “SS 2nd Style”, along with dozens of other StepMania packs, can be downloaded here (89.71 MB).

ITG2′s own difficulty is set to Medium, by the way, which I believe is identical to StepMania’s default difficulty of “4″.

I think this is the most decent-quality DDR vid I’ve made yet. At least, it was before uploading to YT.

That computer-controlled motor is back! Headaches guaranteed, or your viewing time back! (I’m sure Sakuya will sort it somehow.)

It just plays a short part of Sakuya’s theme “Tsuki Dokei ~ Luna Dial” (Moon clock) and Remilia’s theme “Naki Oujo no Seputetto” (Septette for a dead princess). Since I recently made them on BMM, I decided to challenge the motor to try to play them. Yes, it’s a useless mod for my program “Bleeper Music Maker“. In fact, it was only the first or second mod which I made for BMM, a while before I ever released BMM to the public.

I’ve changed it since last time so that now the motor doesn’t stop between notes (it was affecting being able to hit notes on time, and is no good for the power supply xD).

This time the usual motor has help from another motor which it spins via a drive belt, which adds more power to the sound (slight understatement). Amazingly, it seems it’s still strong enough to hit most of the notes.

Oh, and Yukari because… gaps are awesome.

MIDI OUT!! … … is the main new feature added in this version. Instead of (or as well as) using the PC speaker, it can send all notes and beeps to a MIDI device which you choose (it doesn’t have to be external, it can even be that nasty-sounding synth Windows XP and Vista use by default). More info in Info.txt under “MIDI OUTPUT MOD”

To show off the new Midi Output mod, here’s a short video of a little BMM file I made, playing through my Yamaha keyboard via MIDI Out, complete with accidental footage of a bug with the Synchronized Play mod, which makes it randomly decide start playing 2 minutes after you last started it playing. By the way, that bug is now fixed.

Usual program download link. The download now includes the BMM file you see playing in the video, too (“Remi Solo.BMM”).

Hmm, previously Sakuya, then Remilia… Flandre is next. =D

(Other changes/improvents, plans for future versions…) (more…)

Turns a bit “Master Spark” at the end.
Remilia’s theme starts at 0:30 seconds and is called “Septette for a Dead Princess” (「亡き皇女の為のセプテット」), from Touhou 06 “Embodiment of Scarlet Devil”, rearranged a little and whatnot. It has some little intro at the begining to show off the different sounds. That’s all this was originally going to be, then I decided to take it further. =D

This is a step up from the usual ‘bleeper’-style stuff I make. It sounds like some ancient games console’s music.

This is the latest (not quite yet released) version of my Bleeper Music Maker. Well, 4 of them, running together! One does percussion (noise), one does the melody of Remi’s theme (triangle), and the other 2 share the same file but one’s playing Note 1 (bass, square) and the other one’s playing Note 2 (some weird harmonizing melodies I made up).

On this new version (revision 130) (I’ll probably release it today or tomorrow), you can change the sound FMOD creates from being only square. Also there’s a new mod, “Synchronized Play”, which makes it start playing at a certain time. Set them all up to start at the same time and you can easily get them all to play in sync with each other. =D Oh, and FMOD doesn’t make annoying clicking noises when going from note to note anymore if you set Note/Silence Ratio to 100% (still does when going from note to silence or vice versa, though ><).

MP3 download is here.
(2.43 MB, 1 min 31 secs)
(Sorry about the slow download speed…)