Preparing DMC samples
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Preparing DMC samples
I was curious if anyone here know how you should prepare a wav file to be converted as a DMC sample to get the best result. One trick that I know for percussion samples is that you add some white noise the sample and it'll hide the "crackling" sound you get at low volumes. Are there any recommendations on sample rate and bit depth? Should you EQ the sample any way, or do some other processing? I have gotten decent sounding samples so far, but they are not comparable to how good some samples from commercial NES games sound (like the Sunsoft bass).
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Re: Preparing DMC samples
I'm making a complete guess here and say that I would go with a low-pass filter before applying that noise. DPCM is naturally better at reproducing low-frequency components.
Re: Preparing DMC samples
A low-pass isn't necessary unless the original sound has a lot of higher frequencies you don't want. Converting the sample usually does have a low-pass like effect on louder frequencies, but it might not completely filter them out. Although due to the bit crushing that happens you will still get some high frequencies after conversion even if you filter them out from the original. The noise can mask some of those as well, since they might not always sound good.
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Re: Preparing DMC samples
For the same reason, you might also want a high-pass to reduce the low frequency sounds so they don't take as much bandwidth away from higher frequencies.
However, neither suggestion is universal, it depends on the kind of content you want to express. E.g. a voice sample could proabably benefit more from the highpass because there's more useful speech information in the mid range. For a musical sample, the needs are entirely different here.
Really what I'd like to see is a tool with a graphic equalizer applied to the input that you can adjust and preview iteratively. (...and with the ability to save presets for it.) Unfortunately, I haven't seen such a tool yet... I plan to write one eventually but I still haven't had a project that really needed DPCM, so I haven't gotten around to it.
All that said, RushJet1's RJDMC tool is the best one I've seen so far, but it doesn't have any pre-filtering. You'll have to do that yourself.
RJDMC
Re: Preparing DMC samples
In my experience, you get the best results by some combination of:
1- filtering the input to just the frequencies you want reproduced
2- reducing the input volume
DPCM in particular preferentially reproduces lower frequencies at the cost of high frequencies – "slew rate distortion" – so both steps help with that.
1- filtering the input to just the frequencies you want reproduced
2- reducing the input volume
DPCM in particular preferentially reproduces lower frequencies at the cost of high frequencies – "slew rate distortion" – so both steps help with that.
Re: Preparing DMC samples
Keep in mind that many might say that a more distorted DMC sample is preferential. If you hit a roadblock getting your DMC to sound good, try going worse; it can make some magic.