╔════════════════╗ ║ 8 bit Chord tables ║ ║ by Johan Brodd ║ ╚════════════════╝ This document is usable for NinjaTracker users, but many other trackers have similar structures onboard. This document is released under: Creative Commons 3.0 BY-SA Contents: ═══════ 1. What is this? 1.1. Arpeggios 1.2. How to use this document 2. About Johan Brodd 2.1. Just a bit of gratitude 3. Intervals 31. Prime 3.2. Small 2nd 3.3. Large 2nd 3.4. Small 3rd 3.5. Large 3rd 3.6. 4th 3.7. Tritone 3.8. 5th 3.9. Small 6th 3.10. Large 6th 3.11. Small 7th 3.12. Large 7th 3.13. Octave 4. Basic chords 4.1. MAJOR 4.2. MINOR 4.3. SUS2 4.4. SUS2 4.5. DIM 4.6. AUG 4.7. 7th 4.8. m7th 4.9. M7th 1. What is this? ══════════ The C64 has a very limited sound chip, that cannot play more than 3 notes at the same time. This forced musicians to go bananas and be hyper creative with their music. One example is the Armalyte theme that honnestly has some awesome chord progression that really is a jaw dropper. At least it was for me. :) Here it is on youtube: http://youtu.be/enTaVkdnxsA I claim no copyright of the music, credits goes out to Martin Walker who wrote this masterpiece, and to Kuokka77 for uploading it to youtube. 1.1. Arpeggios ────────── One way that the C64 users had to cope with this limited chip was to play arpeggios. A fast trilling sound that has several notes going off in a row, but at such high speed that the human ear sets them up as a chord. 1.2. How to use this document? ───────────────────── Each arpeggio is listed as just the note numbers, it is therefore your task to fill in the waveforms you wanna use. The chords will have different sounds depending on the waveform you use. A quick tutorial on NinjaTracker's note table: So if I list the notes: 00 04 07 Means you should fill in: 00 ww 00 01 ww 04 02 ww 07 Where ww is the waveform you wanna use, 10, 20, 40, or 80. As I said there is effects as well. Now I have no knowledge what these are, but they include looping the table, delays etc etc... 2. About Johan Brodd ═══════════════ Johan Brodd is a visually disabled musician born in Stockholm, Sweden. He's got more than 37 years of experience of music composition and arrangement, he's also got 20 years experience in music production. He never had a C64 in it's haydays, but he studied C64 music while playing games at his friends homes. He got interrested in the limited capacity of the SID chip, and then decided to learn how to program fancy chords in the C64. It is just recently he bought a fixed up C64 for old times sake. :) 2.1. Just a bit of gratitude... ────────────────── This document is totally free for anyone who wanna use it for his / her music. The only thing he ask of you in return is that you give credit to him in return if anything from this document is used to make some dope songs. Not required, but will make him a bit happier. :) 3. Intervals ════════ Intervals is what make the music come to life. Take 2 notes, play them on the keyboard. That's an inteval. Here follows the list of all itervals notated as described above: 3.1 Prime ────── No note differences here, but this can be used to mix two waveforms together. 00 00 C C 3.2 Small 2nd ───────── Two keys next to eachother. A semi tone. 00 01 C C# 3.3 Large 2nd ───────── A full tone step between them. 00 02 C D 3.4 Small 3rd ───────── Used to build up minor and dim chords. 00 03 C D# 3.5 Large 3rd ───────── Used to build up major and aug chords. 00 04 C E 3.6 4th ───── Used to build up sus chords. 00 05 C F 3.7 Tritone ─────── Churches forbid this since it's so alien. 00 06 C F# 3.8 5th ──── The base interval for many famfares. 00 07 C G 3.9 Small 6th ───────── Inverted large 3rd 00 08 C G# 3.10 Large 6th ───────── Inverted small 3rd 00 09 C A 3.11 Small 7th ───────── Inverted large 2nd 00 0A C A# 3.12 Large 7th ───────── Inverted small 2nd 00 0B C B 3.13 Octave ──────── A full octave. 00 0C C C 4. Basic chords ══════════ This covers the basic chords, and it's inversions. I've decided not to reset the left most note to 00 between the tables, but instead set the next table so it follow the inversions properly. This will not be easy for me, but it will definitely benefit your workflow, that you don't need to find the right key to use the inversions on. So if you wanna use a C major chord, then all you need is to find out what key plays a C, select an inversion, and place the note there. Each note is indexed from 00, where 00 is the ground note. All notations is in hex, and the musical notes is listed as well, so if you got a piano, or a MIDI keyboard hooked up to a computer you can easily test the chords out. :) Have fun! 4.1. MAJOR ──────── The chords that brings happiness. 00 04 07 C E G 04 07 0C E G C 07 0C 10 G C E 4.2. MINOR ─────── The chords that saddens things. 00 03 07 C D# G 03 07 0C D# G C 07 0C 0F G C D# 4.3. SUS2 ─────── The SUS chords holds the music in suspence. 00 02 07 C D G 02 07 0C D G C 07 0C 0D G C D 4.4. SUS4 ─────── Another suspenseful chord. 00 05 07 C F G 05 07 0C F G C 07 0C 11 G C F 4.5. DIM ───── A mystical almost satanical chord demanding to be resolved. 00 03 06 C D# F# 03 06 09 D# F# A 06 09 0C F# A C 4.6. AUG ────── A fearful chord used often to give that alien feeling in games. 00 03 06 C D# F# 03 06 09 D# F# A 06 09 0C F# A C 4.7. 7th ───── A very nice bluesy chord that excites the music. 00 04 07 0A C E G A# 04 07 0A 0C E G A# C 07 0A 0C 10 G A# C E 4.8. m7th ────── Kinda bluesy on the sad side 00 03 07 0A C E G A# 03 07 0A 0C E G A# C 07 0A 0C 0F G A# C E 4.9. M7th ────── That "high on life" kinda chord. 00 04 07 0B C E G B 04 07 0B 0C E G B C 07 0B 0C 0F G B C E 5. Combination boogie ═══════════════ With the basic intervals and chords, you're able to compose some really great music, but this is just the very beginning. Because with the intervals alone you can come up with some really fancy scales and chords, and combining the chords in different formations gives even more complex music. You start with say the Tritone interval, after it you use the Small 2nd, 5th, Small 2nd, Large 3rd. That gives you this chord: C, F#, G, D, D#, G A pretty solid demonic chord. You start with the lowest note in the interval, then when you apply next interval, you go to the highest note in the previous interval, and use it as the lowest note. That's it peepz! Go right ahead and experiment as much as you wanna do. This is the way you come up with some very intensive music. My tutorial is now completed. I hope this helped some people out a bit at least. You got any questions? Drop me a PM on CSDB, or in a comment. I'll get back as soon as I discover your comment. It may take some time though since I'm quite busy. Best regards Johan Brodd Stockholm Sweden 2014-02-08