This week I covered Glenn Stafford’s “Terran One” from StarCraft’s soundtrack. Converting this piece to FamiTracker was tricky. Even with the VRC6 chipset, seven channels still isn’t a lot to work with. Side Note: Even though the VRC6 has eight channels, I decided against DPCM entirely. The original piece is sample/synth, so this seemed a bit redundant.

When working with limited channels, I stick to the basics first. This meant melodic, percussion, and basslines material took priority. Next, I focused on the track’s special effects and notable sound events. These ranged from various echo and phaser type effects to emulating big reverb sounds. Lastly, I created multiple ADSR envelopes for each waveform I used. These shaped the sound’s volume, pitch, and duty cycles.

This was a great lesson in both transcription and production. Not only did I learn what made the original track tick, but I gained a lot of experience in building mock instruments out of basic waveform shapes.

What do you think? Feel free to leave a comment in the video and let me know.