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Week of the 10/21/2024 - #43

Contents

tech

  • 3D perspective
  • MIDI Resources

arts

  • Shinto Perspectives in Miyazaki’s Anime Film “Spirited Away”

3D perspective

Last month was FlashParty in Argentina. I created a 256 byte entry which projected an xor pattern on a plane. For this I used the code for the floor tiling effect in the famous memories 256 MSDOS entry. To understand a bit better how the projection works I found this site which does a great job at explaining how to project from 3D onto the screen. Here are a list of some useful links:

MIDI Resources

Also for my FlashParty entry I wanted to use MIDI sounds. One problem I had was that I wasn’t able to get MIDI working in Dosbox under Linux. After some research I understood how to do it. Basically you need to be running a MIDI emulation software that listens to MIDI events and converts them to sound. This can be done with an application called Timidity. By running Timidity on a separate terminal it will listen to MIDI events and produce sound. Here’s how you can do it:

  1. Install timidiy++
  2. Run timidity in the background with: 
    $ timidity -iA -p8

    This will make Timidity listen on port 129:0 - 129:3

  3. You can see what ports are active with: aconnect -o
  4. In your DOSBOX configuration, in the MIDI section put:
[midi]
#     mpu401: Type of MPU-401 to emulate.
#             Possible values: intelligent, uart, none.
# mididevice: Device that will receive the MIDI data from MPU-401.
#             Possible values: default, win32, alsa, oss, coreaudio, coremidi, none.
# midiconfig: Special configuration options for the device driver. This is usually the id of the device you want to use.
#               See the README/Manual for more details.

mpu401=uart
mididevice=alsa
midiconfig=129:0

One important parameter when you run Timidity is the -p8: this makes sure you do not produce more than 8 simultaneous sounds (voices). Most 256 byte intros send key down events but not key up. By abusing that most MIDI instruments have a limited number of voices once you send the 9th note, the first one will be turned off. In this way you save precious bytes that would be needed to turn off notes.

During the development I found this resources to be very useful:

  • General MIDI - Timidity supports the General MIDI instruments. “General MIDI (also known as GM or GM 1) is a standardized specification for electronic musical instruments that respond to MIDI messages.”. In this page you can see all instruments that are available out of the box when you use Timidity.

Drum sounds:

For MIDI Channel 10, each MIDI KEY number (“NOTE#”) corresponds to a different drum sound, as shown below. While many current instruments also have additional sounds above or below the range show here, and may even have additional “kits” with variations of these sounds, only these sounds are supported by General MIDI Level 1 devices.

==================================================
Key# Note Drum Sound         Key# Note Drum Sound
==================================================
35 B0  Acoustic Bass Drum    59 B2  Ride Cymbal 2
36 C1  Bass Drum 1           60 C3  Hi Bongo
37 C#1 Side Stick            61 C#3 Low Bongo
38 D1  Acoustic Snare        62 D3  Mute Hi Conga
39 Eb1 Hand Clap             63 Eb3 Open Hi Conga
40 E1  Electric Snare        64 E3  Low Conga
41 F1  Low Floor Tom         65 F3  High Timbale
42 F#1 Closed Hi Hat         66 F#3 Low Timbale
43 G1  High Floor Tom        67 G3  High Agogo
44 Ab1 Pedal Hi-Hat          68 Ab3 Low Agogo
45 A1  Low Tom               69 A3  Cabasa
46 Bb1 Open Hi-Hat           70 Bb3 Maracas
47 B1  Low-Mid Tom           71 B3  Short Whistle
48 C2  Hi Mid Tom            72 C4  Long Whistle
49 C#2 Crash Cymbal 1        73 C#4 Short Guiro
50 D2  High Tom              74 D4  Long Guiro
51 Eb2 Ride Cymbal 1         75 Eb4 Claves
52 E2  Chinese Cymbal        76 E4  Hi Wood Block
53 F2  Ride Bell             77 F4  Low Wood Block
54 F#2 Tambourine            78 F#4 Mute Cuica
55 G2  Splash Cymbal         79 G4  Open Cuica
56 Ab2 Cowbell               80 Ab4 Mute Triangle
57 A2  Crash Cymbal 2        81 A4  Open Triangle
58 Bb2 Vibraslap

Shinto Perspectives in Miyazaki’s Anime Film “Spirited Away”

Chihiro y su filosofia

A couple of weekends ago I went to a publishing fair and came across a small book called: “Chihiro y su filosofia”. The book is basically a translation into spanish of the research article ‘Shinto Perspectives in Miyazaki’s Anime Film “Spirited Away”’ written by James W. Boyd & Tetsuya Nishimura of the Colorado State University. You can read the original article here. Here is the abstract:

“Among the anime films by Hayao Miyazaki made available in English translation, Spirited Away contains the most folk and Shrine Shinto motifs. The central locale of the film is a bathhouse where a great variety of creatures, including kami, come to bathe and be refreshed. This feature, plus the portrayal of various other folk beliefs and Shrine Shinto perspectives, suggests that Miyazaki is affirming some basic Japanese cultural values which can be a source of confidence and renewal for contemporary viewers.”

Since the first time I saw the movie it was aparent to me that it referenced a lot of things from Japanese culture but I never knew exactly what. This article and book does a great job of explaining exactly that. The book is printed by artefacto editorial a small editorial based here in Argentina. Check the Instagram article here.

I created an .epub version of the article here. The markdown source can be found here.