About Goldeneye's USFs by TheUltimateKoopa at 6:39 PM EST on January 14, 2010
Particularly the Depot stage. You know that Marimba sounding instrument that just plays the same notes over and over, in the background? It's the VERY first thing you hear in the tune. Anyway, what I was confused about was the fact that that part seems to come on at random times. Like for example it's at the start of the first loop, but not at the start of the second loop but appears halfway through the loop. I got to about 18 minutes (<_<), and still failed to find a part where it truly loops 100%. It's odd but does anyone know why this is?
by arbingordon at 10:57 PM EST on January 14, 2010
tons of stuff on the n64 doesn't loop "100%" due to little instrument samples or whatever. I believe the consensus was to tag stuff to realistic loop points, otherwise, you would end up with 10minute+ track lengths for stuff that loops to about 1 minute ignoring background instruments and such.
as to why this stuff is, I have no idea. maybe it's due to everything being made in realtime that this can happen.
The most likely cause is that the marimba thing's musical length is different from the rest of the song's, so that channel loops at a different spot and thus doesn't line up with the rest of the music, meaning there probably won't be a 100% loop for several dozen loops, mathematically depending on how long the marimba thing's track length is compared to the others.
As for why the song was done that way, my guess is it was intentional and done for effect, perhaps even specifically to prevent 100% loops from happening. You'd have to ask the composer or programmer on that one.
Compare to the original game. If the game loops 100%, the USF is just a bad rip. If it doesn't, then all the above stand.
Say you have two sections in a song playing simultaneously. One is 30 seconds and the other is 40 seconds. Just time the song after the second loop of the longest section (so something around 1:20 minutes in the example). That way, everything is heard at least twice.
I know the Game Boy Camera uses a lot of this kind of thing, or even polyrhythms. For example, the part where you Edit Photos (I think I made a MIDI a long time ago), has a loop of 3 bars of 4/4 on one channel, a bar of 20/8 (or 10/4) on another channel, and a 13/4 loop. So it's basically 12/4 on top of 10/4 on top of 13/4. The 13/4 loop lasts around 5 seconds on my MIDI, the 10/4 loop lasts slightly under 4 seconds, and the "12/4" (3 bars of 4/4) loop lasts for about 4.5 seconds. But it doesn't fully loop until probably over 4 minutes. At least my MIDI goes for 4:51 and IIRC I made it so that it keeps playing until all the channels start again at the same time (as I do).
But try listening to the soundtrack and you'll notice there are LOTS of this kind of thing.