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Awesome I actually saw this about ten minutes ago. Already downloaded its super helpful! Especially the pattern commands. If you could pair this with a more friendly 64 step, 4 channel default song I think it would be ultra friendly for new users Thanks loads, its great you are still working on the project.
Are you still open to requests?
I would die for FM and a live mode!
I need to make the help screen more organized and maybe add more descriptive text. Now it's just the command/shortcut data dumped in one place. Nice that it already helps a bit!
FM is 50/50 I think, it interests me but I need to think how and if it fits in the "sound chip" model. I don't want everything to start looking and sounding like any crap VSTi out there.
Yeah it is totally a huge help already.
I am glad you are thinking about FM a bit, I am a HUGE FM fan, opl3 is probably my favorite soundchip tied with SID...
I'm thinking something like OPL-1 which was available for the C64 so it would make sense to include with a fake SID-like synth. Not sure which features to include, though! Probably just something like the main oscillator features (waveforms + wavetable + envelope + detune).
Can you define the things that are important in a FM synth?
Sure. I don't think it needs to be particularly complex, Basing the FM on the OPL1 seems like a nice philosophical continuation seeing as the C64 had an expansion with one. The OPL1 doesn't seems particularly well documented but I am guessing it only has one wave form (sine) so something like this would probably be fine
1 Carrier sine-wave osc with, ADSR, Multiplier (pitch) and volume.
1 Modulator sine-wave osc with, ADSR, Multiplier (pitch), volume and feedback
and a pattern command for Modulator volume.
That would be about it unless you wanted to get into something more complicated which you probably don't need more than that. If you were able to add in volume and pitch for the other oscillators (seeing as you need both for FM or it doesn't really work) that would be fantastic!
I have no particular opinion on FM. The only thing that worries me is like you say: if klystrack starts doing too much, it'll start being less oldschool/chippy and more of a DAW-ish thing. But before new implements, there are bugs that could probably be fixed quick:
-pressing 'loop from current' when your cursor is over a channel with no pattern in will loop the 64th row of the previous pattern instead and is insanely annoying
-arp effects carry from song to song. if I have a 037 on channel 1 in song A and then load song B, the channel still has the 037 applied. If you play a 0F0x instrument in channel 1, it'll arpegiate.
-sometimes the sequencer view at the top of classic view seems to kind of desync with where you really are in the song. If you CTRL-K over a pattern to make a copy.. sometimes it doesn't work. What really happens is that a pattern was indeed copied, to the next available pattern as expected, but that the pattern copied is another one, and it doesn't show up on the sequencer window. If you press enter a couple times to switch the cursor between sequencer and pattern editors, you'll see that upon coming back to the sequencer your cursor is pointing a few patterns before the one you thought you were on before. It's that pattern that's been copied. I don't know the specific trigger for it however. But it happens often enough that has a precaution I always quadruple-enter before I CTRL-K a pattern (which I do all the time)
Also.. instead of converting some FX busses to 'masters', you should just let every instrument export to all FX busses. You just toggle which busses it sends to... like [ ]1 [ ] 2 [ ] 3 [ ] 4 etc. That way people can make their own, and as many master channels as they want, and it also opens the door for some creative FX work.
And a simple live mode. Load two songs side by side, each with a volume fader. That's it 
¯\(º_o)/¯
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I have no particular opinion on FM. The only thing that worries me is like you say: if klystrack starts doing too much, it'll start being less oldschool/chippy and more of a DAW-ish thing.
I totally agree but I think 2op FM still falls pretty much into the oldschool/chippy area.
Also.. instead of converting some FX busses to 'masters', you should just let every instrument export to all FX busses. You just toggle which busses it sends to... like [ ]1 [ ] 2 [ ] 3 [ ] 4 etc. That way people can make their own, and as many master channels as they want, and it also opens the door for some creative FX work.
Seconded!
And a simple live mode. Load two songs side by side, each with a volume fader. That's it
Allso agreed, hotkeys for channel muting would be nice if we are talking live mode too.
The only thing that worries me is like you say: if klystrack starts doing too much, it'll start being less oldschool/chippy and more of a DAW-ish thing.
I am mostly thinking of Adlibtracker/Screamtracker when I think of OPL-2 or so which definitively is super oldschool/nostalgic (to me at least). I see the talk on the FX busses more worrying in that aspect than the talk on FM because there is no obvious analogue to them in the oldschool world (there was just a single reverb originally which of course comes from the SNES).
Will look into those bugs during the weekend, doesn't seem very complex. Related to that arp thing, I was also thinking there could be something like a "chord bank" that allows you to set all EXT0 etc. arp notes with a single command. C001 = set major, C002 = set minor, C003 = set super jazzy 9th etc. I have been reading about FM chips and often they seem to have quite musical parameters, like "set predefined harmonic" instead of just a frequency parameter, which I found cute compared to e.g. some unmusical Atari chip.
Yay for FM, there are some kind of fun quirky chips out there for sure. Also seems like a lot of chips are very very similar.
Maybe a lot of chips simply are versions of the OPL family?
I must admit, I don't really understand the families that well. There are LOADS of Yamaha chips which never made it to the West. My friend made this table which is probably the most complete resource I have found :
http://www.vorc.org/text/column/hally/ymxxxx.html
The differences in the actual FM synthesis happening seems pretty small. Almost all the 2 op and 4op chips are sine wave (or sine wave based waves like opl2) only with more or less the same algorithms. The only really unique ones I know of are the opl3 and which has 8 waveforms and the YM2414 which has 8 waveforms plus a pitch envelope.
Wow, that's a very interesting link. It almost says Atari ST could have had an FM chip but Yamaha didn't allow it (that's what I want it to read I guess.)
The differences in the actual FM synthesis happening seems pretty small.
Maybe technology went forward at such speed that there was no point exploring (cheap) FM synthesis when there were already some sampler chips available. Maybe they thought it's better to use PCM for drums and other FM-unfriendly sounds and FM for rest, so just increasing operator count was enough. Maybe the sine wave is quite enough for all FM uses considering you can also modulate the modulator, I would guess a complex waveform creates way too messy sounds to be useful.
Damn it, I want to go home already to try some stuff.
Yah, I have quite a few friends out here who are really REALLY into FM. They have made some pretty incredible hardware but the software side is all MML which is a bit to hardcore for me. Look forward to seeing what you come upwith....
Small but kind of annoying bug. The Awesome F1 help screen will loop the current step if you press F1 while playing a song or the current step of the program table while playing an instrument....
I think it locks the synth while showing the help so it repeats the audio buffer over and over until the synth is unlocked.
FM report: this will be ready over the weekend, at least very basic OPL-1 style modulation. You can use the wavetable as a modulator so you are not limited to the few basic waveforms. The biggest problem is to find room for the parameters in the instrument editor.
Awesome news! Can't wait to see how this works.