I think the A500-era Amigas can only read PC disks through software, at least that's how I remember reading them.  The ST can do it directly though.

34

(11 replies, posted in Releases)

scannerboy wrote:

Hey, can you go 2 or 3 SIDs + FM?

Also is there any chance for OPL2 features?

For 2SID/3SID yep, just point any free output passes at the different sid chips as needed. (see video below)  This is only playing the same SID channels back to the chips though, to 'double-up' the sound.  (though you can do stuff like changing the root octave and timbre like in the Decline demo track)   You could add a couple of unique passes to the end that only output to SID but I think it'd run out of rastertime running another music player.

OPL2 not anytime soon, before I add any more big features I'll want to get a real cart.  I also want to see if there's any interest in what's there already.

35

(11 replies, posted in Releases)

Full thing is now released.  You'll need the DASM assembler to compile but hopefully the rest is straightforward.

36

(11 replies, posted in Releases)

jefftheworld wrote:

How fast can you write parameters to the FM Expander?

It updates them per frame. It'd probably run out of rastertime writing everything on each channel, but I do a compare with the previous frame to see what's changed and only send that.  (pitch, gate, ADSR, patch config)

37

(11 replies, posted in Releases)

Hi,

This is a quick demo of my upcoming FM Expander cart driver for the C64.  Read the scroller for more details, this one converts playing SID files into FM data, so (in theory) you can use any sid editor you want.   I used 4 GoatTracker 1.x songs to write this.

Download for PAL machines

Another go at an FM Expander cart driver.  This allows you to use any SID music editor to write FM tracks, by translating pitch, ADSR and waveforms to FM output.  The downside is it's quite easy to run out of rastertime.  (working on things to help with that)   The example below is playing 2 Goat Tracker stereo tracks, 9 channels are being translated to FM and the last 3 are output to the SID chip for 12 channels total.

39

(9 replies, posted in General Discussion)

In tracker modules they're samples, though there are a couple of drivers that generate it in software.  (used in small-sized demos)   You either record a bunch of notes with filter/distortion variations or whole sequences if you've got the sample space.   Some people use the 9XX command on sequences to playback from specific points in the sample at different pitches.  Combining that with a few tone portamento effects in tracks can get a reasonably good simulation.

The other option is cross-platform editors like Goat Tracker2 or Cheese Cutter, so you can write music on your PC with a software emulation of the SID built-in and then export a SID file to play on hardware if you want.  Both of those are quite popular.

There wasn't much traction on the c64 side so I'm leaving it as a proof-of-concept.  The driver is quite modular when it builds, so if you set it to use an external sid player it'll only include the FM-related stuff. (and JSRs to wherever the sid player calls are)  So I'd assume commenting out that external player stuff and changing the root OPL addresses should get it to do something.  I don't know if OPL3 follows the same structure, but the 3526 chip had the registers in a fixed order iirc.

I haven't released sources/converter for that, however FM-Sid has the source with it.  It can be setup to run an external player rather than the built-in sid one so I guess you could have FM + a vblank pokey player running at once.

After last year's Atari 8-bit experiments we've tried playing 40 Atari ST songs on the sid chip.  PAL only and uses a fastloader so won't be compatible with the more basic disk emulators.  (some song data can be up to 35k+ in size so we needed to get it into memory as quick as possible on hardware)  You'll also need a 6581 chip to play the digidrum tracks, but there's only a handful of those.

Download from here or watch a video of the first disk below.

There's some info in the text file on what is simulated and to what degree, and a bit of sourcecode at the end with my ramshackle instant volume switching routine.   In the player you can change volume curves, the 'comp' one can help with the clicking sound heard with low volume instruments.

The tracks in the intros are from the plus/4 running through our ted simulator.  (had to bung it in somewhere)

Well sorry if I sounded a bit harsh, but that's not how it read.

What the heck does that even mean?  It's not just changing some colours on the vblank mate, there is a lot of very cycle-specific stuff going on between the code, the music and the sid reads.

Even if it did run it wouldn't give you the same output.  As described above it's a PAL only release.

47

(2 replies, posted in Releases)

Jellica wrote:

these are from real sids? nice thanks

party bit sounds like the different sids are out of time with each other or something. super weird fonkxs

Had a listen to the sid and it sounds like they haven't copied over the player delay in the init.  As that track uses two different players I had to run one of them for a few frames before they'd sync together.  I've sent HVSIDS a message.

48

(16 replies, posted in Software & Plug-ins)

You might want to look at the Reaper DAW too.  It has a scripting language built-in specifically for making your own plug-ins, with midi, sample, timing and UI commands.   Have a look at the syntax.   I've used it myself for writing a few work things and you can edit them real-time within the DAW, though obviously your plug-in is then tied to Reaper.  Reaper can be downloaded for free evaluation.