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Here you go: video with audio.

http://blog.ntrq.net/?p=404

(Sound quality seems to have been compromised by YouTube but you'll get the idea)

Oh lord, I finished off the synthesis stuff tonight and got it playing one track of a (fake) pattern, complete with real-time modulating via the Trigger Parameter function and a drum patch using all 5 hardware voices.

It works incredibly well. I've amazed myself and I'm not easily impressed

Getting it to this stage has thrown up a few UI issues to solve (and a couple of bugs) but I'll try to do a little video tomorrow night.

Nice idea but it's too complicated for this project.

I've been laid up with some sort of chest infection / virus type nonsense so I've been doing bits and piece on PR8.

I'm not kidding when I say this is going to be the most awesome thing to ever hit the NES. Seriously.

I'll do one of my infamous videos soon as most of the UI is now working (and it's kind of producing sound that you can modify via the UI) but there's a long way to go yet. Had another bit of a redesign and I think I'm closer to what I need now. Quick screen grab to show you some progress;

Some info:

You can see the cursor in the Grid Editor. This is where you place the triggers for the sounds/drums. On the right-hand side are the parameters for each trigger. From top-to-bottom: root note, retrigger speed, parameter 1 value, parameter 2 value, parameter 3 value.

To modify the trigger parameters in the grid, you can tap B and the editing cursor will move to the trigger box where you can edit each one. Alternatively, if you hold A on a trigger in the grid you can modify one of the 5 values without leaving the grid. Which value you edit is indicated by the little green arrow next to the trigger parameters. The position of the arrow is saved per track. To move the arrow, tap B to jump to trigger box and move up/down. Tap B to jump back.

It might take a little effort to get your head around from just a text description but it's really fast and simple to make very complicated patterns of triggers. I'll do a video to show you.

The three parameters P1,P2 and P3 all relate to the 3 settings at the bottom of the drum parameters (handily labelled P1, P2 and P3!). At the side of these you'll see 3-letter codes. These code refer to one of the 42 parameters of each drum. In the picture;

AOC = Voice {A}, {O}scillator, {C}oarse Pitch Offset
AOF = Voice {A}, {O}scillator, {F}ine Pitch Offset
AOH = Voice {A}, {O}scillator, {H}ard Frequency

Therefore, in the Grid, when you write values to P1, P2 and P3 for this Sound/Drum, you'll write values to AOC, AOF and AOH respectively. Takes a little bit of thinking about but I think it's a pretty revolutionary design (actually, I was heavily influenced by my Monomachine )

I feel your pain Tony - the progress towards Pulsar beta has slowed to snails pace.

Nice to hear you're making progress

OK, last night I was fiddling about with LFOs and envelopes and also running a few numbers. Per drum there are 42 parameters so it's just not practical to be able to modify all of them on each pattern step. When you start multiplying that up by the number of tracks that's 42 x 6 bytes per pattern step x 16 pattern steps. Each pattern would take up 4032 bytes which is just silly.

I've come up with a plan though. For each drum patch, you can select 4 of the parameter that are able to be modified by the pattern. This way I'm only having to do 6 bytes per pattern step (x 6 x 16 = 576 bytes per patter). The 6 bytes per pattern step would be: pitch, retrigger speed, param 1, param 2, param 3, param 4.

Here's the list of parameters that I think should make it pretty flexible and interesting. The codes in brackets e.g. (AAV) are what you'll specify in the drum patch as being modifiable by the pattern steps.

;00 A AMP (AAV) Volume    ;Nx = curve number, xN = volume scale
;01 A AMP (AAE) Envelope    ;Nx = attack, xN = decay
;02 A AMP (AAG) Gate Time    ;00-7F = one-shot, 80-FF = looped envelope
;03 A OSC (AOC) Coarse Pitch    ;signed semitone offset
;04 A OSC (AOF) Fine Pitch    ;signed detune offset
;05 A OSC (AOH) Hard Frequency;00=off, anything else = on
;06 A DTY (ADS) Mode/Speed    ;00-7F = one shot, 80-FF = loop
;07 A DTY (AP1) Pulse Width 1    ;00 40 80 C0
;08 A DTY (AP2) Pulse Width 2    ;00 40 80 C0
;09 A LFO (ALD) Delay    ;00-7F = vib/sweep delay, 80-FF = arpeggio speed
;0A A LFO (ALS) Speed    ;vib speed or if 00, sweep mode. If arpeggio mode, speed = number of repeats
;0B A LFO (ALW) Width    ;vib depth or if sweep mode, pitch sweep. If arpeggio, depth = chord

;0C B AMP (BAV) Volume
;0D B AMP (BAE) Envelope
;0E B AMP (BAG) Gate Time
;0F B OSC (BOC) Coarse Pitch (semitone)
;10 B OSC (BOF) Fine Pitch (detune)
;11 B OSC (BOH) Hard Frequency
;12 B DTY (BDM) Mode/Speed
;13 B DTY (BP1) Pulse Width 1
;14 B DTY (BP2) Pulse Width 2
;15 B LFO (BLD) Delay
;16 B LFO (BLS) Speed
;17 B LFO (BLW) Width

;18 C AMP (CAE) Envelope    ;if 00, just use gate time to turn on/off, otherwise, Nx = frames on, xN = frames off, in loop
;19 C AMP (CAG) Gate Time
;1A C OSC (COC) Coarse Pitch (semitone)
;1B C OSC (COF) Fine Pitch (detune)
;1C C LFO (CLD) Delay
;1D C LFO (CLS) Speed
;1E C LFO (CLW) Width

;1F D AMP (DAV) Volume
;20 D AMP (DAE) Envelope
;21 D AMP (DAG) Gate Time
;22 D LFO (DLD) Delay
;23 D LFO (DLS) Speed
;24 D LFO (DLD) Depth

;26 E SMP (ESM) Sample Number
;27 E SMP (EPT) Pitch
;28 E SMP (EST) Start Offset
;29 E SMP (EEN) End Offset
;2A E SMP (ELP) Loop

;2B Seq Parameter 1 ;these are modifiable in real time by the pattern
;2C Seq Parameter 2
;2D Seq Parameter 3
;2E Seq Parameter 4

So you'd say, set "Seq Parameter 1" to AAV (Volume A) and "Seq Parameter 2" to ALD (LFO Depth A) so then in the pattern you can set values to these parameters indirectly on each pattern step. Nice eh?