12 replies to this topic

[Super Komaru]

Hey! I've been a chiptune artist for a long time, and I've been recently wondering- was there ever some sort of tracker software on the Atari Lynx? Perhaps something akin to LSDj on the Game Boy?
The Lynx has quite the interesting sound chip, so it wouldn't surprise me if someone attempted to write something like a sequencer or at least a synthesiser for it in the past.
Thanks a ton!

[sage]

Super Komaru, on Sun Dec 26, 2010 4:55 PM, said:

Hey! I've been a chiptune artist for a long time, and I've been recently wondering- was there ever some sort of tracker software on the Atari Lynx? Perhaps something akin to LSDj on the Game Boy?
The Lynx has quite the interesting sound chip, so it wouldn't surprise me if someone attempted to write something like a sequencer or at least a synthesiser for it in the past.
Thanks a ton!

http://lynxdev.atari.org/Chipper.zip

Give it a try. Its only a beta version.

Edited by sage, Wed Dec 29, 2010 7:17 AM.

[Super Komaru]

Ah, thanks!
I just played around with it, and yeah, it looks like there's a Tracker/MOD Import feature that had yet to be implemented.
Looks like it was never finished?

[sage]

Super Komaru, on Wed Dec 29, 2010 1:58 PM, said:

Ah, thanks!
I just played around with it, and yeah, it looks like there's a Tracker/MOD Import feature that had yet to be implemented.
Looks like it was never finished?

Missing seriouz testers and users, therefore lack of enthusiasm to finish it.

Anway the MOD import should work for 4channel mods, where at least the notes are imported.

Edited by sage, Thu Dec 30, 2010 8:23 AM.

[Super Komaru]

Oh, should it? Do I just have to compile it? Because in the EXE I ran, those two options were greyed out.

[sage]

Super Komaru, on Thu Dec 30, 2010 2:01 PM, said:

Oh, should it? Do I just have to compile it? Because in the EXE I ran, those two options were greyed out.

Well yes, they were "removed" because they are not so finished yet.
As I said (already many times), as long no one is willing to test and use it, there is no progress :-(

[108 Stars]

That´s a shame. I downloaded the tracker and will send it to a friend one of these days... I hope he will find it useful.

I wanted him to do some tracks for one of matashen´s future games, but the lack of tools and documentation kind of turned him off. He is a real genius with chip-tunes, he did most of the Pier Solar-soundtrack, but proper tools are needed and he is no tech guy.

Sound was already a very low-priotity-topic in Atari´s days, and it may be the weak point of today´s Lynx-homebrew-games as well.

[sage]

108 Stars, on Sat Jan 1, 2011 12:54 AM, said:

That´s a shame. I downloaded the tracker and will send it to a friend one of these days... I hope he will find it useful.

I wanted him to do some tracks for one of matashen´s future games, but the lack of tools and documentation kind of turned him off. He is a real genius with chip-tunes, he did most of the Pier Solar-soundtrack, but proper tools are needed and he is no tech guy.

Sound was already a very low-priotity-topic in Atari´s days, and it may be the weak point of today´s Lynx-homebrew-games as well.

I will put an updated version on my website soon. Please send me an email, then I mail it directly to you.

[sage]

108 Stars, on Sat Jan 1, 2011 12:54 AM, said:

That´s a shame. I downloaded the tracker and will send it to a friend one of these days... I hope he will find it useful.

In the public version the tracker is disabled :-) So you can only use it for sound effects.
-> PM

Quote

I wanted him to do some tracks for one of matashen´s future games, but the lack of tools and documentation kind of turned him off.
He is a real genius with chip-tunes, he did most of the Pier Solar-soundtrack, but proper tools are needed and he is no tech guy.

Sound was already a very low-priotity-topic in Atari´s days, and it may be the weak point of today´s Lynx-homebrew-games as well.

The sound hardware is powerfull, which makes it complicated to use.
The EPXY sound tool and the BLL sound code is mainly source-code based.
MODs work, but onyl without effects and with low frequency... which is a real pain.

Chipper started as a sound effect tool which craetes register dumps for in game beeps.
And it emulated the hardware on the PC, where you can test everything.

The Tracker part produces BLL "compytible" source code which has to be compiled.
This part need a overhaul as the produced code is unecessary large and ugly.
Packing not supported and so on... anyway. If someone is really interessted in dpoing soudn on the lynx, it
might be worth the efford todo it.

[herr professor]

I bet if you posted this on a chip music forum you'd find lots of people interested in this:


http://chipmusic.org...forum/12/atari/
http://8bc.org/forum...forum.php?id=30


I was just thinking about something like this the other day!

twitterd about this thread:

https://twitter.com/...787086322188288

Hope it gives you some incentive to work on this!

Peter

[sage]

herr professor, on Mon Mar 7, 2011 9:56 AM, said:

I bet if you posted this on a chip music forum you'd find lots of people interested in this:


http://chipmusic.org...forum/12/atari/
http://8bc.org/forum...forum.php?id=30


I was just thinking about something like this the other day!

twitterd about this thread:

https://twitter.com/...787086322188288

Hope it gives you some incentive to work on this!

Peter

Would be nice.

[yerzmyey]

sage, on Wed Dec 29, 2010 7:17 AM, said:

http://lynxdev.atari.org/Chipper.zip
Give it a try. Its only a beta version.

As much as I appreciate the effort put into the program,
I have to admit that I have never seen anything more complicated.

Except women.

[sage]

yerzmyey, on Tue Mar 8, 2011 4:50 AM, said:

sage, on Wed Dec 29, 2010 7:17 AM, said:

http://lynxdev.atari.org/Chipper.zip
Give it a try. Its only a beta version.

As much as I appreciate the effort put into the program,
I have to admit that I have never seen anything more complicated.

Except women.

I agree...