48 replies to this topic

[RKGames]

I've started to work on a music tracker for coleco games. Here is a demo of it's early stage of development. I got a ways to go before this will generate actual coleco music format data but wanted to share to show my continued support for the coleco community.

Take care,
Russ

[5-11under]

Very cool!

[Pixelboy]

Now this is excellent news!

I hope you'll be keeping notes along the way. I say this because, after releasing six new CV games at the end of this year, I'll be taking a break from CV homebrew publishing in 2013 and I'll be starting work on BasicVision. And the very first thing I'll do as part of the BV project is to study the ColecoVision's sound capabilities, and work on custom sound development tools in Java. I will later integrate these tools into the global BasicVision IDE (which will also be developed in Java, obviously).

The underlying logic behind this is that sound output is an essential part of any game, and given that I currently know next to nothing about sound output on the CV, I'll be pretty much starting from scratch with it, and I know that if I can't add good music and sound effects to my future CV games made with BasicVision, then all the time and effort I will have poured into the BV project will have been for nothing. So I'll be starting with the toughest part, namely sound output, and if I can't acquire a good understanding of it and make good dev tools, then I'll stop the whole project right there.

All this to say that I may very well look you up next year about this sensitive subject, Russ.

Edited by Pixelboy, Sat Jan 21, 2012 12:21 PM.

[bfg.gamepassion]

That's a great news !! There's only basic tool for Coleco around the web, this one seems to be very useable and will be really usefull.
Will you share it with the community ?

[RKGames]

bfg.gamepassion, on Sat Jan 21, 2012 12:34 PM, said:

That's a great news !! There's only basic tool for Coleco around the web, this one seems to be very useable and will be really usefull.
Will you share it with the community ?

Yes i'm planning on sharing CV Tracker with the coleco community once it's done. I'll likely send a weekly update on the project like i do with my other projects so hopefully it will come along nicely!?

Take care
Russ

[65Gamerguy]

I think this is pretty awesome. It almost looks easy enough for me to use it and I know nothing about music!

Well done sir!

[RKGames]

65Gamerguy, on Sat Jan 21, 2012 3:03 PM, said:

I think this is pretty awesome. It almost looks easy enough for me to use it and I know nothing about music!

Well done sir!

Thanks! that is my plan with CV Tracker, to release an easy to use music composer that with enough playing around, someone could create nice music with little music background! or if you have the sheet music to something, you can plug in the notes as i did with the metroid demo tune. I'm not musically inclined at all, and always liked the amiga mod tracker tools, but figured i'd need to write one from scratch so i have control of the output file creation to allow for the coleco music format. Hopefully it will become a nice tool to use in the near future!!!! thanks for the kind words on the early demo version everyone!!!

I'm also hoping to release a .ROM builder function that will create a compilable stand along jukebox rom of your song so anyone without much coding skill could compile the output and enjoy on your CV hardware. this will come later though!

Russ

[RKGames]

Pixelboy, on Sat Jan 21, 2012 12:12 PM, said:

Now this is excellent news!

I hope you'll be keeping notes along the way. I say this because, after releasing six new CV games at the end of this year, I'll be taking a break from CV homebrew publishing in 2013 and I'll be starting work on BasicVision. And the very first thing I'll do as part of the BV project is to study the ColecoVision's sound capabilities, and work on custom sound development tools in Java. I will later integrate these tools into the global BasicVision IDE (which will also be developed in Java, obviously).

The underlying logic behind this is that sound output is an essential part of any game, and given that I currently know next to nothing about sound output on the CV, I'll be pretty much starting from scratch with it, and I know that if I can't add good music and sound effects to my future CV games made with BasicVision, then all the time and effort I will have poured into the BV project will have been for nothing. So I'll be starting with the toughest part, namely sound output, and if I can't acquire a good understanding of it and make good dev tools, then I'll stop the whole project right there.

All this to say that I may very well look you up next year about this sensitive subject, Russ.

Sounds like a neat project! hopfully CV tracker will be a success story by that time and i'll have info to share. I'm still just getting starting with learning the coleco music format myself but hopefully things will make sense to me soon enough?!

Take care
Russ

[Pixelboy]

RKGames, on Sat Jan 21, 2012 3:13 PM, said:

Sounds like a neat project! hopfully CV tracker will be a success story by that time and i'll have info to share. I'm still just getting starting with learning the coleco music format myself but hopefully things will make sense to me soon enough?!

I was supposed to get started on BasicVision last year, but when Eduardo provided all these SG-1000 ports for me to publish, let's just say you don't say no to something like that. But I'll be done with outsourced projects after this last batch of six games, and I won't let anything distract me from BasicVision next year.

Daniel Bienvenu seems to be MIA at the moment, I hope he will come back. He knows the Coleco sound format like the back of his hand...

[RKGames]

Pixelboy, on Sat Jan 21, 2012 4:05 PM, said:

RKGames, on Sat Jan 21, 2012 3:13 PM, said:

Sounds like a neat project! hopfully CV tracker will be a success story by that time and i'll have info to share. I'm still just getting starting with learning the coleco music format myself but hopefully things will make sense to me soon enough?!

I was supposed to get started on BasicVision last year, but when Eduardo provided all these SG-1000 ports for me to publish, let's just say you don't say no to something like that. But I'll be done with outsourced projects after this last batch of six games, and I won't let anything distract me from BasicVision next year.

Daniel Bienvenu seems to be MIA at the moment, I hope he will come back. He knows the Coleco sound format like the back of his hand...

I agree, Dan is the coleco sound guru! I sent Dan a message early today asking to help explain more on how the coleco music format works.. I'm getting close to being at a point where i'll be ready to export to a file, so i'm hoping to have dan explain in more detail how the format works.

Good luck on BasicVision. I'm not familar with it i admit, is it going to be a basic language with IDE for coleco? sounds neat either way.

[Pixelboy]

RKGames, on Sat Jan 21, 2012 4:19 PM, said:

Good luck on BasicVision. I'm not familar with it i admit, is it going to be a basic language with IDE for coleco? sounds neat either way.

There's a small sub-section devoted to BV on my Team Pixelboy web site. Everything is concentrated in a downloadable text document, so feel free to look it over if you're interested. I won't be working on it until next year anyhow.

[retroillucid]

Now, thalk about something we all need here!!!! ... A music tool!
well.... except maybe for newcoleco

When you first talked me about this, I was all happy but seing it in action! Wow!

Can't wait to get my hands on this!
I'll FINALLY be able to produce all those sounds and melodies I have in head! SWWWEEEET!

Can a midi keyboard can be used with it?

[Yurkie]

Awesome!

Sure looked like you have a great start on the project.

You talked at the end about it outputting midi files for cell phones, what about outputting .mp3? Then you could play it on most anything. Just a thought.

[RKGames]

I added a new demo song in this video, Anyone with info on emulating the ti SN 76489 AN sound chip message me. I'm trying to figure out the best (and easier) way to simulate the sounds of the coleco sound chip without completely going nuts.

I found a nasty error in my code that was causing all the notes to play in the wrong octave, playing the mario bros song made it easier to notice the error. thats been fixed and i also am starting to work on a file save format for .CVT files. and then onto a coleco compatible file format once i understand how the colco music format works.

Take care,
Russ

[youki]

If you manage to generate sound format compatible with Daniel's sound routine , I'm really looking foward for that tool!!

And as you seem extremely good... once done... i propose you a new challenge... make a tool that convert musique from SID (Commodore 64) files to the coleco sound format. (Of course i aware the result of converting SID to Coleco sound chip will not be good sometimes and some effect are not reproductible on coleco's sound chip , but it could generate something "audible" that we could eventually adjust later with your tracker! ).

[RKGames]

youki, on Tue Jan 24, 2012 9:03 AM, said:

If you manage to generate sound format compatible with Daniel's sound routine , I'm really looking foward for that tool!!

And as you seem extremely good... once done... i propose you a new challenge... make a tool that convert musique from SID (Commodore 64) files to the coleco sound format. (Of course i aware the result of converting SID to Coleco sound chip will not be good sometimes and some effect are not reproductible on coleco's sound chip , but it could generate something "audible" that we could eventually adjust later with your tracker! ).

A SID converter would be cool. it would be a nice addition sometime down the road! I did have an idea once i hopefully get some SN76489AN emulation working, I want to add the ability to define sound effects as instruments, so it could be possible todo some kind of rob hubbard type effects?! This also is down the road but is a must attempt feature!

I had a good few hours of coding over the last few days and am inching closer to having a full working tracker (midi for now). Once i got most of the important features working i'm going to see how to get emulation of the coleco sound chip working. I found some interesting info on SN76489An in some mame articles. Anyone with any info on emulation of this chip let me know!!!!!

[Pixelboy]

RKGames, on Tue Jan 24, 2012 7:26 PM, said:

A SID converter would be cool. it would be a nice addition sometime down the road! I did have an idea once i hopefully get some SN76489AN emulation working, I want to add the ability to define sound effects as instruments, so it could be possible todo some kind of rob hubbard type effects?! This also is down the road but is a must attempt feature!

After hearing some of Daniel Bienvenu's work, I can tell you that the CV is capable of very SID-like effects.

[pboland]

RKGames, on Sun Jan 22, 2012 7:05 PM, said:

I added a new demo song in this video, Anyone with info on emulating the ti SN 76489 AN sound chip message me. I'm trying to figure out the best (and easier) way to simulate the sounds of the coleco sound chip without completely going nuts.

I don't know if this helps, but have you considered using a VST host with a synth plug in to simulate the SN 76489 chip? Here's a VST instrument that can emulate that chip (and many others).:

http://www.plogue.co...cts/chipsounds/

Here's the main page I found these at:

http://woolyss.com/c...sic-plugins.php

Found another one that might be even better:

http://woolyss.com/c...ns.php?s=SN-EMU

I hope that helps in some way.

[Pixelboy]

You may also want to have a talk with Tursi, here on AA. He has quite a bit of experience with the CV sound chip. He converted several NES tunes to play on the CV, for one thing. He may give you some tips.

[skosh]

I heard you mention that you are using C# so this should be of some assistance.
Cogwheel : C# Sega 8 bit emu with Colecovision support.

Blargg's Audio Libraries also seems like a possibility. It's an audio library not in C# but C/C++ which could be ported. Hopefully between these you have enough to add SN76489 support to your tracker. You also can look at basically any of the open source options like MAME / MESS, SMS emus etc.

Good luck with this and look forward to seeing the end result.

[RKGames]

pboland, on Wed Jan 25, 2012 12:18 PM, said:

RKGames, on Sun Jan 22, 2012 7:05 PM, said:

I added a new demo song in this video, Anyone with info on emulating the ti SN 76489 AN sound chip message me. I'm trying to figure out the best (and easier) way to simulate the sounds of the coleco sound chip without completely going nuts.

I don't know if this helps, but have you considered using a VST host with a synth plug in to simulate the SN 76489 chip? Here's a VST instrument that can emulate that chip (and many others).:

http://www.plogue.co...cts/chipsounds/

Here's the main page I found these at:

http://woolyss.com/c...sic-plugins.php

Found another one that might be even better:

http://woolyss.com/c...ns.php?s=SN-EMU

I hope that helps in some way.

Thanks, i'll check them out and see what can be done.

[RKGames]

skosh, on Wed Jan 25, 2012 9:00 PM, said:

I heard you mention that you are using C# so this should be of some assistance.
Cogwheel : C# Sega 8 bit emu with Colecovision support.

Blargg's Audio Libraries also seems like a possibility. It's an audio library not in C# but C/C++ which could be ported. Hopefully between these you have enough to add SN76489 support to your tracker. You also can look at basically any of the open source options like MAME / MESS, SMS emus etc.

Good luck with this and look forward to seeing the end result.

DUDE!!! awesome! i think i can use this one! I spent most of last night ripping apart a java PSG emulator to rebuild in c#, this looks very very promising! I'll keep everyone posted if this is the way togo.

Thanks for the info!
Russ

[skosh]

More than happy to assist. If I come across anything else that maybe of use I'll post that as well. I'd imagine the source for Colem most likely has some C that could be ported. But I am pretty sure that if there is something already in C# and works well (Cogwheel hopefully) that would be your preference.

[RKGames]

skosh, on Thu Jan 26, 2012 5:54 PM, said:

More than happy to assist. If I come across anything else that maybe of use I'll post that as well. I'd imagine the source for Colem most likely has some C that could be ported. But I am pretty sure that if there is something already in C# and works well (Cogwheel hopefully) that would be your preference.

Thanks again for the info! It will keep me busy for a while! I didnt realize how many open source EMU's there are these days!

Russ

[RKGames]

BIG update for the CV Tracker! Check out my latest youTube Video for details and demo.



Russ