26 replies to this topic

[Cybernoid]

I know. I know. (press SHIFT key) for author ....

I created a simple song. This is still an unfinished project and will make this longer. This is just a couple of themes I have thrown around on the keyboard. I need to add a few more effects and transitions, but you get the idea. Hmmm, I need to try connecting the Keyboard up and feed Midi into RMT directly... this is supported, right?

Anyway, take a listen if you like. All comments are welcome, too... like it? hate it? Let me know... not as good as tatqoo or sack-c0s songs, but... only OPUS 2.


Thanks!

Attached Files

•  qos.zip   2.35K   126 downloads

[Heaven/TQA]

!!!! well done!!!!

[emkay]

A nice one. Very funny, really. Even if the tune isn't using deeper POKEY programming, such tunes have been missing on the A8.

[Cybernoid]

emkay, on Thu Dec 1, 2005 4:59 PM, said:

A nice one. Very funny, really. Even if the tune isn't using deeper POKEY programming, such tunes have been missing on the A8.

Thanks Heaven.

Thanks MK. Yes, I suppose you are right... it is a little funny.

It looks like a couple of people from Germany like it... Danke.

[KulorXL]

Not bad. I need to get back into RMT...
One thing, this song is definately lacking in bass. Maybe it's just me being used to the pounding bass drums and doubled-up bass distortions being played in a lot of other songs, but I think some more emphesis on bass could really help it. Also, this song could really be enhanced by using stereo mode. It almost seems like you were using stereo mode, but deliberately avoided the four right channels, 'cuz I'm pretty sure RMT doesn't automatically shift to the left...
Other than that, though, nicely done. Keep up the good work!

[Schmutzpuppe]

Like it.

[analmux]

I really liked to hear this tune, but indeed like KulorXL said. But if you need deeper bass, then you should use 15khz or a 16bit voice instead of a generator C bass.

[emkay]

analmux, on Fri Dec 2, 2005 2:56 PM, said:

I really liked to hear this tune, but indeed like KulorXL said. But if you need deeper bass, then you should use 15khz or a 16bit voice instead of a generator C bass.

The best combination for such tunes is to switch between 16Bit/15kHz & 4 channel 15kHz.
But all we can do is to mention to RASTER how recommended the full 16 bit support is, for future music making, and to please him to add the needed functions.

Btw: New tune.... I'm working on a soundtrack for a "future" game.
I wasn't sure about posting it on ATARiAGE again. Fandal made a recording of it. The original will be 5 to 10 minutes long and will have more FX in it.
The recording is done over the TV out, so the music sounds a bit "behind the curtain". Played over the AUDIO connector, it will sound crispier.
So this time the MP3, recorded from a real machine.

[Cybernoid]

analmux, on Fri Dec 2, 2005 7:56 AM, said:

I really liked to hear this tune, but indeed like KulorXL said. But if you need deeper bass, then you should use 15khz or a 16bit voice instead of a generator C bass.

Thanks guys. More bass makes sense. I intentually made parts of the song "bass-less" or sort of a cappella. I am actually using the 16bit voice for bass when it is there... the "Bass tone 3 (16 bit bass table)" included with RMT.

I'll mess with 15KHz mode.... but one thing I don't understand in RMT is if there are no notes playing that require bit 0 of $d408 to be 1, then it should be zero. But this doesn't seem to be the case. That is to say that there is an "AUDCTL" field for each instrument, but RMT doesn't seem to follow this.

So, for some reason it is difficult to switch back and forth between 15KHz and 64KHz mode... I think this is what emkay is saying... This would be a nice feature, especially since there is a field for each instrument for data to be pushed into AUDCTL. It cannot be too difficult to implement.

[Cybernoid]

emkay, on Fri Dec 2, 2005 8:30 AM, said:

Btw: New tune.... I'm working on a soundtrack for a "future" game.
I wasn't sure about posting it on ATARiAGE again. Fandal made a recording of it. The original will be 5 to 10 minutes long and will have more FX in it.
The recording is done over the TV out, so the music sounds a bit "behind the curtain". Played over the AUDIO connector, it will sound crispier. 
So this time the MP3, recorded from a real machine.

I want to hear this! However, the link seems to be broken.

[_Fandal_]

Cybernoid, on Fri Dec 2, 2005 11:19 AM, said:

emkay, on Fri Dec 2, 2005 8:30 AM, said:

Btw: New tune.... I'm working on a soundtrack for a "future" game.
I wasn't sure about posting it on ATARiAGE again. Fandal made a recording of it. The original will be 5 to 10 minutes long and will have more FX in it.
The recording is done over the TV out, so the music sounds a bit "behind the curtain". Played over the AUDIO connector, it will sound crispier. 
So this time the MP3, recorded from a real machine.

I want to hear this! However, the link seems to be broken.

It should be OK. I deleted it accidentally.

F.

Edited by _Fandal_, Fri Dec 2, 2005 10:27 AM.

[emkay]

_Fandal_, on Fri Dec 2, 2005 5:26 PM, said:

It should be OK. I deleted it accidentally. 

F.

The current download is a 2.2MB file. The right version should be 3.8MB

[emkay]

emkay, on Fri Dec 2, 2005 5:41 PM, said:

_Fandal_, on Fri Dec 2, 2005 5:26 PM, said:

It should be OK. I deleted it accidentally. 

F.

The current download is a 2.2MB file. The right version should be 3.8MB

I found a free webhoster for the "progdrem.mp3"

http://rapidshare.de...ogdrem.mp3.html


If someone wants to download it, just click on "free" and wait until the counter is down to "0".
Then click on "progdrem.mp3"

Edited by emkay, Fri Dec 2, 2005 11:23 AM.

[Allas]

emkay, on Fri Dec 2, 2005 12:22 PM, said:

emkay, on Fri Dec 2, 2005 5:41 PM, said:

_Fandal_, on Fri Dec 2, 2005 5:26 PM, said:

It should be OK. I deleted it accidentally. 

F.

The current download is a 2.2MB file. The right version should be 3.8MB

I found a free webhoster for the "progdrem.mp3"

http://rapidshare.de...ogdrem.mp3.html


If someone wants to download it, just click on "free" and wait until the counter is down to "0".
Then click on "progdrem.mp3"

Your music examples always have interesting effects, maybe if you post some source code for study purposes. I remember a time ago a example with violin waves.

[sack-c0s]

Hiyas cybernoid,

Nice tune there - for some reason when I listen to it I can imagine playing a rastan-like platform adventure game.

I really need to wake up my work-killed brain and get back into doing some music...

[Cybernoid]

sack-c0s, on Fri Dec 2, 2005 4:20 PM, said:

Hiyas cybernoid,

Nice tune there - for some reason when I listen to it I can imagine playing a rastan-like platform adventure game.

I really need to wake up my work-killed brain and get back into doing some music...

Excellent! (*doing best Mr. Burns impression*) That is exactly the mood I was going for. Although, I didn't specially listen to Rastan Music before making this... well, okay I suppose I spent many hours in front of the Arcade machine back in the day...

For more listening pleasure:

http://www.rastan.ne...tan_sounds.html

[emkay]

Cybernoid, on Fri Dec 2, 2005 11:56 PM, said:

sack-c0s, on Fri Dec 2, 2005 4:20 PM, said:

Hiyas cybernoid,

Nice tune there - for some reason when I listen to it I can imagine playing a rastan-like platform adventure game.

I really need to wake up my work-killed brain and get back into doing some music...

Excellent! (*doing best Mr. Burns impression*) That is exactly the mood I was going for. Although, I didn't specially listen to Rastan Music before making this... well, okay I suppose I spent many hours in front of the Arcade machine back in the day...

For more listening pleasure:

http://www.rastan.ne...tan_sounds.html

Em.... I really would have thought this is a good tune for a platformer. But Rastan? No way.

It's a bit "Zybex" in there and the tune almost fits into some "Alex Kid" or "Wonderboy" Game.

[KulorXL]

You don't need to use the low KHz modes to get deeper bass. I just put two distortion 6 instruments, one on the right. One should take up two channels, and the other just one. Playing the same riff, this'll create a layered bass sound.
As far as the lower KHz modes...argh, I tried those, but they just made everything hideously out of tune.

[emkay]

Allas, on Fri Dec 2, 2005 9:33 PM, said:

Your music examples always have interesting effects, maybe if you post some source code for study purposes. I remember a time ago a example with violin waves.

Hm... I'm not sure how a source code will help here.


Only a small show of physics may help further more.
Let's say "a" is a placeholder and "*" is a part of a waveform

POKEY produces a sound similar to this:

aa***aaa
**aaa***

it could have been produced with simple squarewave programming or while voice 1 played a part of a wave:

********
aaaaaaaa

and filter voice plays a higher note:

**aaa***
aa***aaa

let's have a different offset between the voices:


we would get a

aaa***aaa (A)

or

a***aaa** (B)



The result is a new harmonic.

Harmonic A has only 2 swtiching points, which results as a lower noise to the ear.

Harmonic B) has 3 switching points which sounds higher than A.

Using 15kHz is making the "new harmonics" more "hearable". At 64kHz the sound distorts in a full wrong way.

So all we have to do now, is to handle the offset between the filter-voices.
The best way I found, was to use the highest playable note on both channels, for a short time. Then the "final" offset can be programmed by short filter changes for programming tones, between the 8-bit resolution. But the programming time in every tracker takes too long. Which means one change every vbi. But the programming would be necessary during one VBI Cycle. Then the filter sound can be played while a G2F kernal is running... from one VBI to the other, letting pokey the necessary work do.

Handling the different notes with correct filter effects, means to handle the filteroffset, different for almost every note.
The higher the note, the shorter the offset time has to be.
The Offset time in trackers is almost VBI speed. And inside th VBI we always have the same time (cycle count) between the generator programming.

In theory the programmed resolution can be much higher than 16bit, depending on the precision of "offset" programming.

In RMT I'm handling the "offset" by switching the filter one step down and one up, or vice versa, every VBI step. It makes short notes impossible, because up to 5 or 6 vbi steps are necessary to have the wanted tone & variation.



The timing dependency you can see if you try it yourself in rmt and move the filter down/up on different positions.



Simple one:


Command: 16666
value****: 0f000
value****: 1f000

Or changing it to

Command: 16666
value****: 0f000
********: 1f000
Or

Command: 16666
value****: 0f000
********: 1e100

a.s.o.

[emkay]

emkay, on Sun Dec 4, 2005 3:13 PM, said:

Simple one:


Command: 16666
value****: 0f000
value****: 1f000

Or changing it to


Command: 16666
value****: 00f00
********: 10f00

Or

Command: 16666
value****: 0f000
********: 1e100


a.s.o.

Well... it's the best example that still really no one is interested in POKEY-music.

I made an essential typing mistake here and no one gave a reply on that...
The Bold text is the corrected now.

[emkay]

To make a finish behind my writings about Timing....



This was to be the "ending" of the Soundtrack I was going for. But while the melody was played correctly in RMT, on the real thing it has timing problems.
Which means that it isn't to handle in RMT.

Only to mention it: The timing problem is there, because I'm using a triple octave arpeggio with a filter setting, that gives a noisy/squary triangle. On the real machine simply changing the offset between the filter-voices is the solution for correcting it.

The difference between "old" POKEY programming and this technique is comparable to a Stone Hammer and a CNC machine.
The common usage of POKEY is like using a CNC machine programmed to work a as stone hammer.
...

Edited by emkay, Sat Dec 10, 2005 6:10 AM.

[birdie3]

Hey. Cool tunes. Are you musically trained in any way or are you just making music that sounds interesting? I am definately not in the know when it comes to programming this stuff but I would love to learn.

[Allas]

Really fresh sounds for Atari. Its interesting all these phisycs. Im awating finish some work and put to experiment the new law sounds.

Yes the difference is like Space Harrier game demo sound vs. Space Harrier Multi-sound experiment version.

[Cybernoid]

emkay, on Sat Dec 10, 2005 5:34 AM, said:

Well... it's the best example that still really no one is interested in POKEY-music.

I made an essential typing mistake here and no one gave a reply on that...
The Bold text is the corrected now.

Well, I am definitely interested in Pokey Music, but I have other Atari projects going on at the moment... besides I didn't quite understand your example. I have too much to learn about pokey before asking the good questions....

[emkay]

Cybernoid, on Sat Dec 10, 2005 4:48 PM, said:

Well, I am definitely interested in Pokey Music, but I have other Atari projects going on at the moment... besides I didn't quite understand your example.  I have too much to learn about pokey before asking the good questions....

Seeing you doing other cool stuff like Jellybeans, qualifies your statement

Well, I'm not blaming you... But, what to think about people saying "ATARI 8-bit is the best" and no one proves even the simplest features of the machine.
Those "new" and "fresh" sounds were always there and programmable in simple VBI speed, thus they would fit into every game ever produced on the A8....
In Game Titles with standard graphics, you could add two digital channels to enhance the music also.


For the interested people I attached a XEX file. The style of the tune reminds a "medley", but that is the style I like. 99% are "mk" ideas.