or other possibility to make the music in midi and convert it with midi conv utility to EP, I think the easies way to use AY emulation.
It depends on whether the goal is to compose new music specifically for the Enterprise, or to convert existing music from the CPC. For the latter, AY emulation is the easiest. Creating new music on the CPC first with familiar tools and then converting it is also a good approach, although the AY emulation routines have some limitations.
Composing native DAVE music takes full advantage of the capabilities of the chip, but there is some learning curve. For tips on how to make the best use of the various effects, it is best to ask Szipucsu. There is also a "davetest" program in the downloads for quick experimenting. The tools available for creating EP music are somewhat limited, but you can use:
- BASIC programs, these are easy to write for simple tunes, but become inconvenient when editing more complex polyphonic music
- a MIDI sequencer on PC combined with midiplay and midiconv, the advantage is being able to edit music interactively with full featured PC software, even use a keyboard if you have one, however, it requires more work to set everything up at first
- native editors, the only one I know is
Music Box, unlike the above options, this has a player routine for efficient playback in assembly programs
BASIC or MIDI music is expensive to play in its original form. Therefore, games using it like Exorcist and Xorgame play a DAVE register dump of the tune (which midiconv can create with the -render option) that is stored in a compressed format. This method has some limitations, but it can work reasonably well. For both games, the converter program and player routine are available with the source code, the version in Exorcist is newer and more efficient.