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Author Topic: Music replayer (Read 4639 times)

Offline Sdw

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Music replayer
« on: 2016.July.18. 15:44:52 »
So, anytime you do a demo, you want to have music playing!

I found something called "Music Box" here:
http://www.ep128.hu/Ep_Util/Music_Box.htm
However, since I don't understand Hungarian, I have very little idea on what is going on. It seems to be some kind of tracker that runs native on the EP128 (which is a problem, because convincing music artists who are lazy with their Windows-trackers today to learn some weird tracker in an emulated system will be tricky :) ) and I think there is some way to export it to replay in your own code, since there are references to "LD A,x  CALL yyyy" in the text!
I also tried to download the MBP.COM program and some .MBP tunes, since I wanted to hear how it sounded, but I was unable to figure out how to get it to work.

The backup option that I have been working on instead is to convert AY/YM songs. The upside is that there are a lot of PC-tools for tracking, and people are more familiar with that. The downside is that, as far as I got I only managed to map the normal Voice A-C and their respective volumes to the Dave registers. Noise-channel and envelopes etc. work completely different on the AY/YM. But very basic tunes that don't use any of those fancy things seem to play OK.

Offline ergoGnomik

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Re: Music replayer
« Reply #1 on: 2016.July.18. 16:01:56 »
About Music Box: I could translate the content of that page if you like, but that needs time; however your guess is right, it is possible to export songs written in it.

About AY/YM music: geco wrote a converter routine, but IDK where and how to get it; you should either search the downloads area or contact him.

Online Zozosoft

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Re: Music replayer
« Reply #2 on: 2016.July.18. 16:14:15 »
and I think there is some way to export it to replay in your own code, since there are references to "LD A,x  CALL yyyy" in the text!
Yes in the Compile menu. It is ask the address. The complid module have a 3 entry point:
0: init music
+3: irq player, need to call every 1/50 seconds
+6: stop music

Quote
I also tried to download the MBP.COM program and some .MBP tunes, since I wanted to hear how it sounded, but I was unable to figure out how to get it to work.
Load from IS-BASIC prompt.  After loaded then EXOS commands can be used:
:MBP filename
load MPB module (these are compiled to 4000h)

:PLAY
Start playing.

:MUTE
Stop playing

:HOLD
Pause playing

:MERA
Erase loaded module from memory

Quote
The backup option that I have been working on instead is to convert AY/YM songs.
It is exist a commonly used AY emulation routine. You just replace the AY register I/O with emulation CALLs.
For example my PT3PLayer also use this. (And you can find tons of PT3 musics on the net :-) )

And yes, not all AY music sounds good on Dave, but not too hard find some good ones. For example when I converted the Lirus I replaced one of game musics to another (from same man), which are more better on Dave.

Online Zozosoft

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Re: Music replayer
« Reply #3 on: 2016.July.18. 16:16:51 »

Offline ergoGnomik

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Re: Music replayer
« Reply #4 on: 2016.July.18. 21:01:43 »
I have to apologize to IstvanV for attributing his achievement to someone else.

Offline Sdw

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Re: Music replayer
« Reply #5 on: 2016.July.18. 21:36:16 »
Ah, I had to set ep128emu to use a disk-based config, then the MBP.COM-player worked just fine!
And as you said, these .mbp tunes turned out to be precompiled for 0x4000, so it was just a matter of dropping them into my program and adding an init-call to 0x4000 and then 0x4003 every frame, and now I have some music to test with!

So now I have a lot of options:
1) Use one of the exisiting MBP-tunes in my demo.
2) Have one of the musicians I know learn Music Box and create a new MBP-tune in it.
3) Have them make a AY/YM song (for example in PT3) and use that via emulation. Problem here is if IRQ for envelope-emulation is needed, then it would steal CPU time from effects which is not good at all, and also it takes away IRQ from my own usage.

If it ends up in option 3, is your PT3player-source (which I guess has the Dave-emulation calls in place) available Zozosoft?
Otherwise I can probably adapt it from the ZX Spectrum code I have and insert IstvanVs emulation in the right place, but it can't hurt to ask before doing the extra job? :)

Online Zozosoft

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Re: Music replayer
« Reply #6 on: 2016.July.18. 21:52:45 »
There is it :-)

And here is disk image with some PT3 files, which are sounds good on Enterprise.

Offline Sdw

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Re: Music replayer
« Reply #7 on: 2016.July.19. 00:47:50 »
Thank you very much!