The 1-Bit Forum — System Beeps music album

Re: System Beeps music album

null@example.com (Shiru) — Fri, 01 Mar 2019 21:30:06 +0000

I tried to experiment with Rombeep and ROM sound code in general some time ago, and had not much luck - they're too slow in note switching, and do reset phase, introducing unwanted clicks. Still, I believe something interesting and minimalistic can be made, probably will also get its own unique character due to the limitations.

Re: System Beeps music album

null@example.com (AtariTufty) — Fri, 01 Mar 2019 15:51:14 +0000

Would be interesting to compose with a new mono 1-bit ZX Beeper engine. I still have a go with Rombeep sometimes but that doesn't allow low octave notes (through beepola)

Re: System Beeps music album

null@example.com (AtariTufty) — Fri, 01 Mar 2019 15:48:10 +0000

Great album Shiru. I've listened to it quite a bit. It's surprising how addictive this type of monophonic music is !

Great compositions and I don't think I've ever heard drum sounds like that from PC Speaker mono tunes before

Re: System Beeps music album

null@example.com (Shiru) — Sat, 16 Feb 2019 01:44:45 +0000

I think the attention span is over by now, so I can share some stats:

46K views on YouTube, brought 160 subscribers too (up to 620)
19K plays on BandCamp, 6.5K complete plays (of a single track)
32 supporters on BandCamp (17 visible there, others supported by picking whole 'discography' or a single track from the album)
46K views of the Russian language making of article on a major IT blog website
23K views of the English language translation of the making of article at the same IT blog website (not much popular compared to US/Europe majors)

Some posts:

https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/08/feel- … d-speaker/
https://omicrono.elespanol.com/2019/02/ … -speakers/
https://www.osnews.com/story/129396/pc- … to-eleven/
https://omicrono.elespanol.com/2019/02/ … -speakers/
https://pcforum.hu/mediatar/5565/itt-eg … omponaltak

So yeah, it generated quite some attention that I did not expect, although maybe not as much as a popular 'underground' (like chiptune) music release from a well known artist would - those gets reposted all around profilic websites, mine wasn't reposted anywhere i think (besides my own posts). Anyways, pretty good for an 1-bit release. Too bad I wasn't expecting any real attention, so I didn't stiff some of ours best modern ZX 1-bit stuff to the articles in order to provide more visibility to our scene.

Re: System Beeps music album

null@example.com (utz) — Fri, 08 Feb 2019 13:55:43 +0000

Excellent write-up. Glad to see it is generating quite some attention, too.

Re: System Beeps music album

null@example.com (Shiru) — Thu, 07 Feb 2019 11:15:20 +0000

Wrote an in-depth article on making of System Beeps: https://habr.com/en/post/439192/

Re: System Beeps music album

null@example.com (Shiru) — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 21:49:09 +0000

Reaper PCSPE export works like a log recorder. You start export, start playing music like usual, plugin catches in realtime all it receives from MIDI tracks and writes down all the data that it produces and that goes into emulated PC Speaker registers. That's the same way some YM2612 plugins work. Once you got BIN or other file format, you can make a simple player program that will just send the pre-recorded data to actual PC Speaker port. There is an example of QBasic program alongside PCSPE that does just that. If anyone needs, I sure can provide help with implementing player in other language or for other needs.

Re: System Beeps music album

null@example.com (garvalf) — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 20:35:29 +0000

well done!
I just don't understand how to export from Reaper to the bin used for the final music.

Re: System Beeps music album

null@example.com (Glassner) — Fri, 25 Jan 2019 17:15:31 +0000

Shiru wrote:

Thanks a lot, utz! In meanwhile, promised stuff is added.
I think next logical step would be to find awesome rangefinder binoculars here and make a ZX monophonic engine with high quality synthesis and try to apply the same techniques to that. Like Full Throttle 2 title song.

That sounds awesome. But it also sounds like it would take a lot of effort. haha

Re: System Beeps music album

null@example.com (Shiru) — Fri, 25 Jan 2019 13:49:49 +0000

Thanks a lot, utz! In meanwhile, promised stuff is added.

I think next logical step would be to make a ZX monophonic engine with high quality synthesis and try to apply the same techniques to that. Like Full Throttle 2 title song.

Re: System Beeps music album

null@example.com (utz) — Thu, 24 Jan 2019 14:15:40 +0000

Waaaaaah! It may be just a day old, but to me it's already legendary. I would never have believed that it's possible to push monophonic stuff this far.
Also, there goes my hard earned paypal money. Damn you.

System Beeps music album

null@example.com (Shiru) — Wed, 23 Jan 2019 23:45:02 +0000

Fresh and steaming, just uploaded my new 1-bit PC Speaker album to https://shiru8bit.bandcamp.com/album/system-beeps

An MS-DOS player program with all of these songs is also ready, will be up a bit later (will post a link here and there). Also going to publish all source stuff, including Reaper project files.

Edit: it is here: program and sources