801

(65 replies, posted in Sinclair)

Ah yes, some test files will help to analyze the problem, though at this point I'm considering rewriting the whole converter, as I've patched it like 5 times already without success.

The idea of the slides is indeed to simulate kick drums and toms. However, seems it's not that feasible after all, since their volume is too low. So perhaps I'm gonna add some good old-fashioned click drums after all.

802

(3 replies, posted in Sinclair)

Hehe, enough of the honey big_smile The problem is that at the moment there's less than a handful of active developers on here, none of which really have their head in Zeddy stuff. Hmm, perhaps you could poke the nollkolltroll guy, he seems to be one of the most talented ZX81 coders out there at the moment...
Another problem is that at the moment there are no emulators which accurately emulate ZX81 port behaviour (you may remember this was giving us a lot of trouble with 1k2b). And I can't really be bothered to buy a ZXpand just for the purpose.

Well, if you have the time please do post some info about the ZX81 "loud tape" mod here, just in case someone wants to have a go at it.

Oh wow, that's exactly the type of timbre effect I've been phantasizing about.
I could try to implement it for TI (6 MHz), but on the other hand the target audience for that is tiny (basically boils down to garvalf and myself at the moment), so I'm not really motivated to spend my time on it.
Do you think you could get it to work in 3.5 MHz by going back to Phaser1 (ie, one channel with the effect and one without), and perhaps using a partially unrolled sound loop (ie updating frequency counters one at a time instead of both each loop iteration)?

804

(65 replies, posted in Sinclair)

Gah! Not again... Yeah, that's a bug in the converter alright. For some reason I just can't get it to output the proper combination of flags and counter values. Ok, I'll look into it in the coming days.

The slides should theoretically behave as you might expect, except that (unlike in the template) they will reset on every row.

805

(7 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Indeed, you have a good point there.

I've experimented a little with combining pin-pulses with Phaser-like synthesis. It certainly leads to some interesting results (overtones and such). However, volume balance is a problem, so the effect tends to be quite subtle. I haven't yet managed to get it right.

There's also another interesting idea by Alone Coder, based on a kind of wavetable synthesis, or duty cycle modulation, if you will:

Alone Coder wrote:

I make a series of long impulses between natural divisions of the
period.

For example:
- 128,256 (I list the positions where the phase is changed) gives a
simple meander.
- 85,92,128,128+85,128+92,256 gives lighter sound with acute 3rd, 5th,
7th harmonics. Sadly we can't avoid even harmonics but we can minimize
them.
- 21,92,128,128+21,128+92,256 gives even lighter sound with more power
in higher harmonics.

Edit: Just saw your post in /sinclair. Too tired now, will check it out tomorrow.

806

(5 replies, posted in Sinclair)

Yeah, kickass track. Also, glad to see this powerful engine is finally getting some well-deserved attention.

807

(65 replies, posted in Sinclair)

And a new Win build for this one, too. Download address as above.

808

(164 replies, posted in Sinclair)

Sadly, no. But it's good you remind me, I'll try to poke krue for a new patch file at least.

Damn, I seem to be getting more problem reports about TiLP than the actual HT2 lately hmm

Ok, let's see about this one. You definately need that .dll installed, wonder why it won't let you. You probably need to be admin to install it (and the other libti* dlls), but I guess you've tried that already?

As far as the scanning goes, just don't scan, I think it doesn't really work with TI82 anyway. Just set the right combination in the "change device" popup or via command line.

As a last resort, you could try an older version of TiLP (or newer if you don't have the latest 1.17). Make sure you uninstall everything that came with TI Connect (especially the USB drivers), as TiLP can't coexist with an existing TI Connect install without some major hassle.

810

(22 replies, posted in Sinclair)

And another build attempt. Same download link as before, hope it finally works now!

811

(7 replies, posted in General Discussion)

I made this thing some years ago. Timestretched 1-bit sounds. It's more drone than ambient though.

Aside from that, I don't think there's much "real" 1-bit ambient out there. Which is very unfortunate, I think somebody should definately give it a try!

812

(22 replies, posted in Sinclair)

Hehe, thanks wink It's all due to how great this engine sounds, though big_smile

Ah, glad you were able to work it out. Once you get over the initial hurdle, it's indeed pretty simple wink Most of the trickery is getting your routines up to speed and getting the timing stable, but that should be less of an issue with ATmega. Anyway, keep us updated about your project, will ya?

814

(22 replies, posted in Sinclair)

Yes, and that's also what the template is based on. It seemed like a good compromise, as the engine started to overload at around 40.

815

(65 replies, posted in Sinclair)

Fixed yet another bug in the quattropic XM converter, and made a new Windows build that might actually work on Windows, unlike the last one yikes
download

816

(22 replies, posted in Sinclair)

Yesterday's release had a botched XM template. Fixed that and also improved the loader code somewhat, so please re-download.

817

(22 replies, posted in Sinclair)

Got a first beta of the XM converter ready. It's functional but highly unoptimized, so I'll probably make more changes to it later. Anyway, it's using the original core of the 2012 version of Squeeker. Per-row speed control has been added. Data format and loader have been changed completely.
The converter is standalone, no Perl required.

download (win/*nix binaries and source included)

818

(22 replies, posted in Sinclair)

One thing I don't understand about this routine: It seems the buffer has to be cleared before every row, otherwise there will be random drop-outs. Any idea why that is? I would much prefer not to spend ~74 t-states on that.

Edit: Ah, I get it now, it's because the "add counters" from rested channels will cause a continuous overflow, thus keeping the output high at all times. Still looking for an elegant solution to this though.

Hehe, sorry for the current lack of updates smile Rest assured that stuff is happening behind the scenes. Most likely version 2.1 will be ready in a couple of weeks.

There isn't really any central spot for HT composers afaik. A number of HT users are hanging out on chipmusic.org, but it appears there are also quite a few who are not connected to the chip or calculator scene.

About soundcloud tagging, I dunno... I always thought it's best to use a range of different tags. "calculator" seems to be the one people mostly use right now. What's your soundcloud, btw?

i'm working on a "lsdj manager" type utility, but it hasn't progressed very far. I'll put out a public beta soon-ish, though.

820

(22 replies, posted in Sinclair)

Btw the "squeekf6.z80" version is obsolete - there is a more current one with a slight modification:

mxb  exx
     xor a
     ld bc,#0400
     ld sp,#80c4
mxa  rl c
     pop de
     pop hl
     add hl,de
     push hl
     pop hl
     ld a,40
     add a,h
     djnz mxa
    
     ld a,15
     adc a,c
     out (254),a
     exx
     dec hl
     ld a,h
     or l
     jr nz,mxb

821

(111 replies, posted in Sinclair)

Ah, so those were the final results after all. Weird, I don't remember them ever combining online and party votes before.

Anyway, agree with introspec, strongest beeper compo in quite a while, everybody involved has all the reasons to be proud!

822

(111 replies, posted in Sinclair)

Online voting results are in (on the votepage), congratulations Shiru for the well-deserved win!
Now waiting for party results...

823

(111 replies, posted in Sinclair)

AtariTufty wrote:

BTW, as I've never entered this contest before, do we vote on our own tracks (as in our 1-bit forum contest) ?

I think so, yes. The online voting is more of an on-the-side thing anyway, as those votes don't count towards the "official" results.

824

(111 replies, posted in Sinclair)

Online voting is open smile http://events.retroscene.org/dhl2016/ZX_Beeper

Also... OMG, is that a new Shiru tune I'm hearing? In any case, very strong competition, me likey!

825

(135 replies, posted in Sinclair)

AtariTufty wrote:

I wondered how long it would be before you were itching to write another engine smile

Always itching, just don't always have the time big_smile

Here are some ideas I have had, if any are of any use or spark debate.

AtariTufty wrote:

I like the Qchan type engines but if more bass or better drums were possible this would be great. The best part of Qchan (for me) are the volume envelopes as I think this opens the door for interesting synth effects.

Yup, same here. It would especially be great to have a (pseudo-)white noise channel along the pin pulse channels. Well, as I mentioned I've got an enhanced Qchan version in the works, which will feature full envelope control similar to Stocker. It should have some more bass, too, using introspec's technique from Octode XL. Though perhaps I should start studying Zilogat0r's Squeeker code more closely, as that would allow for even more bass.

AtariTufty wrote:

I would like to see an engine where different types are selectable from within the tune itself. A sort of multi-engine that can swap between (for example) a phaser sound to a basic rom beep sound to maybe a PFM sound in the middle of a tune. I think this would enable tunes to have sections in different styles and make them more interesting.

Yeah, been longing for something like that as well. However, my conclusion is that this is a problem to be solved at the editor end of things. If I'm not mistaken most of Shiru's engines could already be used in that fashion, as they are tuned to 440Hz (unlike mine cause I suck at math yikes). So it's basically Beepola and/or 1tracker that would need to support this feature.

AtariTufty wrote:

A useful feature would be for a tune to quit back to basic at predetermined points in the music (to maybe allow text to be displayed) and then the user could jump back into the tune at the point it left off.

A few engines, like Wham and Music Studio already support this feature. Nevertheless it's a good point for other/new engines, and it isn't even that difficult to achieve.

AtariTufty wrote:

OK, wacky idea. How about a drum and bass engine with basically mega bass and a selection of drums/hihats etc.  Maybe 2 mega bass channels or even just one with digi-drums ????

qoap and yawp would be capable of doing that. But again, the problem is that there aren't any editors yet that support the full feature set of these engines. And unfortunately the whole editor business is a bit over my head, can't even figure out how to do plugins for 1tracker.


garvalf wrote:

I seriously got the idea to record a (black) metal album with drums only from a ZX spectrum...

Hehe, I do my live performances with some black metal vocals big_smile So +1 for your idea!