1 Topic by Shiru (edited by Shiru 2022-08-08 20:57:56)

  • Shiru
  • 1-bit Wizard
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  • From: Russia, Moscow
  • Registered: 2015-07-01
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Topic: Area 5150 MS-DOS 8088 demo and a single channel PCM engine

My PC Speaker music has been featured in the amazing Area 5150 demo. It is the usual 120 Hz stuff made with PCSPE that plays during the main part.

The credits scene, however, features a single channel PCM-based engine by Andrew, with music by cTrix. I think this is the fascinating one. I don't know all details, but: runs at 15 kHz, 60 Hz update rate, no mixing at all, no resampling either - all notes has to be sampled on all required pitches, and all of the sample data should fit a 64K segment. The guys asked me to try to do a song for it as a backup plan, just in case, so I messed around with it a bit, but it turned out to be quite difficult to do using the MOD to custom format converter.

I think this is an interesting concept to be explored in our Z80 realm, too. Not necessarily 'no resampling' scheme, though, but I think the PeskyTone/PeskySound engine's priority system that I already have implemented in 1tracker could be used to this purpose to make composing for such engine move convenient.

Edit: a 'Making of' article for my part

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  • Registered: 2015-06-29
  • Posts: 365

Re: Area 5150 MS-DOS 8088 demo and a single channel PCM engine

Absolutely amazing demo. Way better than 8088

Loved your soundtrack, Shiru. I've listened to it a few times now, brilliant.

Also the sample Laiden song at end I thought was brilliant too. Thought it was a mod playback until you explained what it was !

Thanks for the greet too smile

ZX Beeper Album: 1-bit Mechanistic
  • utz
  • utz
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  • Registered: 2015-06-28
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Re: Area 5150 MS-DOS 8088 demo and a single channel PCM engine

Haha, I was watching the demo (the live yt version, hoping a proper recording will appear soon) and thinking: "Hmm, this music sounds really Shiru-like. But it can't be. I wonder who did it.". And then the credits rolled... Turned out great, really good interplay with the visuals.

I don't quite understand about the MOD end part. Wouldn't the best approach be to take the whole song and have the converter chop it up to create an optimal set of sample data? Or was there no time to build an "intelligent" converter for this?

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  • xxl
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Re: Area 5150 MS-DOS 8088 demo and a single channel PCM engine

and maybe build a converter that will save the samples as 8 samples in one byte. add the procedure of selecting the appropriate byte and bit in that byte for different playback frequencies. play back the usual procedure similar to that of the sample tracker ...?

5 Reply by Shiru (edited by Shiru 2022-08-08 23:39:27)

  • Shiru
  • 1-bit Wizard
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  • From: Russia, Moscow
  • Registered: 2015-07-01
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Re: Area 5150 MS-DOS 8088 demo and a single channel PCM engine

They do have a MOD to custom format converter, it does the resample and applying of all volumes, creating all sample data automatically. The trick is to compose the song within the MOD container, as it is really, really limited. Remember, 15-31 instruments, all patterns are 64 rows long. There is no priority system in use, i.e. the MOD had to be actually composed as 1-channel.

website - 1bit music - other music - youtube - bandcamp - patreon - twitter (latest news there)

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