Re: sound volume on IIe

[spam@luddite.ca (Ned Ludd)]

Michael J. Mahon <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote:

> Hmm, must not be _my_ "SoftDAC" (DAC522), since it outputs
> through the speaker.  ;-)
> 
> It should not be hard to search for references to the cassette
> port $C020 and switch it/them to the speaker $C030.  I used
> to have both options in DAC511, but then it only took one
> POKE to change.  With DAC522, there are 32 speaker
> references that would need to be changed, and space was
> tight, so the stock version works only with the speaker.

Some time ago I modified DAC522 to output to the cassette port and was
quite impressed with the results. I think it sounds slightly better
playing through the cassette port on a IIe than it does through the
headphone jack on a IIgs, though I may be imagining that ;-)

<snip> 
> The advantage of 1-bit sound is that 8 samples fit in a single
> byte, so the sounds are pretty compact for their length.  The
> downside is that it sounds terrible compared to even 5-bit
> sampled sound (shameless plug  ;-).

So far the best results I've had is with 8-bit 11.025 KHz .wav files.
The only pre-processing required is zap the file fork (if applicable)
and strip the header (which I seem to think is the first 128 bytes).
Another useful trick is to run the audio clip through a compressor
before saving it, this is especially handy for voice samples or anything
which requires good bass sound.

-Simon