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Re: apple II 8bit sound programmers



Simon D. Williams wrote:
On 31 Jan 2006 aiiadict@gmail.com wrote:

<snip>

the higher the frequency of the sound (IE the note)
the faster the routine goes...

How to make all note frequencies take
the same ammount of time (cycles)?


It seems to me that adjusting the number of times the routine loops, based
on the tone frequency would be the way to go... of course that would have
the effect of shortening your longest (lowest) note to match the shortest
(highest).

Since timing is fairly crucial in most games, you're probably better off
with something DAC-based. RT.Synth is the best bet if you're looking for a
single-voiced soundtrack with good note range.

OTO, if you want to have polyphonic sound you might try sequencing thinly
"sliced" samples. I tried something like this a while back, though I'm
not sure it would be of any use a video game context, as it uses a good
portion of the available memory.

http://8bitsoundandfury.no-ip.info/files/UNSORTED/

A very short and rudimentary "song" with drums, bass and lead... a lot of
the drums and bass gets lost on the apple speaker, but it sounds almost
tolerable with external speakers. I can see this being plausible in a
fairly slow moving game... maybe not.

Very cool, Simon.  It's remarkable how effective time multiplexing
is in producing a multi-voiced effect!  I guess it's just like
replacing chords with arpeggios.

-michael

Music synthesis for 8-bit Apple II's!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

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