Improving the CPCs sound capabilities.

[Bryce]

Hi all,
     I've been watching this project: http://www.avray.ru/  for a while and it seems to have matured far enough to be a realistic AY replacement. I've been wondering if it would be interesting to take it further and give the AY new capabilities beyond what the original could do, but still stay 100% compatible. What do the Chiptuners among us think? Would there be any value in having an AY 2.0 with new features?

Bryce.

[Targhan]

Personally, I wouldn't want to use anything else than the original AY from the CPC. Plus you would need a software to compose your song on it, plus you would need people to have their hardware changed... A lot of work for something that it not "CPC" anymore.

[Bryce]

Yes, unfortunately the AY is soldered in the CPC

Bryce.

[Sykobee (Briggsy)]

I think many would like more channels without using up more I/O ports.
And maybe some different waveforms? And modulations?
And more levels of amplitude.

[robcfg]

Well, it could always be done as an expansion like the CTC-AY board in which case it would be like any other expansion board, no need to modify the CPC itself.

[Targhan]

On a side-note: how many people actually own the PlayCity, have developed software upon it, have created 6/9 tracks music on it? Not many. The upcoming Arkos Tracker 2 may change this, but adopting such hardware is slow. And now you're talking about a AY to CHANGE on the CPC. I'm not sure many will do that.

[roudoudou]

Plug a gravis on a cpcisa card 

[Bryce]

Well, it could always be done as an expansion like the CTC-AY board in which case it would be like any other expansion board, no need to modify the CPC itself.

What made it interesting was the fact that it was a drop-in 100% compatible replacement that had room for expansion. If I wanted to strap a new sound chip to the back of the CPC I'd pick something much beefier.

Bryce.

[mr_lou]

As a geek chip musician, the interesting part for me is the challenge in seeing what I can create within the limitations of the machine. For me, this challenge is a big part of the hobby.

But also knowing that what I create can be heard by everyone.

Therefor, giving me a device that removes some limitations + narrows my listeners just isn't interesting enough.

The Digibooster was a bit interesting, because I liked the idea of showing that the CPC could produce Protracker like music. But I never found the time to look any further into it.

[Carnivius]

As a geek chip musician, the interesting part for me is the challenge in seeing what I can create within the limitations of the machine. For me, this challenge is a big part of the hobby.

But also knowing that what I create can be heard by everyone.

Therefor, giving me a device that removes some limitations + narrows my listeners just isn't interesting enough.

Similar to why I like doing graphics with the original CPC's 27 colour palette and limits and not the Plus' 4096 colours and slight enhancements.   And also why I cannot understand the excitement Speccy folk have over the Spectrum Not...  I mean Next.   Perhaps those die-hard Speccy users really were in denial all these years over loving their machine's quirks and technical limitations?

[Shining]

I've only overflown the thing but as far as I understood, the avr-chip EMULATES the AY.


And until now, I've never met any emulator of the AY which satisfied my completely to sound 100% like the original.


For me I'm waiting for the Arkos Tracker 2, to hopefully hear something new on cpc.