Hey!
If you are interrested by the TechniX MX4 expansion clone of the Techni-Musique (TMPI), the target price 19.90€.
Now, if your choice goes to the advanced MegaSound MX4 expansion board instead, the target price is 29.90€.
By the way, it will require at less 20 interrested peoples for a first batch with those prices. ;D
Attached, the current progress... (prototype on a MX4 standard form factor + fake gerber view)
The TechniX board feature: 1x mea voice
The MegaSound board feature: 1x mea, 1x csm, 1x pcm (2x soft), 4x fm, 3x psg, 1x noise voices
1ST BATCH
**- TotO x2
00- Cpcmaniaco
01- LambdaMikel
02- Fedeo
03- Patrick
04- dimdim80
05- fano
06- Nitro
07- angelcaio
08- Munchausen
09- gros_minet
10- nano
11- slugman
12- genesis8
13- ASIC
14- remax
15- robcfg
16- Audronic
17- Toundrik
18- LambdaMikel
19- Vyper68
20- XeNoMoRPH
21- Scarlettkitten
22- Kris
23- kawickboy
24- yannis_uno
25- craem
26- asertus
27- rolek
28- zhulien x2
29- hergoth
30- radu14m
31- hsimpson
---
I have a stock of MEA8000 speech synthesizer circuits originaly bought 3 years ago to provide an Athanor II ingame voices with Techni-Musique compatibility.
Sadly, the feature was not kept. So, if you require to repair or build your own Techni-Musique, please contact me. The price is 9.90€ for the CPC community.
Good project! Add me to the list.... would that speak french only btw? Anyhow, please add me! I love and collect all kinds of speech synths, no matter how weird they are :D
I probably have one of the largest collections of retro speech synthesizers in the world ;) But that thing is missing!
The MEA8000 is not limited to french. You can program it to speech any languages as it use the RAM or a ROM to store data.
It is not limited to phoneme as it can speak with words to sound surprisingly far better than most of the weird existing circuits.
Quote from: TotO on 12:29, 19 February 19
The MEA8000 is not limited to french. You can program it to speech any languages as it use the RAM or a ROM to store data.
It is not limited to phoneme as it can speak with words to sound surprisingly far better than most of the weird existing circuits.
I see. But that means you will have to create a rather complicated text-to-speech program that does that translation... I know this program exists for french. But for other languages? Also, will it require a lot of memory and CPU on the CPC side then? (I am assuming you need to send a lot of "instructions" then to the MEA8000) So I expect such a text-to-speech program to be a lot of effort...
Quote from: TotO on 15:00, 18 February 19
If you want a Techni-Musique MX4 expansion clone (target price 24.90€), I require at less 30 peoples interrested for a first batch.
Thank you,
TotO.
This is a very decent price like usual. Is it compatible to some sort of already existing device?
In general it's a bit a pity that we now have / get all the expansions we did lack for some decades, but they're all different again. I wished that hardware creators would agree on "standards" for the CPC. :)
Quote from: GUNHED on 15:51, 19 February 19
This is a very decent price like usual. Is it compatible to some sort of already existing device?
In general it's a bit a pity that we now have / get all the expansions we did lack for some decades, but they're all different again. I wished that hardware creators would agree on "standards" for the CPC. :)
... MX4 is the standard :)
Found this one -
http://www.polaxis.be/mea-vox/
Even some software - talking clock in french:
https://github.com/deladriere/euro-modules/tree/master/Mea_vox
Interestingly, this project uses the Mikroelektronika mikroBUS format, so that's the same (physical) format like the LambdaSpeak daughterboard.
This is a good example of what you have to go through if you ever were to write something for that chip - the "words" for the numbers in french look as follows:
https://github.com/deladriere/euro-modules/blob/master/Mea_vox/Software/MeaVox_Arduino_Clock/horloge.h (https://github.com/deladriere/euro-modules/blob/master/Mea_vox/Software/MeaVox_Arduino_Clock/horloge.h)
That illustrates my point a bit that it would require quite some effort to come up with a text to speech for english.
Not saying it is bad, certainly very powerful, but a lot of effort to program.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BLibTcvDi3E/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=embed_video_watch_again
Not a great examples... Sound worst than on a CPC. ;D
Like the TMS5220, the MEA8000 use formant-synthesized speech and it is absolutly not related to french.
I don't see why it will require much effort to produce english languages as most of the internet examples related to Formant are in english.
Sure, there is a programming work, but with that you not only got english speech... But German, Spanish, ...
It can be reliably intelligible and can produce great techno and ambiant sounds, robot and alien voices... Not only speech.
By the way, this speech synthesizer circuit sound far better than SPO256 or related and the expansion is standard on CPC.
Using this shoud chip allow a really good compromise with quality and price for an expansion (except if nobody is interrested :-\ )
Quote from: TotO on 19:06, 19 February 19
By the way, this speech synthesizer circuit sound far better than SPO256 or related and the expansion is standard on CPC.
Using this shoud chip allow a really good compromise with quality and price for an expansion (except if nobody is interrested :-\ )
Well, I am! Sign me up :)
If you are into making a more modern speech synth with a slightly more available chip, then I'd suggest to look into the SpeakJet. I have a couple sitting here, but haven't had the time yet to start working on the AmJet project.
I'm more in the scope to provide MEA8000 IC to peoples or a compatible board, not building a modern speech synthesizer. ;)
I am also interested in getting one. :D
You can add me to the list for one card. Thank you.
Hello Toto,count me also in please.Some suggestion:
- multilanguage(greek perhaps included :) :) )
- predefiens voices
- capability to easy use produced speech in applications
- support cpc 6128 plus extar features.
One for me , One for me ! ;D
Btw, is there a list of games that uses the TechnoMusique?
English text-to-speech would be really nice.... does it exists, or is somebody going to write it?
Hello TotO, I am also interested in getting one. Thanks!
Edit: it would be a Megasound.
Quote from: fano on 09:40, 21 February 19
One for me , One for me ! ;D
So two for fano ;) I guess I need to read some more about this chip. :)
Haha! :laugh:
Un autre pour moi, s'il te plait. Merci[emoji6]
Enviado desde mi iPad utilizando Tapatalk
@TotO (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=290) I would like one please
Here, the current progress... (a fitting design work for a MX4 standard form factor)
(http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/amstrad-cpc-hardware/mea8000-mx4-speech-synthesizer-board/?action=dlattach;attach=28100;image)
Very nice layout, great usage of PCB space!
Bryce.
Thank you very much! ;)
Here funny experimental with the MEA and synth instruments. (should remember JMJ)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTtH8VMsJ7E (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTtH8VMsJ7E)
Prototype board rooting done! ;D
Now, I'm very impatient to receive it to confirm some tests... 8)
- The TechniX board feature: 1x mea voice
- The MegaSound board feature: 1x mea, 1x csm, 1x pcm (2x soft), 4x fm, 3x psg, 1x noise voices
Quote from: TotO on 16:49, 27 February 19
- The MegaSound board feature: 1x mea, 1x csm, 1x pcm (2x soft), 4x fm, 3x psg, 1x noise voices
:o
It also does PCM, FM, PSG, and what is CSM? Is that on the same board, or another one you are making (with AY chip??)
Quote from: LambdaMikel on 20:36, 27 February 19
:o It also does PCM, FM, PSG, and what is CSM? Is that on the same board, or another one you are making (with AY chip??)
The same board, depending how it is populated. 8)
The CSM
(Composite Sine wave Modeling) voice is a sort of speech synthesis to reproduce robotic fake languages.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCtTtKKAhyE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCtTtKKAhyE)
Quote from: TotO on 21:10, 27 February 19
The same board, depending how it is populated. 8)
Interesting! More details please ;D
Hehe, it sounds super nice!
Here is a document that has some tables that might be useful for figuring out how to implement an Text-to-English translator for the chip:
https://pure.tue.nl/ws/files/3592474/251691.pdf (https://pure.tue.nl/ws/files/3592474/251691.pdf)
Quote from: LambdaMikel on 22:22, 27 February 19
Interesting! More details please ;D
The required area on the PCB to reproduce the TMPI expansion is half of the MX4 form factor (8x5cm). So, many space left! ;D
The idea is to merge with other audio things previously tested, to share the same board and provide interresting sound features.
Thank you for the document, I will take a look. ;)
Salut Toto,
Tu peux m'ajouter dans la liste pour une MegaSound :)
A+
Quote from: TotO on 08:33, 28 February 19
The idea is to merge with other audio things previously tested, to share the same board and provide interresting sound features.
Like PlayCity stuff?
Quote from: LambdaMikel on 21:32, 28 February 19
Like PlayCity stuff?
The PlayCity is more a multifunctions board around timer/counter features to improve the CPC than a sound card.
The MegaSound is dedicated to the audio experience, providing some kind of way to reproduce sound (voices, sfx, music).
Quote from: TotO on 21:42, 28 February 19
The PlayCity is more a multifunctions board around timer/counter features to improve the CPC than a sound card.
The MegaSound is dedicated to the audio experience, providing some kind of way to reproduce sound (voices, sfx, music).
What chip will you be using?
Quote from: LambdaMikel on 21:45, 28 February 19What chip will you be using?
Before showing a video of the board with the "WIP" drivers, I will prefer to keep the surprise for everyone. :)
Quote from: TotO on 21:57, 28 February 19
Before showing a video of the board with the "WIP" drivers, I will prefer to keep the surprise for everyone. :)
... with FM and (AD)PCM on board, there aren't that many candidates anyhow ;)
I am interested in 1 for me.
Thanks.
Quote from: Cpcmaniaco on 00:33, 01 March 19
I am interested in 1 for me.
Hey! Just added you at the special rank of the list! ;)
One megasound for me please.
Envoyé de mon Nokia 6.1 en utilisant Tapatalk
How can I say "no" to new hardware?!+1 pour moi s'il vous plait :D
I could also use a second one. ;)
Add me for a megasound.
Envoyé de mon SM-G930F en utilisant Tapatalk
This hardware would be like the ZX Spectrum - Turbosound, maybe? :o
@TotO (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=290) , please put me down for one Megasound.
Merci!
@TotO (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=290)
I am also interested in getting one
Thanks. Ray
Hi Toto,
You can count me in for a MegaSound. :)
Thanks !
Can you put me down for a Megasound please.
Another MegaSound board for me please :laugh:
Quote from: XeNoMoRPH on 20:22, 01 March 19This hardware would be like the ZX Spectrum - Turbosound, maybe? :o
Just looking about the Turbosound board. It is close, you are right.
Probably we can reuse the existing tools in that way, as the MegaSound allows more. 8)
The first batch is finaly for 20 PCB (thanks the discount code). So, lets go! ;D
That's cool! Will existing trackers work easily with it?
Just found the MoonSound sound card for the MSX, which apparently was the best sound card ever made for the MSX - it seems it has on-board sample memory:
https://youtu.be/zKhERnYDukY (https://youtu.be/zKhERnYDukY)
Samples will have to be played from CPC bus with MegaSound though, right?
The MoonSound use a PC audio circuit that allows many things... May be too much for a 8-bit computer. ;D
The MegaSound is not this kind of expansion, as it is more dedicated to speech and arcade games sound.
I will post some examples when I will receive the prototype board! ;)
(samples are played using the CPU to manage n channels, else it is not funny)
Quote from: TotO on 19:17, 04 March 19
(samples are played using the CPU to manage n channels, else it is not funny)
... which puts a very high load on the poor little Z80 CPU (and mem requirements) though - LambdaDrum has 3 PCM channels which can be played from a BASIC program ;)
But it is good to give demo makers and coders a challenge ;D
Quote from: TotO on 19:17, 04 March 19
The MoonSound use a PC audio circuit that allows many things... May be too much for a 8-bit computer. ;D
This one
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_YMF278 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_YMF278)
I guess this is why they had to do on-board PCM sample memory, because the Z80 would have been incapable of serving the device with a high quality PCM sample stream (and memory requirements for samples as well of course - well with 4 MB of RAM available on the normal CPC, that's no longer a problem, but I still fear that the Z80 would have to spend most of its time serving the PCM audio data stream with <n> channels).
Yes, the OPL4 circuit. And yes, the chip play itseft the samples, like an MP3 player in example.
About the CPU usage, it is what made a CPC fun to code and to use. Else, no challenge at all if it does nothing.
Quote from: TotO on 20:17, 04 March 19
Yes, the OPL4 circuit. And yes, the chip play itseft the samples, like an MP3 player in example.
About the CPU usage, it is what made a CPC fun to code and to use. Else, no challenge at all if it does nothing.
Alright, let's see what coders can do then! Looking forward to it. I am a big fan of sound tracker software.
Btw, anybody knows what the max sample quality / bit rate you can do with the Z80 per PCM channel?
No DMA, assuming that ALL CPU cycles can go into fetching samples from RAM and putting them on databus (leaves no cycles for tracker program then obviously, hence it's a theoretical upper limit).
It seems to me that already Amdrum maxed that out quite a bit... (with 3 channels of 8 Bit PCM - but then, no memory for larger samples anyhow back then, which is no longer a problem nowadays as noted).
It would be a pitty if the sound hardware was so competent, yet there was no way for the CPC to actually take advantage of it (without a CPU upgrade ;D )
You don't have to use all the Z80 power to copy few bytes per scanline to achieve 8KHz or 16KHz channels.
On PLUS machine, the DMA usage is great because it allows to do samples through the AY soundchip on a stock system.
(first post updated)
@TotO (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=290) put me down for 1 Megasound board please :)
Quote from: TotO on 19:11, 09 March 19
You don't have to use all the Z80 power to copy few bytes per scanline to achieve 8KHz or 16KHz channels.
On PLUS machine, the DMA usage is great because it allows to do samples through the AY soundchip on a stock system.
Well I know what DMA is and I said *without* DMA ... standard CPC."Not that hard" wasn't the question - I was more curious to learn about the "upper limit" in number of channels and sample rate you can achieve in that way ;)
This is more for my personal learning - what is the best way of doing PCM sample playing on a stock CPC, and what rate can you achieve with the best method (WITHOUT DMA).
We know that Amdrum can do 8 kHz 8 Bit PCM at 3 channels... over an external DAC at the databus, and it seems that is pretty much the limit. Or? (Actually, it is only ONE channel... polyphony is achieved by mixing in software, so that doesn't count - real physical individual channels sound much better of course, Amdrum only offers one)
Quote from: LambdaMikel on 22:58, 09 March 19I was more curious to learn about the "upper limit" in number of channels and sample rate you can achieve in that way ;)
OK. I think that 2ch 16kHz with pitch control is doable... Probably 4ch without.
Quote from: remax on 20:12, 01 March 19
Add me for a megasound.
Envoyé de mon SM-G930F en utilisant Tapatalk
Have i been forgotten ? ???
EDIT : Perhaps i am the missing 13... Bad luck ?
;D
Quote from: remax on 20:59, 10 March 19
Have i been forgotten ? ???
Dude... you bought LambdaSpeak... ;) :laugh:
(just kidding of course!!!)
No luck ! :laugh: :-*
14 is my day of birth so perfect ;D
Hi Toto,
Please add me for a megasound ;)
Thx
I have first ordered 5pcb for doing final tests. The production has started yesterday and I will receive them next week.
If all is OK as expected, I will ask you the payement to order 20pcs more to run the first batch for April.
Tests boards received. :)
(http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/amstrad-cpc-hardware/mea8000-mx4-speech-synthesizer-board/?action=dlattach;attach=28334;image)
Good news!Btw, will it be compatible with the TechnoMusique software?
Quote from: LambdaMikel on 06:26, 22 March 19
Good news!Btw, will it be compatible with the TechnoMusique software?
Sure, it will. The MEA8000 is on the same I/O port.
I'm ready for the news batch of megasound please.
TotO,
put me down for a Megasound please
Thank you!
Hi ToTO, I need one ;)
@TotO (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=290) , please add me for a Megasound.
Thanks
I hope tracker developers will pick up the PCM capabilities of MegaSound.
I guess the PCM-protocol to MegaSound will be different from the Amdrum PCM sample playing protocol (which just sends bytes to &FFxx)... but it would be great if tracker developers could also add Amdrum-style PCM tracks. Then other cards (and the Amdrum itself) would also benefit from the PCM-extended trackers. Future will tell if this is possible / results in good PCM quality for non-DMA CPCs, also.
Only the future will let you know if developers will do softwares that use the MegaSound PCM...
I'm confident about the audio quality, now I'm lacking time at home to be able to do all the wished tests.
My first tests are not PCM related and not enough good to be spoiled here. ;)
Quote from: TotO on 20:47, 03 May 19
Only the future will let you know if developers will do softwares that use the MegaSound PCM...
I'm confident about the audio quality, now I'm lacking time at home to be able to do all the wished tests.
My first tests are not PCM related and not enough good to be spoiled here. ;)
Can you share some details how the interface for PCM looks like? I guess you will also have to send channel information, so it cannot just be the Amdrum style of PCM data streaming interface.
Having to send the channel and pitch and volume info over the databus also though reduces the possible bandwidth even further.
No PCM tests for now, but it is someting like "PCM command", "PCM data stream".
Quote from: TotO on 21:45, 03 May 19
No PCM tests for now, but it is someting like "PCM command", "PCM data stream".
Not sure what that means. I guess it is too early for these kinds of questions.
If it's still available, Megasound for me, please.
Thanks
I have a RAM Music Machine which is able to play 8bit samples too but unfortunately on a different port to AMDRUM and it has no through connector. I am unsure if it sold well, it has MIDI and ADC as well as DAC and came bundled with a microphone.
Toto, Any MegaSOund MX4 boards unallocated? Please add me down for 2.
Actually the TechniX sounds interesting - can make a lot of sounds that SSA1 cannot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHhfsTRMaj0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRAnefrPP8I (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRAnefrPP8I)
The Spectrum version though. Wish there was a better recording somewhere... its hard to judge the PCM quality from this.
A much simpler device that was also using some form of "samples" from a ROM basically was the Orch 90 for TRS 80 AFAIK - the waveforms were very short and simple though, not enough memory for drums and such, but it had a huge following (there was eben a BBS which had thousands of songs for it, an early version of Spotify so to speak):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvXJ5A7ZRiA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvXJ5A7ZRiA)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uv4FUdBYX0
Hello!
@TotO (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=290): any update about those boards? is there any progress? or even better, an estimated schedule for their availability?
Thanks!
Currently in standby, because not satisfy by the WIP results and life priorities. Sorry...
TotO, please, add me one MegaSound!!! :P
If it's still available, Megasound for me, please.Thanks
Was any kind of software developed for this interesting project? How are you using it?
Very cool! Was it ever released? I never saw or heard any YouTube video of it.
Can you post a little video about it so that we can listen to it, like this one for example
https://youtu.be/F0o9n72yIyM
@TotO (https://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/profile/?u=290) I would like one please (MegaSound).
Thank you, but I think the covid has killed the project... At less for 2020.
Sure, got it. Anyway, remember me :).