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General Category => Applications (CPC and CPC-related) => Topic started by: Prodatron on 15:54, 18 January 22

Title: SymAmp with Amiga MOD support
Post by: Prodatron on 15:54, 18 January 22
In 2020 Maarten Loor ported his MSX NOP MOD player to SymAmp, but some issues were left, and I was too lazy to fix them at this time.

Now his Amiga MOD plugin is nearly fully running in SymAmp, and the 16bit I/O conversion has been done, so you can run it on the Amstrad CPC in SymbOS, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kahDREIaOog

SymAmp supports 15 and 31 ("M.K.") instrument 4channel Amiga MODs and up to 62 patterns.
You need an OPL4 compatible MSX sound device (the original MoonSound or clones like the Monster Sound or the OPL4 Shockwave) connected to your CPC via the Amsdap slot expander.

I have to fix an issue with arpeggios and one more thing, then I can release this new version of SymAmp.
Title: Re: SymAmp with Amiga MOD support
Post by: XeNoMoRPH on 17:07, 18 January 22
Awesome !!!, Waiting release for test 👏👏👏
Title: Re: SymAmp with Amiga MOD support
Post by: HAL6128 on 22:09, 18 January 22
Great stuff!
A pity that is doesn't work with a OPL3 compatible sound card.
Title: Re: SymAmp with Amiga MOD support
Post by: Prodatron on 22:45, 18 January 22
I got the Willy adapter from PulkoMandy yesterday and the OPL3LPT :)
But the OPL3 chip is FM only, no wavetable capabilities, so no Amiga MODs here and similiar stuff.
A VGM Plugin for playing OPL1/2/3 stuff would be possible for SymAmp.
Title: Re: SymAmp with Amiga MOD support
Post by: TotO on 23:12, 18 January 22
Yes, the OPL1/2/3 are low-end FM chips used on gamme entry synthesisers and early PC soundboards like AdLib.
Title: Re: SymAmp with Amiga MOD support
Post by: zhulien on 07:41, 19 January 22
Why do they call them FM chips? Paula on the Amiga and pretty much any 2 DACs are also FM right?
Title: Re: SymAmp with Amiga MOD support
Post by: Prodatron on 08:18, 19 January 22
FM is frequency modulation, while wave table devices are using samples.

- Frequency modulation:
OPL1-3 (used in the Adlib PC soundcard, later FM-part of the Soundblaster, on the MSX as "MSX-Audio", "MSX-Music" etc.):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_modulation_synthesis

- Sample-based:
OPL4 (the Wave table syntheses part), Paula (Amiga), Gravis Ultrasound (PC), SoundBlaster AWE32 (PC), etc.:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sample-based_synthesis

Title: Re: SymAmp with Amiga MOD support
Post by: HAL6128 on 08:49, 19 January 22
Just a thought: with OPL3 or SP2 addons you can play cool MIDI sounds (GM / e.g. Monkey Island or other stuff). I think it's worth a try to create a MIDI player or tracker?
Title: Re: SymAmp with Amiga MOD support
Post by: XeNoMoRPH on 09:07, 19 January 22
by the way, I am the proud owner of a powerful Gravis UltraSound MAX, ISA format, with 1 mega of RAM !!!  :laugh: [ here is , inside IBM PS1 ]

(https://i.ibb.co/LkDTgYt/photo-2019-01-29-12-15-52.jpg)
Title: Re: SymAmp with Amiga MOD support
Post by: Prodatron on 09:37, 19 January 22
Congratulation! :) I don't have my Gravis Ultrasound "Classic" anymore. For the PC it was a revolution. Too bad, that it was only successful in the demo and tracker scene.

But for me it is still crazy, that with the MoonSound/OPL4 the MSX as a Z80 machine already had a similiar powerful hardware at nearly the same time (1994). 16bit samples, 44KHz, at least 24 PCM channels (instead of 32).
Title: Re: SymAmp with Amiga MOD support
Post by: XeNoMoRPH on 12:58, 19 January 22
https://vimeo.com/667726643
Title: Re: SymAmp with Amiga MOD support
Post by: Prodatron on 01:58, 25 January 22
SymAmp 4.0 has been released:


http://www.symbos.org/appinfo.htm?00005


What's new:

- Amiga MOD 4channel file support on all platforms (CPC, MSX, Enterprise) with an OPL4 wavetable sound device (MoonSound, MonsterSound, OPL4 Shockwave, Dal So Ri)
- new modern skin
- enhanced playlist with up to 250 entries
- playlist accepts files from multiple folders and is sortable
- player shows full song titles if available
- correct playtime display for very long modules and MP3s

Some facts about the Amiga MOD player plugin:

- supports both 15 and 31 instrument MODs ("M.K.", "M!K!", "FLT4")
- up to 62 patterns per song
- up to 2MB samples, if enough wavetable ram is available

Restrictions:

- currently only 4 channel MODs are supported
- speed command works only with "ticks"-setting, not correctly with BPM setting

Thanks again to Maarten Loor!
Title: Re: SymAmp with Amiga MOD support
Post by: XeNoMoRPH on 07:43, 25 January 22
That skin Rocks !!!!  :o :o :o
Title: Re: SymAmp with Amiga MOD support
Post by: norecess464 on 02:14, 26 January 22
No support for .MDL files ? I'm shocked !  8)
Kidding, it's an amazing work!
Title: Re: SymAmp with Amiga MOD support
Post by: Prodatron on 17:12, 26 January 22
Quote from: norecess on 02:14, 26 January 22
Kidding, it's an amazing work!
Thanks!  :) I wonder, if there is anyone here in the CPC scene, who has access to a Moonsound compatible OPL4 device? I know that Genesis8 has one, someone else?


Quote from: norecess on 02:14, 26 January 22No support for .MDL files ? I'm shocked !  8)
If you are speaking about the...

- CPC Digitracker MDL format: I think >95% of them are converted Amiga MOD files. It makes more sense to play the originals with full 4 channels and better 8bit sample quality instead of 6/7bit.

- PC Digitrakker MDL format: This is a very complex format, which was able to handle nearly all other tracker formats of that time like S3M, XM, MOD, ULT, 669, MTM etc. etc., with up to 32 channels, instruments with volume- and frequency-envelopes, multiple samples per instrument, a very compressed file format both for patterns and samples, two effects for each note and more.IF this could be played on a Z80 you can play nearly ALL existing tracker modules on a Z80 :) (besides the IT format) It would be probably an own project. SymAmp already rised a lot, I have to take care that it won't become too big.



Title: Re: SymAmp with Amiga MOD support
Post by: XeNoMoRPH on 18:30, 26 January 22
Hey @Prodatron (https://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=13) i have FM blaster Monster sound  OPL4 too 👍👍
Title: Re: SymAmp with Amiga MOD support
Post by: Prodatron on 21:48, 16 February 22
SymAmp 4.1 has been released:

http://www.symbos.org/appinfo.htm?00005

It now supports SA2 modules (Surprise! Adlib Tracker 2) for playing these on the Willy by Pulkomandy + OPL3LPT as well as on any MoonSound/OPL4 compatible sound devices like the MonsterSound, OPL4 Shockwave etc. (for CPC, MSX, EP).
The player has been originally ported from 8086 by @madram (https://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=1459) for the CPC-ISA project and rewritten, debuged and extended (adding most effect command) during the last days by myself.

If you have a Willy board+Opl3Lpt
or a Moonsound compatible device you can try all these sounds now:
http://symbos.org/download/media/sa2.zip

Title: Re: SymAmp with Amiga MOD support
Post by: HAL6128 on 23:26, 16 February 22
Very impressive and fast development! Thank you.
Title: Re: SymAmp with Amiga MOD support
Post by: GUNHED on 19:12, 21 February 22
Currently I'm on the country side. So I have no CPC with mouse.
Now I downloaded all that new symbos 3.1 and Symamp.


Well, I can't use the mouse pointer, it's frozen. Which keys to use please?
Title: Re: SymAmp with Amiga MOD support
Post by: Cwiiis on 12:55, 24 February 22
Quote from: GUNHED on 19:12, 21 February 22Currently I'm on the country side. So I have no CPC with mouse.
Now I downloaded all that new symbos 3.1 and Symamp.


Well, I can't use the mouse pointer, it's frozen. Which keys to use please?
If you hold down COPY, the arrow keys and space/return work as the mouse and left/right buttons (I may be wrong about the buttons, but it's something like that) - alternatively, a 2-button joystick also works.
Title: Re: SymAmp with Amiga MOD support
Post by: GUNHED on 19:33, 24 February 22
Quote from: Cwiiis on 12:55, 24 February 22If you hold down COPY, the arrow keys and space/return work as the mouse and left/right buttons (I may be wrong about the buttons, but it's something like that) - alternatively, a 2-button joystick also works.

Thanks a lot for the hint! It really works, but probably it's way better to use a joystick. Just strange, why to need to hold copy down. Maybe the next update can fix this and the cursor keys + Space will be just usable.  :)
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