WIP: Now That's What I Call Chip Tunes (WinAPE)

[SuTeKH/Epyteor]

Hi guys, here's the first disc of my long-term 3-disc 8-bit music project, NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL CHIP TUNES. Consisting of AY remakes of some of my favourite C64 and Amiga chiptunes from the 80s and early 90s! (Well, when I say favourite, I really mean easiest to convert!)
 
I am pretty happy with most of the tunes, but some of them still need work... to be honest!
 
       
 
 
Attached is the first music-disk as well as the .SKS files if anyone wants to see just how bad my music conversion is!
Also, I have attached the first few tunes I've done for disc 2. Now, most of these are unfinished or seriously need a lot of work, but you can see where I was going with them.
 
 
Some of the CREDITS programming is taken from the CPCWiki source-code files. Namely;
http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Programming:Hardware_scrolling_the_screen_using_the_CRTC
http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Programming:Fast_Textoutput
 
The rest of the programming is very basic and clunky, but that's because my assember knowledge is very limited. Sorry about that.
 
 
DISCLAIMER: These tunes were converted on WinAPE and so will sound different on a proper CPC or any other emulator. So, please view this on WinAPE 2.0 A17 with stereo audio to kinda hear what I'm hearing!
 
 
Thanks for your patience,
- JTMS...
 
(P.S. If there's any legal problem with a conversion of ACIDJAZZED EVENING on this collection after the legal battle a few years back, then I'm happy to remove it! But I'm quite proud of how it turned out.)

[ervin]

Fantastic!
I was wondering when you were going to upload these! 

Check these out everyone - they're tremendous!

Just wondering - what are SKS files?
What program uses/produces them?

[Axelay]

Just wondering - what are SKS files?
What program uses/produces them?

They're used by Starkos.


Nice to hear the 'if only' Commando hi score music, and Portal! 

[McKlain]

What a massive effort! Listening to it right now. 


You know, you can open sks songs in Arkos and make any corrections you need to do to make the songs work in a real CPC.

[SuTeKH/Epyteor]

You know, you can open sks songs in Arkos and make any corrections you need to do to make the songs work in a real CPC.

I did that with DEVIATIONS on disc 1, but I found that channel 2 has a lot lower volume than 1 & 4; is this normal on a real CPC? It's been too long since I used one to remember.

[McKlain]

Emmm... there is only 3 channels. Am I missing something? 

[SuTeKH/Epyteor]

Emmm... there is only 3 channels. Am I missing something? 

Alan Sugar stole channel 3 from the AY chip itself and sold it as ITV! (Originally ATV)

[Sykobee (Briggsy)]

Nice work. One question about the Fast_Textoutput on the Wiki. I notice it uses ADD HL, BC to add $800 to get to the next line in the software-character-output routines. Could you use the SET/RES trick here for a speed up? By my calculations 7 ADD HL, BC instructions take 77 cycles and 7 bytes. 7 SET or RES instructions would be 56 cycles but 14 bytes. Maybe I'm missing something (or I should just try it out, but my Windows machine is out of commission right now).

[TomEtJerry]

Hi TastefulMrShip !
 
 That's quite odd... I have presented a few days ago your musicdisk to some  guys at the Reset #0 meeting and they all wanted to know why you didn't spread it ! Well, now, that's done :-). We have listened your tunes on a real CPC with speaker, and they sound great !
 
 T&J/GPA

[TFM]

Every second time you have to use two set res instructions, so it's not that much of a difference
 
 
But usage of second register set could speed it quite quick up

[SuTeKH/Epyteor]

That's quite odd... I have presented a few days ago your musicdisk to some  guys at the Reset #0 meeting and they all wanted to know why you didn't spread it ! Well, now, that's done :-). We have listened your tunes on a real CPC with speaker, and they sound great !

Thanks guys! I nearly didn't post it on here today after downloading and watching the BATMAN FOREVER and MOODY demos, which are simply amazing! You guys are the reason I got into computers in the first place; I simply love watching demos!
 

[TFM]

.

[Devilmarkus]

Great work!
And cool tunes...
It's a pleasure to check them all out

Batman forever misses as good as tunes imho.

Batman Forever IS a tune

Edit: I hope that it's ok, that I uploaded disc 1... To play it online:
Listen to cool chiptunes

[SuTeKH/Epyteor]

Edit: I hope that it's ok, that I uploaded disc 1... To play it online:
Listen to cool chiptunes

Wow! If you think it's good enough. Thanks!
 
 
Incase you're interested, I've cobbled-up a quick PREVIEW of disc 2; meaning people can see what I've already done without having to mess about with STarkos/Arkos. It's attached below.
 

 
I hope you enjoy,
 
- JTMS...
 
 
EDIT: Oops! Does help if I attach the .dsk file!

[SyX]

Wonderful Job!!!  I love your conversion of Super Mario Land by Reflex  , one of my favourite Amiga Mods from the first time that i enjoyed it in the intro Ting by Movement; by chance, i was watching it again a few weeks ago for inspiration, and looks so fresh how the first time 

[SuTeKH/Epyteor]

Wonderful Job!!!  I love your conversion of Super Mario Land by Reflex  , one of my favourite Amiga Mods from the first time that i enjoyed it in the intro Ting by Movement; by chance, i was watching it again a few weeks ago for inspiration, and looks so fresh how the first time 

I remember picking up Chaos Engine II AGA (from a local party) and watching the Lightforce cracktro and being mesmerised by the music. It's one of those 25 second tunes that you find yourself listening to for 10 to 15 minutes straight. Wonderful tune.
 
I hope the lack of drums doesn't spoil it too much. I think the raw music works as it is.
 

[krusty]

I did not listen all of the songs (directly in arkos tracker, no cpc at work ), but they seem good!

Too sad you did not release your music disc during the ReSeT Party http://www.pushnpop.net/reset/index.php?action=results to reach a broader audience.

By the way, do not hesitate to write 100Hz song, you can reach better quality.
I already hear comic bakery with AMC at 100Hz (by ELiot ?) years ago and it sounded very good.

[SyX]

I remember picking up Chaos Engine II AGA (from a local party) and watching the Lightforce cracktro and being mesmerised by the music. It's one of those 25 second tunes that you find yourself listening to for 10 to 15 minutes straight. Wonderful tune.

Yeah!!! 
 

I hope the lack of drums doesn't spoil it too much. I think the raw music works as it is.

Of course, that works 

Originally, this song came from Super Mario Land of gameboy, and that lacks of drums, too... but i prefer your AY version at the gameboy original, it sounds so happy  ... and if in the future you take an interest in learn about digidrums, well you always could use it to test them, but how i said, i love your version 

[SuTeKH/Epyteor]

Originally, this song came from Super Mario Land of gameboy, and that lacks of drums, too... but i prefer your AY version at the gameboy original, it sounds so happy  ... and if in the future you take an interest in learn about digidrums, well you always could use it to test them, but how i said, i love your version 

It's quite sad really, but every tune I've converted has a story behind it. For example; I was a HUGE fan of Robocod, so that's why I converted Richard's beautiful Catlots tune, the Skid Row cracktro tune (my all-time favourite, Synth Drum by Zzzzax) and the Legend trainer tune (Bad Moon by Damien)!
I could go on, but I'll only bore you all!
 
 
---------------------------------------
For Devilmarkus (and everyone);
- Done so far
- Disc one in YM format. (Attached in zip)
- Disc two in YM format. (Attached in zip)
(Good job, Devilmarkus, the java applet is brilliant!)
 

[Devilmarkus]

Thanks for sharing!

Here you go for a online YM player:
http://cpc-live.com/NTWICCT (Use only if the emulator based player is too slow)

Or the same player but emulator based:
http://cpc-live.com/NTWICCT/jym.html

Update:
Part 1:
http://cpc-live.com/NTWICCT1 (Use only if the emulator based player is too slow)
http://cpc-live.com/NTWICCT1/jym.html
Part 2:
http://cpc-live.com/NTWICCT2 (Use only if the emulator based player is too slow)
http://cpc-live.com/NTWICCT2/jym.html

Both parts together: See first 2 links

[Executioner]

Every second time you have to use two set res instructions, so it's not that much of a difference

Not if you interleave the scan lines 0, 1, 3, 2, 6, 4, 5, 7  (or other possible combinations). It would most likely also be possible to fit all the characters into 32 byte boundaries and remove the requirement for an address lookup table.

[arnoldemu]

Ocean Loader rocks and this is a good conversion.

I would love a Ay conversion of the other ones, especially loader 3
(100Hz please )

[SuTeKH/Epyteor]

I would love a Ay conversion of the other ones, especially loader 3
(100Hz please )

Here's a quick version of OCEAN LOADER 3 by PETER CLARKE (copyright 1987 Ocean Software).
It still needs a lot of work, but you can get the gist of how it will eventually sound. It's only 50hz for now as I wanted to get the tune structure right before fine-tuning things.
 

[mr_lou]

Very nice compilation. I especially like the Robocod tune, and the Crystal Intro.

However!!!

These tunes were converted on WinAPE and so will sound different on a proper CPC or any other emulator. So, please view this on WinAPE 2.0 A17 with stereo audio to kinda hear what I'm hearing!

No no no no no no!  :'(
We can not go in that direction. It's easy to hear on a real CPC that the tracks aren't "compatible" with a real CPC.

Either use an emulator with a more accurate AY-emulation, or use a real CPC.

Imagine if the emulators had the colors wrong, and the graphics artist wrote "Well, these pictures I've done only looks right on WinAPE". What?? Not good enough, sorry.
Otherwise the forum should have a completely new category called "CPC emulator only stuff". 

[ukmarkh]

Amazing effort... can't wait for NTWICM 2 - The Flimbo music brought back some memories, used to play this for hours.