Audio: How to make that harmonica sound?

[mr_lou]

The CPC can only produce a square synth, where as the C64 offers sawtooth and sine and triangle synth as well as the square synth.

But in the game Star Quake on the CPC, the tune is playing a harmonica sound. How are they doing that? I'm guessing it's a simple trick of using two channels?

[robcfg]

Can't you use the envelopes to create a sawtooth-like waveform?

[steve]

Maybe they are doing 4 bit DAC.

[mr_lou]

Can't you use the envelopes to create a sawtooth-like waveform?

Yes, many musicians do that, including myself. It's easy when using programs such as STaRKoS. But it's not "real" as such, if you know what I mean.
But yes, the AY chip can "emulate" a sawtooth. We already know how that's done. But I don't get how they're producing that harmonica sound in the Star Quake theme tune.

Maybe they are doing 4 bit DAC.

I have no idea what that is.

[McKlain]

I just loaded the game out of curiosity on JavaCPC, wich allows you to disable any audio channel that you want and also has vu-meters for the sound levels.

What they do is to play the melody on the left channel, and then one octave higher on the center channel. The trick is that they play with the volume levels; the attack, release an sustain are different on both channels.  It's a clever trick, an instrument created using 2 channels.

[mr_lou]

That is clever.

I thought it might be something like that. I wonder what other instruments could be produced using 2 or 3 channels....

[TFM]

Well, as long as you watch enough Italo Western movies, you will be able to create some real amazing instruments

[mr_lou]

Like?

[TFM]

Once upon a time a Revolution
Mercenario
The good, the bad and the Kangaroo ugly
A fistfull of Dollars
For some Dollars more
Silence
El Dorado or Rio Bravo
The Wild bunch (made in USA, but like a very well Spaghetti Western)
All the Cuchillo movies...
and...
featuring... Once upon a time in the West! (Best western for harmonica music).

There are 30 well done more, but I'm a bit in a hurry here at work

[Gryzor]

Ouch. Having really liked some other of BubbleBus' tunes I was expecting something nice, but my hearing is gone after loading this. Still, thanks for bringing it to our attention

[McKlain]

[TFM]

Where's the LIKE button ?? ?? ?? (using IE8 on this computer here).

[McKlain]

It's gone! GONE! 

[mr_lou]

If someone can reproduce that on a CPC, it would be awesome. 

[TFM]

The Like-button? Well, I can give it a try

[ralferoo]

It's gone! GONE! 

Heh, I don't have it any more either. I was looking for it earlier when I was reading another thread and thinking maybe I'd done something stupid like logging out...

[Bryce]

Gryzor!   

Bryce.

[Gryzor]

Seriously guys, you can't discuss it in the proper forum? :p 

[Bryce]

Seriously guys, you can't discuss it in the proper forum? :p

I was going to give you a Like for that, but....

Bryce.

[McKlain]

Now I can't express my feelings without quoting someone else's message and poluting the thread with useless messages 


But who cares about my feelings anyway 

[db6128]

If you insist upon removing it, which I don't agree with, you could at least be thorough and remove the now-pointless Liked statistics from profiles and from below people's avatars.

I don't see a problem with discussing it here, since it was not announced anywhere else for us to comment on, even after the fact!

[Bryce]

Relax, it's a temporary flaw in the system. It's being looked into and the Like button will be back with us soon.

Please try and avoid posting things that people might like until the situation has been rectified, so that the lack of a button will less noticable

Bryce.

[Gryzor]

db6128, are you serious, mate?

First, who told you I removed it? Don't go rushing into conclusions and being aggressive and insulting.
Second, so you mean that anything and everything that hasn't been "announced anywhere else" will be discussed off-topic in any random thread? Like you can't open a new thread to comment on?

[db6128]

First, who told you I removed it? Don't go rushing into conclusions and being aggressive and insulting.

Fine, so I should have considered that it may have been accidental. You'll excuse me if I didn't because I don't know how that could happen. Blame it on a lack of knowledge about forum software. I apologise, in any case.

But I think you are significantly overreacting if you perceive anything here as "aggressive and insulting", rather than a simple misunderstanding and a rushed conclusion on my part. Was my post a bit stupid? Yes. Is there a reason for you be acting so offended? Not really.

Anyway, sorry. Is a major lack of sleep a good excuse for bad manners? Probably not. 

[Gryzor]

Well, apart from being ill I've had a really bad day today, so you can imagine that when someone assumes things and tells me I'm doing a half-arsed job yes, I get a bit riled up. But I think that even if I was having the best day of my life (hey! look! I found a Chase HQ II cart in the garbage!) I'd still find your comment aggressive and insulting, because you immediately jumped the gun (aggressive) and told me I'm not doing a thorough job (insulting).

In any case, let's drop it, okay. Things will get fixed as soon as I feel confident I can mess with the forum's code without f*cking everything up, my attention span has some severe shortcomings right now (hey, look! I found a Chase HQ II cart in the garbage!)