Game Music & SFX

[Leonie]

As we know the Atari ST contains the same soundchip as our lovely Amstrad.
There is a "Wings Of Death/Atari ST"-video on youtube.
The digi-titlemusic sounds broadly similar to the Amiga-Version.
That´s hard to believe, it sounds so clear and powerful.
Unlike Xenon2, it´s not "one long sample" you can hear, it´s a "multichannel-tune with single samples", isn´t it?
Can this be true?
Is this really music from the Atari ST? 
Or maybe the Atari STE?

LINK:

[Gryzor]

I think it's from the ST - I used to own a 1040STFM and it had that great tune indeed...

[arnoldemu]

As we know the Atari ST contains the same soundchip as our lovely Amstrad.
There is a "Wings Of Death/Atari ST"-video on youtube.
The digi-titlemusic sounds broadly similar to the Amiga-Version.
That´s hard to believe, it sounds so clear and powerful.
Unlike Xenon2, it´s not "one long sample" you can hear, it´s a "multichannel-tune with single samples", isn´t it?
Can this be true?
Is this really music from the Atari ST? 
Or maybe the Atari STE?

LINK:

Yes, atari st can play sampled sound, but it is done using it's YM sound chip (99% the same as CPC AY sound chip).

The basic idea is that you have a sample for each channel. Stored as 8-bit unsigned. Normally around 11Khz.
The player combines the samples together to make one final sample result.
It then uses this result value in a lookup table to find the volume for each ay channel.
The result is much better than 4-bit sound.

The same is possible on the cpc, but cpc has more limited ram and playback frequency because the cpc has less ram and less powerful cpu.
Digitracker does it for cpc.

The STE does have DMA sound that can play a buffer of 8-bit unsigned samples without cpu help and it also has programmable playback frequency, so better sound is possible here.

For CPC we had a mix of 1-bit sound (recorded from cassette), 4-bit sound played in games (Chase HQ, Bad Dudes vs Dragonninja).. and only sound players like Digitraker giving us better quality.


EDIT: Not confirmed, but probably composed by Jochen Hippell (aka Mad Max/TEX)

[Devilmarkus]

Also the CPC can play stereo sampled sound via the AY chip.
[cpc=http://cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=701.0;attach=589,none,1]CPC6128[/cpc]

[Leonie]

Ey mann, was ist denn ".SNA" für ein File?
Muss ich das entpacken oder so etwas in der Richtung?
Das will bei mir kein Programm annehmen! 

[Devilmarkus]

Das (sollte) jeder Emulator laden können.
SNA = snapshot file
Du benötigst einen CPC emulator mit CPC6128 ROMs

[Devilmarkus]

Alternativ kannst Du dir die ganze "Power System Megademo" hier ansehen und auch runterladen:
http://people.cpcwiki.eu/webcpc.php?user=Devilmarkus&webcpc_id=100002

[Leonie]

Mein Emu hat´s geschluckt! 
Klingt ja echt abgefahren, wow!
"Für Elise" ist auch drin, wie ich herausgehört habe...

[Leonie]

Why is the SID capable to play one (or more?) samples in addition to the three synth-channels and the AY not?
I loathe it!

[MacDeath]

Why is the SID capable to play one (or more?) samples in addition to the   three synth-channels and the AY not?

Not sure of that...
Perhaps by alternating fastly between 2 signal on the same channel, as they did for doing blips...er... Chords (and not arpeggios)...sort of.



But on the overall, the YM from Atari ST could manage such good sounds mostly because it was managed by a quite more powerfull CPU than CPC's AY.


68000... 16bits and almost 8 MHz...in every way twice a Z80...
Also the YM has a better Frequency.

On a CPC :

=AY a quite a slowly Frequency, even compaired to ZX Speccy.

=Z80 can manage only 64K at the time and rarely get more to manage, especially concerning released games, thx to the overpowerfull 464 standard .

=Z80 is notable for having a heavier Video system than other systems, proportionaly to the CPU's capability, with too few co-processor to ease it.

On an Atari ST :
=Disks are 720K.
=Main RAM is 512K.
=Every thing is twice as on Amstrad, sort of...

So yeah, you could put great tunes in intros... by ingame sounds were not often that good honnestly...

Its like ... Prehistorik 2 intro music on Amstrad PLUS... Fancy and great, yet well you have to deal with the game, you can't put that level of quality...


Also Rick 128+ showed that including Samples inside games (yet not actual music in game, only at levels start) is possible simply by...getting them short and using the +64k memory (or even more).

IMO the main problem of Amstrad was not being slow or whatever...

it's simply the lack of Memory actually.
Should totally have been designed as a 128K machine from the start...

[Leonie]

Also the YM has a better Frequency.

What do you mean with better Frequency?
Higher/lower pitch?

Not sure of that...
Perhaps by alternating fastly between 2 signal on the same channel, as they did for doing blips...er... Chords (and not arpeggios)...sort of.

Do you know the game "Turbo Outrun" (C64) and its music? (written by Jeroen Tel)
There is a fourth sample-channel, and I don´t know why!

[mahlemiut]

Best 16-bit setup has to be  the X68000 + MT-32.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU9NzWDjdXs&feature=related

Could we perhaps hook up a CPC to an MT-32...? 

[Gryzor]

Its like ... Prehistorik 2 intro music on Amstrad PLUS... Fancy and great, yet well you have to deal with the game, you can't put that level of quality...

Well, I thought that, gameplay aside, the game looked and sounded great in-game as well!

it's simply the lack of Memory actually.
Should totally have been designed as a 128K machine from the start...

Again with that? Don't you realise the 464 was actually designed in *1983*? Who had 128k in 1983?