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doynax
Account closed
Registered: Oct 2004
Posts: 212 |
Picking a music player/editor
I must confess to not having much experience with audio programming, the grand total of which extends to randomly poking at Adlib registers to generate sound effects and once cobbling together a half-baked MOD player, so after spending a few hours trying (and failing) to integrate GoatTracker I realized that I'd better ask for help before confusing myself any further. For the record this is intended for yet another one of those game projects I like to keep eternally in the prototype stages.
Anyway... This is a roughly-prioritized wish-list of what I want (albeit not necessarily what I need.)
#1: A convenient and powerful editor for the composer to use. After all any other points are moot if I can't get anyone to use it.
#2: Good sound-effect support (whatever that means), sub-song support for jingles and the like, synchronization commands for the cut-scenes, and any other similar features needed in a game.
#3: Reasonable memory and raster time use. For this particular project I'm more interested in making everything fit on a floppy than about in-game memory use, and more interested in a low maximum raster-time usage than having a good average.
#4: A reusable play-routine with separately-loaded songs so I don't need to keep the entire soundtrack in memory. Incidentally this is what I couldn't figure out how to do in GT, even though I could have sworn that I had done so once before.
#5: The ability to pre-render sound "frames" into a queue would be useful if the player uses a lot of raster-time. I don't know whether this is feasible but any task which can help fill up unused cycles on the "lighter" game frames to relieve the "heavier" ones is certainly valuable.
#6: Finally a smooth build integration would be nice.
Any suggestions?
( Bit-hack of the day: The CMP #$80/ROR sign-extension trick can be extended to multiple steps by adding ARR #$FF instructions before the final ROR. ) |
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Twoflower
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 434 |
I would say GT/GT2. The SFX is a bit limited if you compare it to f.ex the MON SFX-editor - these two and the sound-effects editor made by Rogue/Cult are the only ones i've tested out. One option would be to make the SFX in "any" editor and SID-sample it - would take some space but would save some lines of r-time for your multiplexers. :-)
Which editors/players support SFX and subtunes? I know it have been done in the JCH-ed, but there seem to have been a separate SFX-player for that one? |
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doynax
Account closed
Registered: Oct 2004
Posts: 212 |
Quoting Twoflower One option would be to make the SFX in "any" editor and SID-sample it - would take some space but would save some lines of r-time for your multiplexers. :-) You mean I'd simply record a series of raw SID register writes, and block the the normal music player from touching that particular channel while an effect is active? That certainly would be a convenient solution, but intuitively I would have thought that you'd need at least some degree of synchronization with the music player.
Come to think of it perhaps it wouldn't be entirely unreasonable to mix single-speed music with multi-speed effects. |
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Hein
Registered: Apr 2004
Posts: 933 |
Quote: Quoting Twoflower One option would be to make the SFX in "any" editor and SID-sample it - would take some space but would save some lines of r-time for your multiplexers. :-) You mean I'd simply record a series of raw SID register writes, and block the the normal music player from touching that particular channel while an effect is active? That certainly would be a convenient solution, but intuitively I would have thought that you'd need at least some degree of synchronization with the music player.
Come to think of it perhaps it wouldn't be entirely unreasonable to mix single-speed music with multi-speed effects.
I'd go for 2F's solution too, but not use 3 channel music and block out channels when SFX is playing, because I think it's ugly to hear. I'd use GT for 1 or 2 channel musics and code my own SFX routine for blasts and crushes. Not sure if it's needed to load musics during gameplay, you can load complete music (+routine) when switching to titlescreen or so. |
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doynax
Account closed
Registered: Oct 2004
Posts: 212 |
Quoting HeinI'd go for 2F's solution too, but not use 3 channel music and block out channels when SFX is playing, because I think it's ugly to hear. I'd use GT for 1 or 2 channel musics and code my own SFX routine for blasts and crushes. I'm not sure... Do you know of any good two-channel soundtracks out there? This is for a platformer/exploration game rather than a shoot'em up, so good music is rather important in setting the mood.
Quoting HeinNot sure if it's needed to load musics during gameplay, you can load complete music (+routine) when switching to titlescreen or so. In-game music loading isn't necessary per-se, but there's only so much space available for music so being able to swap it out would free up some RAM and make for one less technical restriction to worry about.
In the worst case I can always divide the soundtrack into groups of songs and reload the playroutine for each group, but surely there's some way of splitting it out in GT, otherwise what's the point of having the option to use an optimized playroutine in the first place? |
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tlr
Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 1724 |
Quoting doynaxQuoting HeinI'd go for 2F's solution too, but not use 3 channel music and block out channels when SFX is playing, because I think it's ugly to hear. I'd use GT for 1 or 2 channel musics and code my own SFX routine for blasts and crushes. I'm not sure... Do you know of any good two-channel soundtracks out there? This is for a platformer/exploration game rather than a shoot'em up, so good music is rather important in setting the mood.
The Human Race isn't too bad.
I'm not sure all subtunes are 2-channel but at least subtune 4 is. That's one of my all time favorites. |
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Hein
Registered: Apr 2004
Posts: 933 |
I guess you need a custom music routine then, one that's optimized for loading music data only, with good 2 channel music (or 3 channel where you block out 1 or 2 channels for sfx) and sfx support. I'd say: Dane, GRG, Jeff or Laxity :)
personally, I'd use 1 channel GT2 music (so i can compose the music myself) and build a custom SFX routine for 2 channels. Using 2 types of music files: title/hiscore/animsequence and ingame/jingles, both with playerroutine. And yes, for a shoot 'm up. |
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doynax
Account closed
Registered: Oct 2004
Posts: 212 |
Quoting HeinI guess you need a custom music routine then, one that's optimized for loading music data only, with good 2 channel music (or 3 channel where you block out 1 or 2 channels for sfx) and sfx support. I'd say: Dane, GRG, Jeff or Laxity :) It's not a critical feature in any way, at worst it'll cost me an extra an kilobyte of floppy space per tune, it just feels a bit wasteful ;)
Quoting Heinpersonally, I'd use 1 channel GT2 music (so i can compose the music myself) and build a custom SFX routine for 2 channels. Using 2 types of music files: title/hiscore/animsequence and ingame/jingles, both with playerroutine. And yes, for a shoot 'm up. Single-channel ambient background music with plenty of sound-effects and catchy jingles undoubtedly would be the way to go for a shoot'em up. Perhaps we'll give it a shot if the game develops further towards the jump'n'run genre. |
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Frantic
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 1629 |
I guess it might not be the kind of answer you are looking for, but many players would be relatively easily to hack so they would only use 1 or 2 channels + trigging of instruments (i.e. sound fx) from "outside" of the music routine. If so, then you could use the editor as usual, just leaving one or two channels out in the composition and some sound effects could also be made within the very same editor. Just a thought... |
