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MC
Account closed
Registered: Jul 2009
Posts: 71 |
music-assembler
Any of you ever used it?
I am partly responsible for its existence.
Together with OPM who lived next door from me at the time (we lost contact) we decided after ripping lots of game tunes by Rob Hubbard and Martin Galway that we could do better technically.
We created a player routine which could play good sounding music based on tracks, sequences and presets (like hubbard's routine) minimizing RAM usage but without having big peaks in rasterline usage. The trick was working around the waiting stuff that had to be done with the SID or otherwise it wouldn't trigger. We accomplished this by having the player think ahead and make decisions for the next time the interrupt would be triggered. This routine would later become the music-assembler player code. The rest is history.
The two of us created the player routine, OPM was responsible for the track editor and I did the sequence and preset editors. We contacted Markt+Technik who also published some magazines in Germany and we had a publishing deal. They sold quite a large number of copies to my surprise at the time. I think I was about 17 years old or something back then.
I've read there were later 'updated' versions of our 1.0 release by Triad. Can anyone tell me what they changed/improved? I haven't seen a C64 in decades.
Cheers,
Marco Swagerman a.k.a. MC/DusaT
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SIDWAVE
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238 |
hey MC,
im one of your biggest fans.
when we started hvsc, some of the first priroty was to rip all your tunes, because i love them :D
no, at the time when masm came, i had already gone to amiga, so i never learned it.
in 1995 when i returned to c64, i got jch's tracker, because its more user friendly than masm, i chose to learn that.
now i use SDI by geir+grg, and imo its the best native c64 tracker around.
in hvsc, if you go to musicians/ouwehand_reyn, or musicians/Waz they use masm and got some good stuff out of it.
just so you know, about that your very first tunes, or in fact most your tune sin hvsc, are ripped by me. i was filled with joy to find the very first music coded in some very minimal player, that i guess you have written.. (with crappy sounds hehe)
:D
dear marco, if you want to compose sid again, check the tutorial videos i have put on youtube for SDI, then you can easy start to push the juice out of this fantastic tracker!
http://www.youtube.com/diabelez
my old handle is rambones/TST (The Supply Team)
(the group with the worlds largest sideborder scroller in 1987 and 1988)
if you want to talk to oscar again, i have his mail.
i mailed some with him now and then, about info, because you were nowhere to find! :D
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Angel of Death
Registered: Apr 2008
Posts: 210 |
*dropping down on my knees in total admiration*
"This is the rock-monitor three!"
Jan Harries is right. As far as I know all of Reyn Ouwehand's stuff is made in MA. (Except for LN III which at least uses the core of the playing routine)
There is a tune in the HVSC by me made in MA.
It was, at the time as promoted by you, the most economic and user-friendly music-maker around. And if you ask me it still is! It may lack some very advanced sound-creating functions (fast modulation, hard-restart etc.) but very easy to get into.
If goattracker wouldn't have come along I'd still be using it.
And I think that if you would type "music assembler" in the search box any other version of it should come up.
(being a dutch production I am sure anything dealing with will be on this site) |
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Zyron
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 2381 |
I believe the Voice Tracker editor, which I made alot of music in, was using the Music Assembler player. |
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Stainless Steel
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 966 |
Marco Swagerman woah! I still frequently listen to "Still rolling" "rollerboard" and "ode to rob".
Great work dude and musicassembler rocked hard. And rockmonitor of course too :D
BTW, a count of all SIDID's matching music assembler comes up with a number around 5181 hits. Might be more i'm not sure if my hvsc version is the most recent.
Unfortunately SIDID doesnt seem to be able to tell Rockmonitor and Soundmonitor apart.
And yes, i have made some tunes in Music Assembler aswell but eventually switched to SDI years later. Still MA was a great editor for its time.
In my book one of the persons who really shined with it most was Reyn Ouwehand. Also Image did some really nice tunes with it aswell.
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MC
Account closed
Registered: Jul 2009
Posts: 71 |
I've heard of this "hard reset" but am not acquainted with it. What exactly does it do? |
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Angel of Death
Registered: Apr 2008
Posts: 210 |
I'm no expert on this. But it has to do with the ADSR generator in the SID chip. As I understood it isn't very good, causing waveforms not to start exactly at volume zero and ruining your attack. It was fixed in the later version 8580 (making it sound tighter and more controlled) but some amazing techno-boffins found a way how to tickle some registers and causing the ADSR generator to reset and restart completely. (hence the name hard-restart)
The resulting difference is truly amazing. And the only down-side seems to be an increase in processor time.
But anyone who actually knows what he is talking about is free to correct me. :) |
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Frantic
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 1627 |
as far as I know, the ADSR bug is equally present on the 8580. |
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iAN CooG
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 3136 |
Stainless: grab latest sidid.cfg
http://csdb.dk/release/download.php?id=118271
and use parameter -m to get different sub-versions of players for example in /MC dir you'll get
Last_V8.sid Music_Assembler
(Voice_Tracker_4)
Lets_get_ill.sid SoundMonitor
(DUSAT/RockMon4)
Rockmonitor_5_Intromusic.sid Dutch-USA_Team/MC
Vainqueur.sid SoundMonitor
(JamMaster)
We_Have_It.sid SoundMonitor
(MusicMaster_1)
and so on.
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Marauder/GSS
Account closed
Registered: Jul 2006
Posts: 224 |
ah the dutch usa-team in the house, kewl...and the good old music-assembler... (:
really liked that great editor/player and still have a (unreleased) jingle-maker somewhere on my old disks, which I did for Chris Ammermüller/Beatmachine in 1989/90...
Groetjes! |
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SIDWAVE
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238 |
MC: hard restart fixed the ADSR bug in the SID.
a triangle f.ex /\, it should start on value 0, but it dont, it just continues. so you reset the oscillator by setting waveform 9 or 0 or someothers, and then wait a few cycles, then set the waveform to be used. The /\ will then for sure start at 0 every time.
it makes drums hard and snappy, not sloppy and failing as in f.ex a lot of ben daglish tunes, or the basses of david whittaker. |
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Stainless Steel
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 966 |
Quoting JanJanfailing as in f.ex a lot of ben daglish tunes I strongly disagree on the failing part. It's a matter of taste though :-D |
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Frantic
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 1627 |
@Jan: While oscillator reset is often included in hardrestart routines for the reason that you mention, it does not itself have anything to do with the ADSR bug (oscillator != ADSR). The ADSR bug is a bug relating to the internal counter of the ADSR generator. In some conditions, this counter will not never hit a certain value which determines when the release is supposed to start, after which is supposed to start counting downwards (the release), but instead continues to count upwards and upwards until the counter eventually wraps around. This takes longer time than hitting the release condition and then counting downwards, as it should, and hence the timing of the ADSR may become unstable once you trig the next attack since the internal counter is somewhere out there in outer space. It is hard to explain in more detail than this, and those who are interested and able to are encouraged to have a look in the source code for resid, which does emulate the ADSR bug.
Also, no delay is required to reset the oscillator as you claim here. Just flip the testbit on and off, and the oscillator will be restarted immediately. The ADSR stuff needs some time to ensure that the internal counter of the ADSR generator will be "normalized" though, something like one or two frames, depending on what ADSR values that are involved.
So, just to conclude.. what people calls "hard restart" is really two different things:
1. Taking measures to stabilize the ADSR counter.
2. Setting the testbit to restart the oscillator.
Number 1 is obligatory for something to be called "hard restart", but number 2 is not implemented by everyone. Good editors allows the user to choose if and how to do these things, since the sound will be different depending on how you do it (i.e. there is no single "right" way to do hard restart) and different ways of doing it will fit different kinds of sounds/instruments in different ways. |
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MC
Account closed
Registered: Jul 2009
Posts: 71 |
Aha that clears up things for me. Thanks for your replies lads. |
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Frantic
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 1627 |
I should just add that my account of the internal workings of the ADSR counter is quite likely not completely accurate in all its details. I just wrote from memory, but it was quite a long time since I digged into the resid sourcecode myself. Still it should give a general idea of the nature of the problem that is involved, i.e. the counter not counting in the right way in certain (not that uncommon) conditions. The rest of what I wrote should be accurate.
It could perhaps also be added that a sid tune would be "unstable" (with respect to ADSR) in exactly the same way each time the tune was played if it was called from cycle exact timed code. That is to say, no "indeterminism" is involved of course... I guess that is obvious, but it might not hurt to say it. |
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SIDWAVE
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238 |
My knowledge is just hearsay.. I havent tried to code it myself yet, so i am not experienced.
I started to make a music player in january, and i had the tracker system ready, and some limited sound, and a data format, and then my harddisk died and i lost it all.
i didnt take a backup for 3 months, and that was a big mistake.. :(
if i should try again, i wont code it on pc like i did, i will use TASS on c64 instead (tass rom v2 by soundemon) - i feel much better touching the c64 a whole night, than a cold soulless pc anyway :D |
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Frantic
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 1627 |
Didn't mean that as criticism. :) Just wanted to clear things up a bit.
By the way, there is also a text by Cadaver about hard-restart in the following release: 10 Years HVSC
Might be worth checking out for those who are interested to learn a little more about hard-restart. |
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MC
Account closed
Registered: Jul 2009
Posts: 71 |
It never occured to me there was a bug in the old SID. At least I never noticed it.
I've been listening to some of my own tunes tonight which I had long forgotten. Sure brings back memories people!
Browsing through my old stuff these are the dutch usa-team ones I remembered and like best:
1. Rock Da House, for it's funky bassline near the end of it.
2. Untouched (music-assembler intro music)
3. Ode to Galway (the tune that kinda kickstarted me)
I never was happy with the tracks I did for Rollerboard, they were repetitive and boring but time was short I can remember.
Ofcourse I never felt I could even come close to the quality tunes done by the ones who inspired me: Martin Galway, Rob Hubbard and later on Jeroen Tel.
Thank you people for keeping C64 music alive. I seem to have missed out on so much good stuff... This lad is sure as hell having a blast from the past atm.
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SIDWAVE
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238 |
Still Rolling is a timeless masterpiece. that lead sound with that smooth round soundmon bass; at that time it was some of the best sound design made in that hopeless editor.. :D |
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Perplex
Registered: Feb 2009
Posts: 254 |
Quoting Jan HarriesI started to make a music player in january, and i had the tracker system ready, and some limited sound, and a data format, and then my harddisk died and i lost it all.
i didnt take a backup for 3 months, and that was a big mistake.. :(
Your mistake was not using revision control and commiting your work to a repository somewhere where backup is done automatically. Losing months of work to disk crashes is the modern version of "the dog ate my homework", really.
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11123 |
Quote:Losing months of work to disk crashes is the modern version of "the dog ate my homework", really.
cant agree with that :) the later was an excuse for beeing lazy... the first is just a sign of beeing stupid =P |
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Perplex
Registered: Feb 2009
Posts: 254 |
Quote: Quote:Losing months of work to disk crashes is the modern version of "the dog ate my homework", really.
cant agree with that :) the later was an excuse for beeing lazy... the first is just a sign of beeing stupid =P
Can't see there's any disagreement, assuming the dog excuse is stated with the expectancy of being believed. ;-) |
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Oswald
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 5021 |
Quote: Quoting Jan HarriesI started to make a music player in january, and i had the tracker system ready, and some limited sound, and a data format, and then my harddisk died and i lost it all.
i didnt take a backup for 3 months, and that was a big mistake.. :(
Your mistake was not using revision control and commiting your work to a repository somewhere where backup is done automatically. Losing months of work to disk crashes is the modern version of "the dog ate my homework", really.
ah, good to know that p1 and all my other stuff is "the dog ate my homework", really. |
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Frantic
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 1627 |
@mc: Just to repeat.. the ADSR bug is equally present in the old and the new SID. |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11123 |
Quote:Can't see there's any disagreement, assuming the dog excuse is stated with the expectancy of being believed. ;-)
but the dog excuse is usually used by those who wanted to "have their homework eaten" :) (i might be naiv enough to believe noone uses the disk crash excuse for simply not having done anything. what remains is the stupidity of not doing backups) |
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Perplex
Registered: Feb 2009
Posts: 254 |
Quoting Oswaldah, good to know that p1 and all my other stuff is "the dog ate my homework", really.
What, you lost all the source code in a disk crash and didn't have any backup? Or were you just lucky enough not to have a disk crash before the final versions were released?
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SIDWAVE
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238 |
Quote: Quoting Oswaldah, good to know that p1 and all my other stuff is "the dog ate my homework", really.
What, you lost all the source code in a disk crash and didn't have any backup? Or were you just lucky enough not to have a disk crash before the final versions were released?
whats the problem ?
surely there must be re-assemblers for pc...
and about my homework eaten by the dog theory, well i can just say i am oldskool. i dont use or have knowledge how to use such things as cvs and all that.
i always kept it very simple with a cli assembler and 1 file with the whole program in it.
a guy like me, i tried 3 times in all, i couldnt compile the richard joseph demo, because its 100s of files and paths, and i couldnt get my pc to find the paths nomatter what i tried.
surely i could have added the 3 last tunes, linked the intro on and some minor things, but when i cant even get the shit to compile, im lost.
"compile mydemo.s" --> gives prg/exe file, now thats what i prefer!
i know this is dinosaur tech, but it works every time.
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11123 |
and ofcourse that has everything to do with beeing stupid enough to not have backups =) |
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SIDWAVE
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238 |
Patronizing users and calling yourself a moderator, how useless.
You should man up and resign this post, coz your not fit for it. |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11123 |
lol, ofcourse. a good moderator in this case would pet you on the back saying "well done boy! you lost all your data! backups are for newschool lamers!". |
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Oswald
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 5021 |
well, jan has definitly right in this case, you're constantly stirring the shit. thats not something a mod should do on the forums. |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11123 |
anyone complaining about mods stirring the shit and at the same time calling himself oldschool should go stand in the corner really. compared to what would happen to those guys on an actual good old bbs anything happening here is asspetting friendly. and if you dont like someone stirring your shit, just dont poop it into the forum. |
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Devia
Registered: Oct 2004
Posts: 401 |
this is getting tiresome... If you really can't find any other counter arguments than "uh.. you're a moderator, your not supposed to say that", then STFU. Regardless of who is right or wrong or even who provokes who, that really is a lame argument.
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11123 |
somehow i get the feeling that every time someone has to pull this "argument" .... he doesn't have any others left.
next time a discussion goes offtopic like this i might simply delete everyones offtopic posts. and if they then complain, they can go fuck themselves.
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Mr. SID
Registered: Jan 2003
Posts: 421 |
Jan, there's no excuse for these things:
- Not using backup
- Not using revision control
- Stuffing everything into one file, writing spaghetti code
it's not oldskool. People would've used these techniques even in the 80ies if they would've been available and/or feasible. You always gotta learn. |
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Frantic
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 1627 |
I agree.. Yet I think gpz acts kinda silly too. :) I mean.. what is the point with bashing on someone cause they don't take backups (no matter if that is silly or not) in a thread about music-assembler? Doesn't exactly help the discussion stay on topic, does it? :) |
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Stainless Steel
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 966 |
What better way to welcome a long lost C64 scener could there be,
other than turning his first post into another kindergarden shitstorm off-topic thread.
By all means, go ahead. Post some memes while you're at it. Great fun.
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Mr. SID
Registered: Jan 2003
Posts: 421 |
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MC
Account closed
Registered: Jul 2009
Posts: 71 |
Don't panic. I'm used to lame bitching - afterall I was a scener before ;)
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MC
Account closed
Registered: Jul 2009
Posts: 71 |
I was really happy with the include and incbin stuff in Devpac when I started out on the Amiga, it allowed me to re-use a lot of code... but let's drop the URE DOING IT WRONG! discussion.
Music-Assembler had several (tasm) source files to keep the src from getting cluttered and chunky AND because there were two coders, each working on different sections of it. This is different from coding a quick demo/intro type of thing where its okay to throw it all into one src file.
Just write code in a way you feel most comfortable with given the circumstances. There is no right or wrong - this is art we're talking about.
Most demos I did in the old days were coded in a debugger. We had no assemblers in those days, just a debugger and some sprite/charset editors.
Anyways, back to the topic...
I've been checking out the Triad releases of masm and can't find any improvements in there. Did they ever change anything in the music routine/editor at all? Doesn't seem so.
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Zyron
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 2381 |
I don't think so. They were merely making changes to the editor AFAIK. |
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SIDWAVE
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238 |
MC: Didnt you see my pm ?
the 1.2 version by Triad, has the improvements described in the little scroll inside the main editor screen, and you should ofcourse notice them when using it.. ?
Here's the 1.4 version
Music-Assembler V1.4 |
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MC
Account closed
Registered: Jul 2009
Posts: 71 |
Yes I read the PM and no the scroll in 1.2 didn' tell me enough. There's hardly anything in there. Disk actions window semi improved, rastertime display 'fixed' (it wasn't broken in the first place), time played display added and they changed the three track bars in the bottom into a 'graphic analyzer' type of thing in which you can't see which track is doing what so that it is just a nice looking graphic but not really useful.
In effect according to their scrolltext Triad made no useful changes at all and their subsequent releases appear to be bugfixes of their own code in their previous release.
This is why I ask if anything was changed at all in masm's functionality. As it appears this is not the case I can stick to 1.0 and safely discard the Triad releases, unless ofcourse there is some point to them I am missing?
Cheers, Marco
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SIDWAVE
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238 |
no, the functionality isnt changed.
its a pure "we upgraded this" (with useless gfx effect) release :D |
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MC
Account closed
Registered: Jul 2009
Posts: 71 |
I uploaded a manual for music assembler I'm working on at http://tanx0r.org/mc/masm_manual_0_01b.pdf (my own domain and webspace).
Any questions about the inner workings of MASM can be directed at me as I spent the last three days disecting and resourcing the player routine and writing the manual. My brain is up to par again concerning the old editor and player.
Cheers, Marco
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Stainless Steel
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 966 |
I'd also love to hear some rockmonitor history. |
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MC
Account closed
Registered: Jul 2009
Posts: 71 |
Heheh and to think I always hated 'digis'. True story! It made me dislike the Amiga and its shite audio capabilities and even now I still hate samplers.
When I load up rockmon 5 nowadays I don't have a clue how it even works! :) I guess the base we used for it (soundmonitor) has never really been my cup of tea...
Rockmonitor was mostly OPM's project, I don't really have any recollection of how we did things. Just that the first versions were really bad compared to version 5, which utilized NMI interrupts to play samples through the volume register at $D418.
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SIDWAVE
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238 |
Rockmonitor:
9000 lowbyte
9100 hibyte
9200 patterns (01 00 00 02.....) (drums)
9fxx (address can be found in digiplayer at 9e00), here are the lo/hibytes of sample start/end, and there is a table of sample speed. (see in player for this)
anyhow, that is RM3 and 4, i think RM5 is a bit different.
you have to enter the values in 9000/9100/9200+ OUTSIDE the current tune. so if it goes from step 1 to 5, you have to enter the drums in 6-ff - now thats pretty lame, because you cant make the drums while the music is playing :(
you edit the drum stuff in right side, where its all filled with bf00.
anyhow, RM3 and 4 both have instructions when you start them up.
hehe |
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Stainless Steel
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 966 |
I meant history, not instructions :-D |
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SURFiNG
Account closed
Registered: Sep 2011
Posts: 3 |
sorry to bring this up, but im looking after the manual and the link to MC's site seems broken.. Any Luck?
-----
Resolved: Found in cache of google documents! great! |
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MC
Account closed
Registered: Jul 2009
Posts: 71 |
Soz I canceled my webspace. Will upload again. |
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(451)
Account closed
Registered: Mar 2012
Posts: 3 |
Quote: *dropping down on my knees in total admiration*
"This is the rock-monitor three!"
Jan Harries is right. As far as I know all of Reyn Ouwehand's stuff is made in MA. (Except for LN III which at least uses the core of the playing routine)
There is a tune in the HVSC by me made in MA.
It was, at the time as promoted by you, the most economic and user-friendly music-maker around. And if you ask me it still is! It may lack some very advanced sound-creating functions (fast modulation, hard-restart etc.) but very easy to get into.
If goattracker wouldn't have come along I'd still be using it.
And I think that if you would type "music assembler" in the search box any other version of it should come up.
(being a dutch production I am sure anything dealing with will be on this site)
I know that I'm replying to a preeeeeeeetty old post now, but I'm still hopeful :)
I remember checking your tutorial vids a few months back and they were really helpful, so I tried checking them out again but for some reason some didn't work anymore, #6 to #9 to be exact. Could it be possible to sort that out somehow if you still have them laying around?
Thanks in advance!
I've also been working on a SDI reference sheet for a few months but haven't had that much spare time recently, hoping to finish it in a few weeks so I can finally move forward on my music project, cause SDI is obviously the way to go! :D |
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Soren
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 547 |
Hmm, I am quite sure that some of Reyn Ouwehand's music is made in other routines than music-assembler.
I remember having several of his tunes of his done in a player probably by Falco Paul, as sourcecodes. |
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Mace
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 1799 |
Just adding my two cents: most of my tunes were done in Music Assembler.
An occasional one was done in *cough* futurecomposer *washes mouth*.
Sorry for that. |
