Sample (wavetable) Synthesis on the ST through the YM2149

[kool kitty89]

I was wondering what kind of things could have been done with this, I was aware previously of the YM(or AY) sound chip being able to play 8-bit samples fairly easily, but wasn't sure what could beachieved (obviously it would require a fair bit of CPU reasourse to do anything other than straight sample playback). I hadn't even really considdered synth work through this, but then I found this:

(on the ZX Spectrum in Tracker)

As well as a few other examples thereafter, another good one being:

 

That's using close to 100% of the system's power but given the ST has a lot more resourses than the old Spectrum, could it have been doing useful things while doing synth work as well (like having such music in a game).

 

I hadn't noticed another thread mentioning this when I searched, so if it's already been discussed sorry, and could someone point it out?

Edited June 21, 2009 by kool kitty89

[Mark Wolfe]

is this what you were envisioning?

 

http://www.preromanbritain.com/maxymiser/

[oky2000]

is this what you were envisioning?

 

http://www.preromanbritain.com/maxymiser/

 

The sound quality will be quite horrible, yeah sure as a kid it was a nice gimmick to hear, but as a grown up the quality of these AY/YM sample playback routines really make my teeth grate like nails on a blackboard ewww.

[ggn]

is this what you were envisioning?

 

http://www.preromanbritain.com/maxymiser/

 

The sound quality will be quite horrible, yeah sure as a kid it was a nice gimmick to hear, but as a grown up the quality of these AY/YM sample playback routines really make my teeth grate like nails on a blackboard ewww.

 

MaxYMizer can use the STE's DMA for replaying samples.

[atarian63]

is this what you were envisioning?

 

http://www.preromanbritain.com/maxymiser/

 

The sound quality will be quite horrible, yeah sure as a kid it was a nice gimmick to hear, but as a grown up the quality of these AY/YM sample playback routines really make my teeth grate like nails on a blackboard ewww.

Kinda like c64 sid.. ewww

[oky2000]

is this what you were envisioning?

 

http://www.preromanbritain.com/maxymiser/

 

The sound quality will be quite horrible, yeah sure as a kid it was a nice gimmick to hear, but as a grown up the quality of these AY/YM sample playback routines really make my teeth grate like nails on a blackboard ewww.

 

MaxYMizer can use the STE's DMA for replaying samples.

 

Thought we were talking about the YM chip doing wavetable synthesis. Getting a machine with a DAC or 4 to do it is not really the issue, except perhaps sample volume on something like an 8 note simultaneous routine (Octamed on the Amiga...which only has 4 DACs, hell even some games had 2 virtual channels to make 6)

[oky2000]

is this what you were envisioning?

 

http://www.preromanbritain.com/maxymiser/

 

The sound quality will be quite horrible, yeah sure as a kid it was a nice gimmick to hear, but as a grown up the quality of these AY/YM sample playback routines really make my teeth grate like nails on a blackboard ewww.

Kinda like c64 sid.. ewww

 

Samples on the SID funnily enough sound fine considering it's a 1981 8bit chipset Still better than that door stop silicon wafer called Pokey in the A8 chipset...ewww that thing sounds like 1khz square wave modulated farting noises yuck what an unversatile samey sounding music producing chip that is.

 

The SID was superior to the AY/YM type chips.....only a complete idiot (or someone who is tone deaf) would try to assert otherwise. And the difference is the C64 SID was revolutionary for 1981....the YM chip in the ST in 1985 was nothing short of a mistake in a £400 68000 based machine.

[atarian63]

is this what you were envisioning?

 

http://www.preromanbritain.com/maxymiser/

 

The sound quality will be quite horrible, yeah sure as a kid it was a nice gimmick to hear, but as a grown up the quality of these AY/YM sample playback routines really make my teeth grate like nails on a blackboard ewww.

Kinda like c64 sid.. ewww

 

Samples on the SID funnily enough sound fine considering it's a 1981 8bit chipset Still better than that door stop silicon wafer called Pokey in the A8 chipset...ewww that thing sounds like 1khz square wave modulated farting noises yuck what an unversatile samey sounding music producing chip that is.

 

The SID was superior to the AY/YM type chips.....only a complete idiot (or someone who is tone deaf) would try to assert otherwise. And the difference is the C64 SID was revolutionary for 1981....the YM chip in the ST in 1985 was nothing short of a mistake in a £400 68000 based machine.

I always had the employees turn that pos c64 sound down or off.just a grating cheap sound. very non arcade considering it was 82. Pokey however was the real deal and actually used in arcades. Sounded great.

Only an idiot could love that cheesy 64 wanna be sound for arcade games. Yes the original st ym wasnt to hot.Digitized sounds fixed that though.

sid sounds like bee's buzzing,bees that are ill.

[+Sauron]

Thought we were talking about the YM chip doing wavetable synthesis. Getting a machine with a DAC or 4 to do it is not really the issue, except perhaps sample volume on something like an 8 note simultaneous routine (Octamed on the Amiga...which only has 4 DACs, hell even some games had 2 virtual channels to make 6)

 

So do you actually have anything useful to contribute to this conversation, or are you here just to take a dump on the YM chip?

[Mark Wolfe]

where the hell is the original author of this thread? sheesh

[kool kitty89]

is this what you were envisioning?

 

http://www.preromanbritain.com/maxymiser/

 

The sound quality will be quite horrible, yeah sure as a kid it was a nice gimmick to hear, but as a grown up the quality of these AY/YM sample playback routines really make my teeth grate like nails on a blackboard ewww.

Kinda like c64 sid.. ewww

 

Samples on the SID funnily enough sound fine considering it's a 1981 8bit chipset Still better than that door stop silicon wafer called Pokey in the A8 chipset...ewww that thing sounds like 1khz square wave modulated farting noises yuck what an unversatile samey sounding music producing chip that is.

 

The SID was superior to the AY/YM type chips.....only a complete idiot (or someone who is tone deaf) would try to assert otherwise. And the difference is the C64 SID was revolutionary for 1981....the YM chip in the ST in 1985 was nothing short of a mistake in a £400 68000 based machine.

 

 

Many people have a love/hate for these chips, but I kind of like each with their own characteristics. The pokey does sound like a TIA with some sounds, but that's hardly a bad thing, and it can do much more as well. THe SID has a distinctive "analog" sound that almost sounds like FM synthesis at times, interesting psudo brassy and kazoo-like electric gitaur type sounds as well. (the latter the Amiga would also frequently mimic, the Dizzy Games for example, or Out Run) Sample playback on the SID was acheived by exploiting a hardware flaw, which caused samples to be very quiet on later machines with a revised chip design. POKEY was quite good at sample playback too. (correct me if I'm wrong, but couldn't it be configured to have direct access to the DAC's? Like the Atari Lynx)

 

I like FM synth chips too, and the characteristic early wavetable synthesis systems, like on the SNES, Amiga, and the beautiful Roland MT-32. (still each format has it's charm, even something simple like the AY/YM chip in the ST, or similar one of the Master System or ColecoVision, or the VIC-20's, not to mention the NES's; OK but maybe not a PC speaker beeper or the Channel F...)

 

Also note that POKEY was a fairly versitile chip, it could even do some of that whiny brassy (FM synth like) sounds similar to the SID, here's a good example: http://www.battleofthebits.org/player/Entry/2331/

 

Some great stuff here: http://www.battleofthebits.org/arena/Vomitorium/336/

 

where the hell is the original author of this thread? sheesh

 

Yeah, I forgot to check on it recently... Anyway, the example in the second post isn't really what I had in mind, that stuff in the ZX Spectrum examples seems much more complex, maybe what's shown in those links are just basic examples, but I was really wondering if anything comperable to those Speccy examples had been done.

And on a seperate note, wether this would have been something useful for programmers to use back in the day, particularly in games. (granted the more CPU you dedicated the less you could put toward the game, but at least for some games -less CPU intensive- it may have been possible)

Edited July 4, 2009 by kool kitty89

[jens]

I think Machinae Suppremacy are using a SID on their songs. Sounds quite well, if you ask me.

The YM2149 is ok with me as well. Just listen to the YM Rockerz, and especially gwEm if you want to hear what MaxYMizer does with it.

[ggn]

I think Machinae Suppremacy are using a SID on their songs. Sounds quite well, if you ask me.

The YM2149 is ok with me as well. Just listen to the YM Rockerz, and especially gwEm if you want to hear what MaxYMizer does with it.

 

Also, here's a proof that even with a "crap" soundchip like the YM2149 you can perform amazing things

[kool kitty89]

Also, here's a proof that even with a "crap" soundchip like the YM2149 you can perform amazing things

 

Yo do realize that's on an STe, right? (a good deal of the music is done with its additional sound hardware)

That said, the sound coming from the YM2149 is awsome!

[Rybags]

Read the credits near the end of the demo, streaming video is here.

 

I don't think the YM chip is used at all.

 

I've had a look around the place, there are techniques to get better digital sound from the YM... I think the best is almost equivalent to 9-bit playback.

 

Worth including MSX if your doing a search, there's still a pretty big scene there, and the techniques used should transfer across fairly directly.

[kool kitty89]

Read the credits near the end of the demo, streaming video is here.

 

I don't think the YM chip is used at all.

 

I know the digitized sound is all through the STe audio DMA, but I was commenting on the sound coming off the YM chip.

[oky2000]

Thought we were talking about the YM chip doing wavetable synthesis. Getting a machine with a DAC or 4 to do it is not really the issue, except perhaps sample volume on something like an 8 note simultaneous routine (Octamed on the Amiga...which only has 4 DACs, hell even some games had 2 virtual channels to make 6)

 

So do you actually have anything useful to contribute to this conversation, or are you here just to take a dump on the YM chip?

 

I am talking about using these non DAC chips for Wavetable stuff in general, not specifically at just the AY/YM....Wavetable is a bad idea on Pokey or SID or TI soundchips too whatever CPU you have especially on an ST when you can plug in a modest sample module via midi anyway. And even with a DAC the quality and sound amplitude goes down exponentially with each artificial channel you add, 6 is the limit on Paula which has 4 hardware DACs already, runs in DMA and has a 7mhz 68000 for calculations of the extra channels.

 

The YM sounds cool in the right hands eg David Whittaker and the Xenon 1 title tune which is lovely but feel free to jump in with Atari trolls from the A8 wars any time you like who ALSO CONTRIBUTE NOTHING AND TROLL MORE when quoting me You don't buy a 2.OL car and then expect it to do 185mph like a Ferrari, and then bitch and moan at a mechanic who tells you forget it just get a 185mph car in the first place that was designed to do that task. If that's thread pissing in your world then I feel sorry for you.

 

(I own every console and home machine ever made in PAL format from Philips G7000 to Playstation 4, I am entitled to my opinion based on using many machines in combination, advocate experience of using every machine and their relative strengths and weaknesses not ignorant fanboy ideals/dreams/subjective facts, truth is the truth, but feel free to ignore specs/facts/demonstratable examples on machine specific forums of course)

[oky2000]

is this what you were envisioning?

 

http://www.preromanbritain.com/maxymiser/

 

The sound quality will be quite horrible, yeah sure as a kid it was a nice gimmick to hear, but as a grown up the quality of these AY/YM sample playback routines really make my teeth grate like nails on a blackboard ewww.

Kinda like c64 sid.. ewww

 

Samples on the SID funnily enough sound fine considering it's a 1981 8bit chipset Still better than that door stop silicon wafer called Pokey in the A8 chipset...ewww that thing sounds like 1khz square wave modulated farting noises yuck what an unversatile samey sounding music producing chip that is.

 

The SID was superior to the AY/YM type chips.....only a complete idiot (or someone who is tone deaf) would try to assert otherwise. And the difference is the C64 SID was revolutionary for 1981....the YM chip in the ST in 1985 was nothing short of a mistake in a £400 68000 based machine.

I always had the employees turn that pos c64 sound down or off.just a grating cheap sound. very non arcade considering it was 82. Pokey however was the real deal and actually used in arcades. Sounded great.

Only an idiot could love that cheesy 64 wanna be sound for arcade games. Yes the original st ym wasnt to hot.Digitized sounds fixed that though.

sid sounds like bee's buzzing,bees that are ill.

 

So you went deaf early as well as going senile early too, good to know, I can ignore all your posts for sure now given that I'm sure you have 0.0001% of the musical ear or raw talent as Martin Galway/Matt Grey/Rob Hubbard as well.

 

Do you have green hair or purple, always wondered which kind of little troll doll you were

[kool kitty89]

Meh, I know plenty of people whole drasiticaly prefer the sound generated from PSG/square wave generators and other simple sound generators (like POKEY, TIA, and the VIC chip) over the C64's (some of which dislike the common musical style on the C64 more than the chip itsself -excessive use of arpeggio -which I rather like- and "warbly," "nasaly," or "whiny" sounds -which I also find interesting). I personally like different aspects of all of these (even a minimalist TI PSG) or FM synthesis compared to wavetable (each can be used poorly of course). To each their own. (and I can certainly understand how one could find the SID's sound "off" or annoying, though I don't personally)

 

The more I think about it the more I think trying to use the 2149 in the manner I suggested is really useful past curiosity, and especially in my suggestion for use in games. (except maybe intros/opening demos or non in-game scenes where more CPU time could be didicated)

 

The comment on the midi module caught my interest, I know the ST has midi in and out ports and that standard midi modules (like the MT-32) sould work fine for programes supporting them, but what kind of affordable/inexpensive moudules were available? (were there any specifically aimed at gaming like the PC's Adlib and Soundblaser were)

 

In terms of games, including an onboard FM synthesis chip (particularly a lower cost one) would have helped a lot with minimal expense. I think the YM2413 was one of the cheapest (if not the cheapest) FM synth chip available around this time, though it's also rather limited in what it can do. The YM2612 (notably used in the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive and FM Towns) is an interesting consideration, particularly as it's 6th channel also features an 8-bit DAC for digital sample playback. (the FM on the channel is disabled while the DAC is being used)

Edited July 7, 2009 by kool kitty89

[jens]

The comment on the midi module caught my interest, I know the ST has midi in and out ports and that standard midi modules (like the MT-32) sould work fine for programes supporting them, but what kind of affordable/inexpensive moudules were available? (were there any specifically aimed at gaming like the PC's Adlib and Soundblaser were)

You can plug any midi keyboard/ sampler/ whatever to your ST to either have input from or output to it.

I used a standard midi keyboard as external soundcard, but you could as well use the soundcard of your PC for that - haven't tried that myself, but it should be fine. You'll need a program that routes midi signals to your soundcard though.

[bpj1138]

I think the POKEY was/is a very unique chip, with its "divide by N" and "bit masking" technology. By comparison, the SID is very conventional. I'm surprised the POKEY wasn't picked up by techno artists back in the day like the TB303. People that bash such instruments are simply grumpy snobs, much like old people that hate anything electronic. 'nuff said