Colecovision Music and melody creator

[Tursi]

The good Captain also wrote me several private messages, so let me repeat what I wrote there about VGM:

 

[I wrote VGM export] 

Because my toolchain inputs VGM. I don't use other players.

https://harmlesslion.com/cgi-bin/showprog.cgi?search=vgm

 

The VGM structure is very basic. You can find the documentation here:

https://www.smspower.org/uploads/Music/vgmspec170.txt

 

To convert, open the file. If you don't see the Vgm identifier in the first four bytes, then it is probably compressed with gzip. Use the data at offset 0x34 to find the start of data. You can go ahead and skip the rest of the header if you know it's an SN-based VGM (they support many other chips). 

 

Then once in the data stream, just look for 0x50 bytes. This command means "send the next byte to the SN". In the case of my SFX port, it will only output 0x50 command bytes for commands to the sound chip, 0x62 command bytes for end of frame, and a 0x66 command byte to mark the end of the file.

 

[Captain Cozmos]

Hopefully he will find time to add this.
I have been toying around with this editor and have been able to make some headway.

You have to adjust for fire because this is a multi system editor.  Colecovision...NES...

 

I really wish I had the brains to make a dedicated music editor that outputs ASM Data for the Colecovision.

I have Video Tunes for the ADAM but there seems no way to convert the songs into raw data but even that would exclude sound effects.

 

We will just have to wait for Tony Cruise or this fine gentleman to up the fill in the gaps because I am just not a sound guy.

I deal with graphics and mediocre assembly language programing.

 

Thanks Tursi

Edited June 2, 2022 by Captain Cozmos

[parkfun101]

I found another program that converts vgm files to a txt file.  It's called vgm2txt.  This seems to get the data. That's half the battle right there.

 

Since the conversion doesn't look as straightforward as I was hoping, I may have to wait on this one and focus on the game maker for Colecovision for now. 

Edited June 2, 2022 by parkfun101

[Tursi]

I have provided an entire toolchain for processing and converting VGM files... it's true that my player is specific to one purpose, but if you really don't want packed audio, or your needs are simpler, you can still start with the processing tools.

 

Here's a sample sequence:

 

1) Start with vgm_psg2psg - this will take an SN-centric VGM file, and output four text files - one for each channel, containing one line of text for every frame of audio. It's written that way to be the simplest and easiest to parse format possible. 

2) Once you have that, the simplest output format that I support is probably the sound list. So use "psg2soundlist" to convert the files you just created into a binary sound list. The sound list format is literally just a count byte followed by that many bytes of data for the sound chip, followed by a count of how many frames to wait till the next update.

3) Now, the output of that is a binary file, and you want something you can import into your source code. I recommend my own bin2inc tool: http://harmlesslion.com/software/bin2inc - this will read in any binary file and output an include file in C or assembly syntax.

 

That's all preexisting. But you need a player for the soundlist, since it's not in the BIOS already. Here's some sample C code that should be easy to port to asm:

// direct sound chip access, SDCC syntax for out
volatile __sfr __at 0xff SOUND;

// load the address of the song to play here. Set to NULL to stop.
unsigned char *pSong = NULL;

// after setting pSong, set this to '1' to start playback. It will
// be 0 when the song stops.
unsigned char songCount = 0;

// call playSong once every frame
void playSong() {
	unsigned char cnt;
	
	// if no count, then we are not playing
	if (!songCount) {
		return;
	}
	
	// count down frame delay
	--songCount;
	
	// if we didn't reach zero yet, wait till next frame
	if (songCount) {
		return;
	}
	
	// sanity check, make sure the song wasn't turned off
	if (pSong == NULL) {
		return;
	}
	
	// else it's time - read the byte count
	cnt = *(pSong++);
	
	// and load that many bytes
	while (cnt--) {
		SOUND = *(pSong++);
	}
	
	// read the new delay, if it's zero we're done automatically
	songCount = *(pSong++);
}

This has the advantage of no dependencies on BIOS prerequisites like fixed RAM addresses, uses just 3 bytes of RAM and only a handful of actual instructions. (Disclaimer, haven't tested.)

 

Here's a sample conversion sequence from the sfxr download to soundlist, which the above code can play:

 

D:\new>dir random.*
2022-06-02  07:34 PM               214 random.vgm

 

D:\new>vgm_psg2psg.exe random.vgm
Import VGM PSG - v20201001
Reading random.vgm - 214 bytes
Reading version 0x110
Refresh rate 60 Hz (735 samples per tick)
File 1 parsed! Processed 21 ticks (0.350000 seconds)

-Writing channel 1 as random.vgm_ton00.60hz...
Skipping channel 2 - no data
Skipping channel 3 - no data
Skipping channel 4 - no data
Skipping channel 5 - no data
Skipping channel 6 - no data
Skipping channel 7 - no data
Skipping channel 8 - no data
done vgm_psg2psg.

 

D:\new>psg2soundlist.exe random.vgm random.sndlist
VGMComp VGM Test Output - v20220602
Working with prefix 'random.vgm'... Found extension 60hz
Reading TONE channel 0 from random.vgm_ton00.60hz... read 21 lines
0 custom noises (non-lossy)
0 tones moved   (non-lossy)
0 mutes mapped  (non-lossy)
0 tones clipped (lossy)
0 noises mapped (lossy)
Going to write TI Sound List format binary file 'random.sndlist'
- Wrote 66 bytes
** DONE **

 

D:\new>bin2inc random.sndlist random.inc random Z80
bin2inc by Tursi - http://harmlesslion.com
Converted 66 bytes for Z80.
** Done **

 

D:\new>type random.inc
;
; Data file random.sndlist - Jun 02, 2022
;

random:
        .db #0x03,#0x9E,#0x84,#0x08,#0x01,#0x01,#0x9D,#0x01     ; 00000000 ........ //
        .db #0x01,#0x9C,#0x01,#0x01,#0x9B,#0x01,#0x02,#0x82     ; 00000008 ........ //
        .db #0x05,#0x01,#0x01,#0x9A,#0x01,#0x01,#0x99,#0x01     ; 00000010 ........ //
        .db #0x01,#0x98,#0x01,#0x01,#0x97,#0x02,#0x01,#0x96     ; 00000018 ........ //
        .db #0x01,#0x01,#0x95,#0x01,#0x01,#0x94,#0x01,#0x01     ; 00000020 ........ //
        .db #0x93,#0x02,#0x01,#0x92,#0x01,#0x01,#0x91,#0x01     ; 00000028 ........ //
        .db #0x02,#0x8C,#0x05,#0x01,#0x03,#0x94,#0x82,#0x05     ; 00000030 ........ //
        .db #0x01,#0x01,#0x9D,#0x01,#0x04,#0x9F,#0xBF,#0xDF     ; 00000038 ........ //
        .db #0xFF,#0x00                                         ; 00000040 .. //

; Size of data in above array
SIZE_OF_RANDOM = 66

 

VGM to raw playable data in four steps. The toolchain includes tools to import VGMs and some other sound files for other sound chips as well, but for anything complex the packed music format is going to be far smaller than the playlist format. 

 

For my own packed player, there are sample videos here:
https://odysee.com/$/search?q=vgmcomp2

And I posted some demos here on AtariAge. Most are for the TI, but all except Thunder Force are written in C and port to the Coleco - in fact the Quickplayer which is included with the toolchain can output all the visualizers for Coleco or TI.
 

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/225463-vgm-compression-tool/page/5     <-- TI version and main thread

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/226125-vgm-compression-tool/page/4/    <-- Coleco version

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/322747-thunder-force-iii-tribute/             <-- sample of conversion from Megadrive/Genesis music
 

[logixworx]

Nice - just stumbled up on this. Could I use this to create melodies that sound exactly like it could be in Colecovision Jumpman Junior (the definitive version IMO) ? How would I do/tune this?

[Tursi]

On 8/28/2023 at 1:40 PM, logixworx said:

Nice - just stumbled up on this. Could I use this to create melodies that sound exactly like it could be in Colecovision Jumpman Junior (the definitive version IMO) ? How would I do/tune this?

My VGM toolchain is for conversion and playback, so you'd have to compose the music in a compatible format first.

 

I don't know anything about Jumpman. Also not sure if you might be asking about another tool in this thread

 

 

Edited September 25 by Tursi

[Captain Cozmos]

One of these days one of you awesome programmers that understand the SN76489AN will actually make a sound and music editor that outputs usable data for the Colecovision to compile.  The only tool that comes close is very old and requires JAVA.

 

Graphics are easy but music...

Where is Amy Purple in times of need.

[Tursi]

Rather than focus on the editor, which already has quality solutions like https://www.smspower.org/Music/Mod2PSG2 or https://www.deflemask.com/, I focused on the back end. Use a high quality editor to compose your music, then type a couple of commands to prepare it for playback on the Coleco. Or convert existing tunes from a dozen potential sources. Not sure what you're missing, besides a simple one-click solution? I'm sure that'll come along as AI gets integrated to write the music too.

 

Edited September 26 by Tursi