Procedural music in bB

[bjbest60]

Well, "music" might be a strong term. "Sufficiently harmonious tones" might be better.

 

Attached is a .bin and .bas file of a program that generates, well, sufficiently harmonious tones in the key of A major. It's fairly compact and efficient. I've tried to include a lot of comments. I thought I might use it in a game, but it doesn't really suit the project. I'm posting it here in case it might benefit someone else.

 

Basically it picks a random bass note and a random melody note and plays them. It keeps track of note length and plays things in correct time. (The bass moves in quarter notes, the melody moves in eighth notes, with some variations possible.) It's very basic but could be built out for more interesting (and perhaps musical) results.

 

I'm happy to answer any questions. Enjoy!

songtestprocedural.bas

songtestprocedural.bas.bin

[+Muddyfunster]

That's actually quite neat, thanks for sharing this. Sound production is one place I really struggle in bB.

[+Random Terrain]

Is it possible to make something similar for a single channel so the other channel can be used for sound effects? If so, I could make an adapted example program for the bB page.

[bjbest60]

Is it possible to make something similar for a single channel so the other channel can be used for sound effects? If so, I could make an adapted example program for the bB page.

 

I'm not quite sure how a single channel would work ... you need two separate notes to create a harmony. You might be able to "flicker" the music on one channel (one frame is bass, the next is melody, the next is bass, etc.) though I imagine that might sound choppy. A better strategy might be to always have both channels doing what they're currently doing and then have a sound effect override a particular channel for a set period of time. I'll experiment a bit when I have some time.

 

EDIT: I tried the "flicker" effect just to hear what it sounds like. To me, it sounds like a very insistent ringing telephone, but maybe it would be useful for the right project? Both one-frame (that is, the sound changes every frame; this uses one bit of a variable) and two-frame (which requires a variable that can count to three) examples are attached.

songtestproceduralflicker1frame.bas.bin

songtestproceduralflicker2frame.bas.bin

Edited December 19, 2018 by bjbest60

[+Muddyfunster]

the 1 channel stuff sounds kind of like early ZX Spectrum music (the 48k beeper variety)

[+Gemintronic]

I could see two options:

 

A. Interleave two notes on one sound channel.

 

B. Make the sound engine interrupt playback on one channel and play back a sound effect on it.

 

I don't mind blippy simulated stereo as I grew up on Apple IIs and IBM PCs