And please for Spectrum use "ZX Spectrum". Because there are also lots of Spectrum analyzers

Frankly, I find the MSX devscene to be one of the healthiest in the 8 bit world. As a fan of both the MSX and the C64, I know what shape the various devscenes are in and I must say that the MSX has the '64 beat... The C64 sees very few new games of the quality produced on the MSX on a routine basis. Looking back over the last few years, there's about 4 or 5 games a year that have come out for the MSX that are of a "I would have bought that if it had come out back in the day" quality... The C64 just doesn't have that level of coding going on. Even the demoscene is starting to look a bit sparse...

This is quite interesting to hear. I thought, that no other scene can be as active as the C64 scene - just because of the unbelieveable amount of users. But sometimes I also have the feeling, that it's not the amount of users, which defines the quality of the productions.

Holland changed a lot. After 1997 the interest in MSX went into a freefall...
Fairs were not crowded anymore. Could've been cozy, but it just wasn't... Wandering around in a huge hall with empty booths was just ugly (Zandvoort 1997).
Loads of people just quit for some reason at the same time back then.
Loads of infoboards like MCCM and diskmagazines went down, downer, downest.
It was like our hobby just died a horrible death.
The density of MSX-users per square kilometer got so low that the users who were left, felt like they were on an island in the pasific.
There was some internet activity already at the end of the 90s, but far away from what it's now... So even a lot of those isolated leftovers (like me) just quit.
We (let's say Near Dark MkII) got back together in 2004, but somehow I got the feeling that our little musicdisk release was a one-time-thing...
I'm still one of those who want to contribute to MSX with tunes, but only for one reason: That it be used for something.
The guys I worked with in the 90s and only once in 2004 are just away from the scene... Merely spectators... So it's not like I can still work wiht people from around here... I most certainly would offer my 'skills' of making tunes for others and offered it some times as well, but just got 0 for an answer...

All this together made me totally inactive, while I didn't even want that...

madcrow & Prodatron: it is nice to hear the opinion of someone who does not come from the MSX scene. As I and other people have been only in this scene our opinions might be partial.

I sure do miss the crowded fairs. But honestly I could hardly find time to visit one nowadays.
I guess the internet replaced the fairs as a communication channel.

I don't know how healthy the scene is but there is one thing that is limiting MSX atm (in my opinion): There are too many expansions available (Moonsound, gfx9000, scc, msx-music, msx audio, mass storage devices). These thing make development harder as musicians want the the best sound. And the pixelers want the most freedom. Compromising if often difficult and projects seem to get lost in the specs.......

The hardest thing nowadays is finding people like screen2 pixelers and psg composers. I would really like to see more of those over here.

Actually if there are people who want to compose PSG tunes (pt3 preferably) I would really like to get in touch. ARTRAG and me are working on a (non-comercial) project that could need some nice game-music.

Actually, some word on those extensions:

• Moonsound - It does add quality, and making music for it is actually quite easy because a composer needs to put less attention compared to FM-Pac etc. to make something sound great/huge.
  
• G9k - All depends on tools, I think most ppl prefer a tool tailormade for a certain screenmode on that chip, rather than pixel on PC and convert/reduce back to G9k formats. Tho in the end I think it's just a lack of traditional bitmap designers. + Making a game is quite hard, not everyone is simply good at it.
  
• SCC - There's a certain lack of good tools I think
  
• MSX-Music - I think its reigning days are over for the scene, tho a new composition tool -one that truly gives the option to do Microcabin levels of detail- might give it a breath of fresh air
  
• MSX-Audio - I think this one is gone, over, burried, ancient.
  Mass Storage Devices: I love 'em.. they're great for games with -for example- large wavekits, no more 'change disk', things are loaded fast.. excellent!

All-in I don't think that the hardware extensions we have are much of a problem. The real problem lies in the availably of up-to-date tools and, well, 'quality' of artists..

The SC2/PSG boost is of course due MSXdev'03/'04/'05/'06/'07 (at least, I think). I think mainly the veterans -who used to work with all the hi-end extension- liked the idea of trying things with limited specs.. at least it's what I liked about it. For new pixelblood I think one has to hunt down retro scenes other than MSX (spectrum, c64, all systems with similar limits), or find someone in a more MSX1'ish country. Same with PT3 tunes, you won't find many PT3 makers among MSX'ers, but you will find them in other communities.

It's actually one of the things that could be good: inviting other system's communities here. Just see how prodatron merged into ours.. At least it'll bring new ideas, new production methods, new art.

Quote:

It's actually one of the things that could be good: inviting other system's communities here. Just see how prodatron merged into ours.. At least it'll bring new ideas, new production methods, new art.

TRUE

Not only Prodatron, also Alone Coder and Shiru did a nice job in joining MSX and doing fresh things

The nice thing is a two way exchange
e.g. @prodatron, have you thought to use PSGENC on CPC ?

MSX and CPC share the same AY891X so it should be only a matter of tuning...

have a glance

http://www.bluemsx.com/psgenc/royksopp.mp3
http://www.msx.org/forumtopic5686.html

Quote:

The nice thing is a two way exchange e.g. @prodatron, have you thought to use PSGENC on CPC ? MSX and CPC share the same AY891X so it should be only a matter of tuning... have a glance http://www.bluemsx.com/psgenc/royksopp.mp3 http://www.msx.org/forumtopic5686.html

Yes, I read about it some month ago, and yes, the quality is unbelieveable!
Unfortunately the CPCs' PSG can't be accessed directly but via a PIO. This is slow especially in the situation, when you want to set different registers (like the 3 volume registers). For sure it's not possible to play the samples with 11KHz. Right now I will calculate, what could be reachable...

But in general I like it a lot, that the MSX has the same PSG like the CPC. So SymAmp (version 2.1 will be released today) is already a nice example for an exchange: It's now possible to play Starkos and Soundtrakker (the most used tracker on CPC) modules on the MSX, and it's also possible to play PT3 modules on the CPC, all with the same binary.

No PIO ? How is the AY accessed in CPC?
Can you past a snap in asm to show how the AY is mapped in the z80 registers/memory what else?

Ok, here is an example:

;input a=register, (hl)=value
;output hl=hl+1
        ld b,#f4        ;2
        out (c),a       ;4
        ld bc,#f6c0     ;3
        out (c),c       ;4
        db #ed,#71      ;4
        ld b,#f5        ;2
        outi            ;5
        ld bc,#f680     ;3
        out (c),c       ;4
        db #ed,#71      ;4

;db #ed,#71 -> OUT (c),0

By using the 2nd register set, you can increase the speed a little bit (more than 10%).
I just made a calculation, and the result is, that the CPC should be able to do about 8,5KHz. Do you think, this is still ok?

Btw, I wonder, if there is currently something like the Digitracker available for the MSX using the normal PSG:
http://www.prodatron.net/details.htm?9
If not, wouldn't it be very interesting to port at least the player to the MSX? Because on the MSX we will have much better quality using your methode or a better frequency.

Btw, the numbers behind every command are the number of microseconds for each command (on the CPC it's quite simple to calculate the exact execution time).

renouncing to rle compression you can get about 28KHz, i.e. 9.5KHz using 3 channels per sample
that is not bad as quality, but a LOT memory consuming....
compute yourself: uncompressed, one sample is 12 bits....