I'm not sure about the sound limitations on the MSX-Music (OPLL).

From what I understand, you can only select one hardware sound or software variations of it for a full set of voices.
Is that it ?

But what about the drums then ?

There are 15 hardware voices you can pick for any channel, and there's 1 software voice in total for any of your channels. The software voice is one you can make yourself, the hardware voices are preset.
Drums kan be changed, somewhat. You can change the frequencies of their operators, but as some of those operators are shared between drums, changing one may imply that you also change the rest. Simply said, there are 6 operators for 5 drum sounds, and things like cymbals use more than 2 operators. If you don't need drums, you better pick 9-channel mode rather than 6-channels + drums.

Thanks wolf_ for those infos

If you like to use tricks you can get some more sounds. Tip: Try changeing instruments while playing the voice.

A feature which is present in Oracle! I even used it in Moonblaster here and there, but never released something with that iirc, one usually required high speeds and then you've hardly any space as you run out of patterns within a splitsecond. Not to mention that management of such fast patterns is not doable.

(and now let's find a precious next forumreaction to make..!)

Stereo sound!

Well, the sounds of the six channels are on one side the later three channels (or the DRUM kit) +PSG would be output into the other side.

Ok, realistically not every MSX would implement the stereo output.

The MSX-MAGAZINE MuSICA text files seems to use a lot of sound for FM and SCC.

1) There's 15 instruments ROM that can't be changed.
2) Instrument zero is in RAM, so you can edit its parameters.
3) The YM2413 can play samples: Unsigned 6bit PCM. It has a very good quality and is played just like the Turbo-R PCM and COVOX: lots of outs to its ports. Limitation: Can't play samples and FM sound at the same time.

3: It can? Did anybody use this?

Quote:

3: It can? Did anybody use this?

Of course it can - just like the PSG can play samples...

I've tried but I've had no much luck... (Check out Dragons Lair demo) Either the sample cuts, or it gets very low volume. Sometimes these happen even together. I hope someone could tell me how to initialize OPLL correctly to play samples. I know that I have to set OPLL to test mode, but what else?

AuroraMSX: Yes, well I didn't know about any 6bit mode.

The program PSG Sampler can also play samples on MSX-MUSIC.

Quote:

Quote: 3: It can? Did anybody use this? Of course it can - just like the PSG can play samples...

Hummm, not quite. When in test mode, you can get direct access to the YM2413 DAC. On the PSG there's a lot of trouble to do it and the results are not good.

Quote:

I've tried but I've had no much luck... (Check out Dragons Lair demo) Either the sample cuts, or it gets very low volume. Sometimes these happen even together. I hope someone could tell me how to initialize OPLL correctly to play samples. I know that I have to set OPLL to test mode, but what else?

Yes, I can tell you. The best sample player I ever found for the YM2413 is the FMSAMP of the Clubguide's Magazine 3. This is the one I used to test when I developed the YM2313->YM3812 translator that MAME used for a long time.

On Clubguide Magazine-3, you cant get to it by choosing Software-Menu->3.Short HOT SOFTS. Try the FMDEMO1, FMDEMO2 and FMSAMP programs. You'll notice the sound is smooth as smooth as the Y8950 and the volume is good.

Have a look at it's code, it's quite easy to understand and also easy to modify it to use either a COVOX or the Turbo-R PCM as I did.

I know the ClubGuid Magazine-3 is available on the msxarchive.nl, but unfortunately I can't get there to give you the direct link. It seems I'm being punished without access to msxarchive.nl just because I live in Brazil. How can I get the datasheets and docs from Hans Ottens site without access? This is compromising my MSX-Audio BIOS development.

Oh yes: I must correct a mistake I did on the previous post. The YM2413 plays 4bit unsigned PCM instead of 6bit (my memory is not good as it was ). But the audio quality is very good. Probably the YM2413 interpolate the sound internally.

To easy things out, I'll explain how to play samples on the YM1413. It's fairly easy:

1) First, you have to configure the YM2413 to DAC mode on the register 0Fh.
2) Output your samples to the register #10h. The lower 4 bits will be ignored. I'm not sure right now if you have to clean this lower 4 bits. Try both and compare the results.


Register description:

Reg #0Fh TST

       7   6   5   4   3   2   1   0
     +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
     | - | - | - | - |SND| - | - |SMP|
     +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+

SND = 1 : Sound output from the FM synthesizer is out
SMP = 1 : Sample mode ON. The higher 4 bits of the register #10h are
output to the audio out.


Reg #10h (in PCM mode)

       7   6   5   4   3   2   1   0
     +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
     |    DAC DATA   | - | - | - | - |
     +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+

Please note that after configured like this, the YM2413 could be even used as a COVOX substitute on EVA, or to play the samples on the Konami's rc741-synthesizer and rc765-majutsushi (someone could release a patch for that).

It would be good if someone could include the information above on MAP (MSX Assembly Page).

I hope I could be of any help.

Quote:

On Clubguide Magazine-3, you cant get to it by choosing Software-Menu->3.Short HOT SOFTS.

Typo! I mean:

On Clubguide Magazine-3, you CAN get to it by choosing Software-Menu->3.Short HOT SOFTS.