Spectrum music format ?

[Solo Kazuki]

First of all there should be explained one thing. AY is not ZX music format itself, for ZX Spectrum are many music formats similar to modules for Amiga. AY is artficial format which have replayer embedded to standard music module.

About Atari ST it's rather (also artificial) SC68 music format, which can have also Amiga music emulation, handling M68k replayers embedded.

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by Solo Kazuki

First of all there should be explained one thing. AY is not ZX music format itself, for ZX Spectrum are many music formats similar to modules for Amiga.

None of those are formats. They are software for creating music.

The concept of a file format doesn't exist on the Spectrum the same way that it does on the Amiga or ST - tunes are usually embedded into compiled code.

AY is artficial format which have replayer embedded to standard music module.

Which is precisely what I said previously.

Databases of Spectrum songs all use the .ay format. Anyone that wants to convert them from Spectrum to ST will need to convert the replayer code, or emulate the z80.

[Havie]

Originally Posted by chb

In theory yes - it can be used to play samples with techniques like PWM, so you can mix more channels in software. Channel limits depend on sampling rate and quality. Have a look e.g. here: [ Show youtube player ]

Got to say this is pretty amazing - still has Speccy buzz to it!

Also there was Wham: The Musicbox which played two notes simultaneously without the buzz?

[ Show youtube player ]

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by Dunny

No. The Speccy used a z80 CPU and the vast majority of the AY files out there contain z80 code for the replayer due to the nature of the how the AY works. I have no idea of how the ST saves music files but it seems unlikely that a converter would be feasible, given the halting problem.

I think i got mixed comparing .ay as an analog to a .mod while is more like a stand alone player with routine

[Solo Kazuki]

Originally Posted by Dunny

None of those are formats. They are software for creating music.

This software have own formats to save music. So, they are also formats of modules.

Originally Posted by Dunny

Databases of Spectrum songs all use the .ay format.

No, there are lots of modules for ZX which are not made as AY (or YM, second similar format). For example see here, hardly any is in AY/YM format, most of them are real (!) ZX modules (formats).

Edit: Pick search option on this page and select "file format" field. You can see this way how many formats are for ZX (minus AY and YM of course).

[Dunny]

Yes, I'm aware. The Spectrum doesn't use those file formats. They're ripped from RAM.

I've been instrumental in emulating and coding for the Spectrum for many decades now.

[DanScott]

Leonard made a converter to play ST AY files on Amiga.. it creates a packed stream of AY data, and feeds it into an "emulator" to output

[chip]

Old thread, but i finally found what i was looking for

Here

http://bulba.untergrund.net/emulator_e.htm

there's a player which emulates the soundchip of ZX Spectrum

[saimon69]

A friend of mine is doing a game for CoCo - that has the same audio chip or very similar (beside some difference would be essentially a Dragon 32 for UK readers); i did music with ArkosTracker but then he had to convert the ay format and size was not exactly 8-bit friendly...

[chip]

Some confusion here ..... what is this format then ?

https://www.exotica.org.uk/mediawiki...&md=for&id=427

There are two formats for the same machine ?

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by chip

Some confusion here ..... what is this format then ?

https://www.exotica.org.uk/mediawiki...&md=for&id=427

There are two formats for the same machine ?

PT3 is the Speccy's mod tracker format, same as for the Amiga. Others, such as .ay, are dumps of memory including player code which the player then uses to emulate.

[chip]

Thanks for info

Summarizing both the two categories of modules of modland are for the ZX Spectrum ..... isn't it ?

[chip]

How i can understand when the music is made from the beeper or made from the sound chip ?

[DisasterIncarna]

dredged this oldish post up after searching for similar things/information and only recently came accross.

https://zxart.ee/eng/music/database/...tsType:zxitem/

lists pretty much all speccy tune/formats and whatever you search for (including just everything) has a convenient Download to Zip function so you can grab everything or specific stuff.

Next problem is that various .AY music does play via Deliplayer, but the speccy's own/other formats im struggling to find anything that will play them, not even VLC on my Kubuntu machine will play much of anything never wind on the amiga side of things.

Anyone happen to know any amiga players popular or obscure that can play some of those speccy music formats? confusingly enough the speccy has its own protracker 1,2,3 formats just to help confuse things.

[4matmusic]

There is a register streaming format from the old days called 'YM', which records the AY registers each frame, with a few more register records for timers and digi drums. This avoids having to emulate the cpu, but obviously is a bit more limited as it's quite old. This was originally for ST but you can adapt it to other chips in the AY/YM line.

Here's Leonard/Oxygene's site with the info: http://leonard.oxg.free.fr/

I think there might be a tool to convert AY data to a YM data stream, or you could find an emulator that can log register writes per frame. This is how we did our Fuji C64 demo that plays AY music. ST and Spectrum obviously have different clock/timing settings so you have to adjust those to get the right frequency range.

[drHirudo]

Originally Posted by 4matmusic

There is a register streaming format from the old days called 'YM', which records the AY registers each frame

Yes, AY chip is not always powered by Z80, so AY format is Speccy (and maybe Amstrad mostly). But the same chip is also used in the 6502 powered Oric Atmos. Even if similar the sound on the Oric can be quite unique and different than on the Speccy. I have seen and heard some ST songs on the Oric, converted with the use of YM format.

Some twenty years ago I converted some popular melodies to the Oric, but they are mostly 2 channels only:
Here are some songs:
[ Show youtube player ]
[ Show youtube player ]
[ Show youtube player ]

The songs even if very recognizable were not cached with ContentID by some random claimant, which makes me believe the AY is not that good sounding device as some people claim.

[Sani11]

I'd suggest using a tool like Ay_Emul, which can convert AY files to YM. Remember to adjust your clock/timing settings for ST and Spectrum to maintain the correct frequency range. Another option is to use an emulator like Z80 Stealth, capable of logging register writes per frame. If you want to dive deeper, consider checking out code from Fuji C64 demos.

[DisasterIncarna]

yeah ive noticed a fair chunk of .AY music works using the Delitracker AY plugin but a LOT of more modern .AY's arent recognized and a couple i tried like ganzfeld.ay plays but is totally silent. I see a couple of AY convertors on aminet but they are for PPC amiga's and it looks like 1 of them works by converting to midi.

I'll have a look at the solutions you all mention even if i have to end up converting from 1 format to another as long as there is "some" eventual solution that would be ideal.

[ZEUSDAZ]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

...educate yo'self...

The in-built beeper was as basic as you can get, but even so, some of the fx wizards managed to [ Show youtube player ] (which is symptomatic of the whole Sinclair story: squeezing code magic out of a very limited hardware).

Considering the limitations these are as impressive achievements as any Amiga tune.

And AY was whole different ballgame of course, not as powerful as SID and its ilk, but still [ Show youtube player ].

GOD DAMMIT, Gotta love those last 2 tunes in this vid (Marauder & Agent X II LV.3), lots going on in that Agent X II tune, those 2 and Target Renegade Title music (C64 version) are my fave 8-bit tunes.