Archives of Genesis8 Amstrad Page from 1999 to 2012 about music
Funky stars, an Amstrad CPC 8bit version of a classic tune
04/24/2013 - 23:27genesis8McKlain has written an Amstrad CPC version of Funky Stars, also known as Hybrid Song. Original song by Quazar of Sanxion. This song is known for being used in numerous keygen programs.
This song is part of his future music disk for the Amstrad CPC. Stay tuned.
It's sampled from his Amstrad CPC 464, no emulation, made with Arkos Tracker.
Be nice to your Amstrad CPC, get a better sound with a Digiblaster, Amdrum or Music Machine
07/08/2012 - 00:49genesis8As much as we love our Amstrad CPC, the sound we get with the General Instrument AY-3-8912 sound chip isnt the best one on 8bit computers. Happily it's possible to get a better sound with either a Digiblaster, an Amdrum or a Music Machine.
The first version of the Digiblaster was designed by Face Hugger ( Interview of Face Hugger by NoRecess) and printed in the German magazine CPC Amstrad International in issue 8-9/1991. It's a small hardware device plugged into the CPC's printer port to play 8-bit mono sound samples. Joshua made a redesign for better sound quality (electronic printout of Digiblaster v1 and v2 here). Then there is new Digiblaster by Futurs : the SoundPlayer and the SoundPlayer+ (VN96 network included). The SoundPlayer+ was replaced later by the SoundPlayerNG.
The digiblasters v1, v2 and SoundPlayer(+/NG) can be connected to passive mono speakers.
A few months back, Bryce made a redesign with even better sound quality : the Digiblaster v3. You can feed the AY output through the card so that both sound sources are played through the same speakers. The DigiBlaster has been made dual-mono so that both speakers play the sample as is done with the AY-3-8912 Channel B. The AY and Digiblaster sound levels are balanced. You must use active stereo speakers.
You can write music using the Digiblaster with :
- Cocoon Player by One (1995)
- Digitracker by Prodatron (1993)
- The Drumming CPC by Andreas Stroiczek (aka Face Hugger), published as a listing in issue 4/5'92 of CPC Amstrad International
- FuturePlayer by TFM (FutureSoft)
- Protracker by Crown (1993)
At least 2 Amstrad CPC demos did use the Digiblaster : Bordelik Demo 4 (1995) and Digital Orgasm (1994).
The Amdrum has been made by Cheetah, but it uses the expansion connecter. It can also play 8bit samples like the Digiblaster, and was advertised as a drum synthesiser. You can check the youtube video of the Amdrum being used with the JavaCPC emulator.
A third device which I found on CPCWiki : the Music Machine, using the expansion connector like the Amdrum. Another hardware letting play sound samples, designed by Flare Technology and manufactured by RAM Electronics. It could record sound with a microphone.
Source : CPCWiki's forum
Results of the 3 compétitions held at the ReSeT#8 meeting in Coutances
06/24/2012 - 13:08genesis8And the winners are :
- graphic : Rexbeng
- demo : Krusty, graphics by Grim, Beb, Ced and Voxfreak, music by Tom et Jerry, for Glory holes
- music : Pulkomandy
All entries will be available later.
YM-64, an YM player for C64 by Norbert Kehrer
06/24/2012 - 13:58genesis8Playing SID music on Amstrad CPC is possible, but you can also play YM music on C64 using YM-64 by Norbert Kehrer.
Source : Norbert's emulators
WYZTracker v0.5.0.6 by Augusto Ruiz, WYZPlayer and cpcwyzlib
06/23/2012 - 19:45genesis8WYZTracker is a tool developed by Augusto Ruiz (interface in english and spanish), from Retroworks, that can be used to compose music for WYZPlayer.
WYZPlayer is a Z80 player for the AY-3-8910 sound chip (a 3-voice PSG : Programmable Sound Generator designed by General Instrument) used by (and for) the Amstrad CPC, MSX and Spectrum. It can be used for games and demos due to its minimal use of CPU and RAM, the player takes little code and all musics are compressed.
Finally, you can use cpcwyzlib by Raul Simarro, an Amstrad CPC library to play wyztracker tunes with SDCC. He also wrote the cpcrslib used with z88dk.
Source : ESP Soft
C64 SID on Amstrad CPC, software or hardware ?
06/23/2012 - 22:59genesis8The Amstrad CPC use the General Instrument AY-3-8912 sound chip, providing 3 channels, each configurable to generate square waves, white noise or both. A small array of hardware volume envelopes are available. The C64 use the SID sound chip with also 3 channels, each configurable to generate 4 different waves forms : sawtooth, triangle, pulse, noise. It offers other features, much more than the AY-3-8912.
So is it possible to listen to SID music on an limited Amstrad CPC ? The answer is yes, and if you are lucky enough to read french, you will be able to read the article "les SID-Voices" on Quasar. So to resume, yes you can do it on a plain Amstrad CPC, but if you play 3 SID-Voices, you wont have enough CPU time to do something else. Otherwise on an Amstrad CPC+ using the DMA, you will be able to do something else than playing music. The Quasar article comes with the AY+ source to play SID-Voices on a CPC+. On a plain Amstrad CPC, you can use a program by Geco, a hungarian programmer. He usually works on the Elan enterprise, he wrote a SID player for this computer, and ported it to the Amstrad CPC. Download this Amstrad CPC SID player (128 Kb only).
Some informations about this utility directly from the author (taken from chipmusic.org) : I created the player used 6510 emulation code of Simon Owen, and CPC header checking. The player spends a lot of time with 6510 code, this is the reason of speed changing on CPC, on Enterprise I met less speed changing, may be the cause of this on EP the processor is running at 4Mhz if the code is not in the video Memory. Yes, only some feature is emulated, frequency registers, envelopes in 50Hz, control registers (without wave formats), and volume register, if I remember well. And the noise emulation is also interesting on CPC, because when noise should apply then I give fix 0f value to noise channel, and drive the frequency with tone channel frequency (set reg 6 tone and noise enable on a channel), with this solution 3 different noises can appear on the AY. The player can play songs in 2 speeds, 50Hz, and 100Hz, does not matter of SID speed, ex if the speed of SID is 60Hz the player plays it on 50Hz.
Finally, you can play it hard too, with an extension. Read about it on CPCWiki (a bit of drama included).
Nightshift, an Amstrad CPC music compilation by Mr_Lou
06/22/2012 - 19:41genesis8Nightshift is a compilation of 11 musics by Mr_Lou, artwork by BlueAngel, code by Kevin Thacker (aka arnoldemu) and catart by tastefulmrship.
Video longplay of Teenage mutant hero turtles 2 by Xyphoe, included the hidden music
03/22/2012 - 22:05genesis8The music of the Amstrad CPC game Teenage mutant hero turtles 2 has been found on the original support.
You can download a .DSK image with the music on CPCWiki.
And now a youtube video of the game by Xyphoe, music included.
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Source : CPCRulez's forum
a music remake of Saboteur II by Alpiso
02/18/2012 - 23:50genesis8Alpiso strikes again ! A new musical remake is available on youtube : Saboteur II.
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Airwolf 2 music remake by MrBedev and longplay video by CholoCPC
12/24/2011 - 16:55genesis8Here is a music remake of Airwolf 2 by MrBedev on Youtube.
For the longplay video by CholoCPC :
- longplay part 1 of Aiwolf 2
- longplay part 2 of Aiwolf 2
- longplay part 3 of Aiwolf 2
- longplay part 4 of Aiwolf 2
Source : CPCRulez's forum
Antiriad played on piano and longplay video
09/29/2011 - 20:25genesis8Not a remake but simply the music of the game Antiriad (the armor of) played on piano by Alpiso on Youtube.
For the longplay video by Cholo head to longplay part 1 of Antiriad and longplay part 2 of Antiriadon Youtube.
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Thanatos played on piano and longplay video
09/29/2011 - 20:35genesis8Once again a beautiful play of piano by Alpiso about the Thanatos game on Youtube.
And if you dislike piano, what about listening to a guitar arrangement played by Pacopersia about the Thanatos game on Youtube ?
For the longplay video by cholo head to the longplay part 1 of Thanatos, the longplay part 2 of Thanatos and the longplay part 3 of Thanatos on Youtube.
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Nebulus : theme remix, video longplay and remake
09/28/2011 - 23:10genesis8A remake of the Nebulus music is available on Youtube by Alpiso.
That was a hard game, I only went to the second tower (and there are 8 of them), so if you want to see all towers, here is a longplay of Nebulus by Wanderlain on Youtube.
You can also play remakes of Nebulus : Tower Toppler for windows, linux, BeOS and MacOS X, or Power Toppler for Iphone with 2 missions of 8 towers, it has been developped by Silver Software (the game cost 0,79 €).
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A music remake of Navy Moves by Mcklain
09/25/2011 - 00:11genesis8A remake of the Navy Moves music is available on Youtube by Mcklain.
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A music remake of Target Renegade by Hulky2006
08/13/2011 - 23:07genesis8After the music remake of Target Renegade by Ömer Aydin (Noisywan), here comes the one by Hulky2006.
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Kangaroo is blowing out &28 candles today
07/29/2011 - 23:15genesis8Kangaroo is today blowing out &28 candles. For my part, due to my light dyslexia, I never felt so young at 24 years old. By the way, you can also find Kangaroo on Jamendo
Source : CPCWiki's forum
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