AtariVOX for custom SFX or Music?

[+Karl G]

There are a number of games that make use of the AtariVOX for persistent data via the EEPROM, and some that make use of its voice capabilities. I was wondering if there was anything that made use of it to produce music or custom sound effects? Would the CPU usage required to keep the buffer fed and happy in a game make this an impractical use of an AtariVOX?

[RevEng]

As far as I know, nobody has released anything using the oscillators directly, but I've played with it a bit, mainly trying out phasing effects. (it was a bit boring, with perfect digital oscillators)

The potential is there for music notes, but there's a lot of data to feed to setup the oscillators, and with 1 byte a frame, you need to account for the delay in note timing. (you could setup the oscillator in advance, and just give it volume as a "note on" a few frames early) Also makes it a bit tough for chords, though maybe some frames of delay between notes might make it more like guitar strumming.

In 21 Blue, I used tuning on voice phonemes to make it sing along with the short intro tune. I think that method is a fair bit easier to manage, and is a bit more striking.