Conversion of Game Music/SAP to notation?

[Gandalf_the_Grey]

Hello,

 

It seems like the largest collection of music from the 8-bit era is now stored in SAP format. There are many players available and they work well for me. However, I have a question I haven't been able to find an answer for. I vaguely remember from when first got my original 800XL that all of the tone/pitch data was stored as numerical values. With a little work, it was possible to work out the notes being played. My question is, is it possible to convert or extract from SAP music files to get notation information? Are these numerical values stored in the SAP files and is it possible to convert this to notation, either on an Atari (emulator) or in Windows/MacOS? Failing that, would it be possible to extract the note data directly from the disk image? Anyone ever tried this?

 

Thanks for Any comments,

 

Gandalf

[phaeron]

There is no standard for how POKEY music is stored. Most SAP files are just rips of the music routine, so the player is just running Atari code with a partial hardware emulation -- there's no consistent source music data to extract without running the program, though there might be some common music routines that could be identified in specific files.

 

Running the music program will give POKEY register values, though, which can be turned into pitch values. Simple square wave notes are easy to map by the standard POKEY divisor formulas, while percussives or distortion-based notes might take a bit more work. My emulator Altirra can extract a type R SAP file from a running SAP player or game, which is a register dump that could then be post-processed into notation if a suitable tool were written. Any repetition info in the original data would be lost and need to be recreated since any loops would be unrolled into one long trace.

[makary]

Hello,

 

It seems like the largest collection of music from the 8-bit era is now stored in SAP format. There are many players available and they work well for me. However, I have a question I haven't been able to find an answer for. I vaguely remember from when first got my original 800XL that all of the tone/pitch data was stored as numerical values. With a little work, it was possible to work out the notes being played. My question is, is it possible to convert or extract from SAP music files to get notation information? Are these numerical values stored in the SAP files and is it possible to convert this to notation, either on an Atari (emulator) or in Windows/MacOS? Failing that, would it be possible to extract the note data directly from the disk image? Anyone ever tried this?

 

Thanks for Any comments,

 

Gandalf

 

https://github.com/1ucasvb/pokey2midi

 

I've never used this tool but I suppose it might help you a bit.

[Gandalf_the_Grey]

 

https://github.com/1ucasvb/pokey2midi

 

I've never used this tool but I suppose it might help you a bit.

Hmm, I've never heard of it either (looks like it is relatively new), but it sounds like exactly what I am looking for. I will look into it and let you know. Thank you for the link.