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After having played DigiBeatz, while looking at Stella's current implementation of the Kid Vid Voice Module, I wondered if something similar could be done today again. But instead of targeting a cassette player, modern devices would be used. Having instant random access would allow the 2600 to play high quality music and/or sounds which are completely synced to the game play. Implementing this in Stella would be quite easy (similar to what MAME does with its SFX samples), one would only need the sound files. But for the real thing some hardware would have to be developed. There I am running out of knowledge, but I suppose this wouldn't be too complicated or expensive. Does that sound feasible and interesting for homebrewers? Maybe something like this already exists?

Hi, I'm trying to get hold of some ST software called Easel by Heavenly Music. It's an editor for Roland Sound Canvas SC modules. A review if the full version of the package is here: http://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/heavenly-music-easel/7600 It was also available as Ease Junior desk accessory version: http://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/easel-junior-sound-canvas-editor-accessory-for-atari-st/10799 Any pointers would be appreciated! Thank you

Another experiment with the music player. I imagine sounds like something that might play aftera game ends, maybe. Feel free to use it anywhere you want. Mode 0 , 0,0,0,0 Wait Print At 0 Color 7 , "It is over" Print At 80 Color 4 , "Press top side" Print At 100 Color 4 , "button to" Print At 120 Color 4 , "restart music." Print At 160 Color 1 , "Press bottom side " Print At 180 Color 1 , "button to exit." Wait Play Full Wait Play mymusic Wait Goto PlayLoop PlayLoop: Wait If Cont.B0 Then Wait : Play Off : Wait : Play mymusic If Cont.B1 Then Goto ExitThis If Cont.B2 Then Goto ExitThis Wait Goto PlayLoop ExitThis: Wait Print At 235 Color (Rand and 7) , "Bye." For spinWait = 0 to 5 Wait Next Play Off mymusic: Data 4 Music G2Y , - Music S , - Music S , G2Y Music S , S Music G3 , S Music S , S Music S , G3 Music S , S Music B3 , S Music S , S Music S , B3 Music S , S Music G4 , S Music S , S Music S , G4 Music S , S Music G2 , S Music S , S Music G2 , G2 Music S , S Music G3 , G2 Music S , S Music S , G3 Music S , S Music B3 , S Music S , S Music S , B3 Music S , S Music G4 , S Music S , S Music S , G4 Music S , S Music G4 , S Music E4 , S Music D4 , G4 Music B3 , E4 Music A3# , D4 Music A3 , B3 Music G3 , - Music F3 , - Music E3 , - Music D3 , - Music A2# , - Music B2 , - Music G2 , - Music S , - Music G3 , - Music S , - Music B3 , - Music S , - Music G4 , - Music S , - Music Stop ​

Good morning all. I took a break from my other Intellivision development projects and tinkered with the IntyBASIC music program. I changed the music to a couple tunes from NES games. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. Enjoy. music.bas

Hello everyone and nice to meet you! My name is grumpygamer and I am really grumpy! :D Nah, just kidding! I'm just a dad with an insane (and very expensive) passion for all things retro! Anyways I've come into possession of an Atari 520STfm to discover I can play midi on it! Now back when I was young I owned an Amiga (boooo! :P - really loved it!) and I used to make music on it with Soundtracker. So here I am wondering the following: Is there is a tracker on the ST that supports MIDI and at least 8 channels? Is my Atari good enough? If not which one would be the better one to use? I have it on my desk now and only have 1 FDD with Music maker, I tested it with Kontakt on my pc as a sampler and it works! Now I only need to find a tracker to work with for multi channel! Any help is much appreciated!

I though I'd post this in Classic Gaming General, but I guess it's not available anymore, so I'm just posting it here thinking this is where most people would be interested. I was looking through my record collection and noticed the inside sleeve for Pac Man Fever by Buckner & Garcia LP contains instructions on how to win the game:

So I recently bought Vectorblade and Protector/YASI from Packrat, and immediately having a Space Invaders itch, I popped in the latter and was immediately greeted for the first time with the awesome menu music that I assume a lot here are familiar with A little backstory about myself, I'm part of the Clone Hero community (if you're unaware, I assume you've heard of the game Guitar Hero; it's a free-to-play clone of those games) and basically, what I do is I take music that I think would be fun to play, and I make it playable on the game. Immediately, I was interested in doing what I could with the menu music from Protector/YASI. I messaged the guy behind Packrat about it asking if I was allowed to have a ROM file sent to me to try to rip the music, since I just bought the game. When he got back to me though, he said that he couldn't get a hold of the original creator and was therefore (understandably so) hesitant to share a ROM file without permission. Unfortunately, this was my only lead, as I do not have a Vectrex cart reader for my PC. I would like to clarify: I am NOT asking for a free ROM of this game (I, admittedly, don't even know if Homebrew ROMs follow the same rules as officially licensed ones. A ROM would fix my predicament, but I don't wanna accidentally break rules by asking for a ROM when I'm not supposed to or something. If anyone needed me to, I could provide proof that I own the game), I am only interested in getting my hands on an acceptable-quality audio file of the menu music. I was wondering if anyone else had ever ripped this audio, or if anyone has the ROM on their PC to be able to do so for me? (Or alternatively, I don't suppose anyone here knows how to get a hold of Alex Herbert?)

There have been many people asking how to create music on the Intellivision and each thread is addressed individually. There is some good information on the IntelliWiki, but the format of the tracker is not described in detail. This thread endeavors to describe the tracker format in all its gory detail. The information in this article was originally provided to me by Arnauld Chevallier, author of the tracker library for the Intellivision. I have adapted and expanded it for publication. I've attached to this article an archive containing the source code for the Intellivision Tracker library, along with the original demo song provided by Arnauld Chevallier. I've also included a simple song taken from the Christmas Carol game for further illustration. Intellivision Tracker Lib.zip Technical Overview The Intellivision Master Component includes a General Instruments AY-3-8914 sound chip, commonly referred to as the Programmable Sound Generator, or PSG. The PSG contains three separate square-wave tone generators, each of which can be programmed individually to control its frequency and volume. The chip also includes a noise generator, which can be mixed with any of the three tone channels. All three channels, potentially modulated by the noise generator, are then mixed and fed to the TV for output. The PSG also contains a hardware envelope generator to shape the output sound-wave. Any of the three channels can be processed through the envelope generator, but only one envelope is available to all channels at a given time. The inability to shape each tone individually reduces the versatility and usefulness of this feature, often forcing the programmer to generate and manage discrete envelopes in software. Programming the PSG manually is certainly possible, but requires a significant volume of insight into the technical details of the chip, and the mathematics involved in calculating musical tones and note periods from raw frequency counter values. For this reason, it is common to use library modules that abstract these properties. The Intellivision Music Tracker Intellivision games designer and programmer Arnauld Chevallier, has implemented a tracker library to play specially-crafted music files on the Intellivision. He has been gracious enough to donate his code to the public domain so that all Intellivision programmers may benefit from it. Because it is freely available--and because it is so exceptionally useful and easy to integrate--it has become the de facto method to play music on Intellivision home-brew games. Using the tracker in your own games is a matter of including the library, defining some needed variable labels, and adding a call to update the tracker state periodically from your game loop. You also need to create your own music files in the appropriate data format. Tracker Data Format The format used in Arnauld's tracker has a lot in common with the classic MOD format of old Amiga tracker modules: a song defines a series of patterns, which describe musical sections, and specifies in which order they are to be played. More precisely, the data layout is closer to the later XM format introduced by Fast Tracker II, which added the notion of instruments. The most notable difference, of course, is that no digital samples are used at all. All instruments in the Intellivision tracker are software-generated tones. Below is the general structure of the tracker data layout, which I'll describe in detail further on. Root | +-- Pitch Effect #1 (...) +-- Pitch Effect #N | +-- Envelope #1 (...) +-- Envelope #N | +-- Drum #1 (...) +-- Drum #N | +-- Song #1 | | | +-- Header | +-- Pattern Sequence | +-- Pattern #1 | | | | | +-- Length of pattern | | +-- Sub-pattern for channel A | | +-- Sub-pattern for channel B | | +-- Sub-pattern for channel C (...)(...) | +-- Pattern #N | | | +-- Instrument #1 | | | | | +-- Pitch | | +-- Vibrato | | +-- Envelope (...)(...) | +-- Instrument #N | | | +-- Sub-pattern #1 | | | | | +-- Notes (...)(...) | +-- Sub-pattern #N | +-- Song #N Root Objects defined in this section are common to all songs. This may include pitch effects, envelopes and even drum patterns for a rudimentary percussion track implementation. Pitch Effects Some rather simple pitch effects are supported by the tracker, such as tremolo or fast arpeggios. The format is as follows: DECLE D[0], D[1], D[2], D[3] Where D[x] values are expressed in half-tones and are added to the current standard pitch of the note, on every frame, with the following formula: FinalPitch = StandardPitch + D[frame % 4] A frame is every game cycle where the tracker state is updated. Presumably, this would be 60 times a second, on standard NTSC Intellivision consoles. The result is that the tone is modulated, four frames at a time, by the number of half-tones defined for each frame, producing a tremolo effect. For example, pitch01: DECLE 0, 0, 0, 0 ; No modulation: |_|_|_|_| pitch02: DECLE 0, 0, 12, 12 ; half-modulation: |_|_|-|-| pitch03: DECLE 0, 12, 0, 12 ; fast-modulation: |_|-|_|-| The first pitch effect will play the note at its standard pitch without modulation. The second one will play the standard pitch for two frames, then increase the pitch by an octave (12 semi-tones) for another two frames, and repeat this throughout the length of the note. Finally, the third one will alternate the note between its standard pitch and one octave higher on every frame. Envelopes The tracker library does not use the hardware envelopes of the PSG. Instead, it relies on software envelopes defined in this section. The format of the envelope definition is as follows: DECLE SPEED DECLE WORD_00, ..., WORD_15 Where SPEED is in the range of [0..3] with 0 being the slowest and 3 the fastest. Each WORD_xx value is a hexadecimal value in the form $ABCD, where each nibble describes the volume level to be output. The tracker does not currently support loops within an envelope. Consequently, they are applied only once on each note. Consider an envelope as a 64 x 16 matrix, where each point defines the volume to be applied to an instrument on a given frame. Below is an example of a rather exaggerated envelope, in order to illustrate its layout: ATTACK DECAY SUSTAIN RELEASE .--------|---------------------|-------------------------------------------------------|---------------------------------------| F -|. . . . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E -|. . . . # # # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D -|. . . . # . . # # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C -|. . . . # . . . . # # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B -|. . . # . . . . . . . # # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V A -|. . . # . . . . . . . . . # # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O 9 -|. . . # . . . . . . . . . . . # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . L 8 -|. . . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . U 7 -|. . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . M 6 -|. . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E 5 -|. . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 -|. . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 -|. # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . # # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 -|. # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . # # # . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 -|# . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . # # # # # . . . . . . . 0 `+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1 3 7 B F E E D D C C B B A A 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 7 5 4 3 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ; Envelope definition DECLE 1 DECLE $137B, $FEED, $DCCB, $BAA9 DECLE $9999, $9999, $9999, $9999 DECLE $9999, $9999, $9999, $7543 DECLE $3222, $1111, $1000, $0000 The SPEED value influences how the tracker applies the envelope over time. For instance, a speed value of 0 will cycle through the matrix one point at a time. While a value of 1 will skip every other point, and so on. The envelope position for each frame is computed using the following formula: envelope_x = (frame / 2speed) Below is another, more common example. This one is for a simple envelope with a short attack, immediately followed by a linear decay in volume, all the way to zero. ATCK DECAY .----|---------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- F -|. . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E -|. # . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D -|# . . . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C -|. . . . . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B -|. . . . . . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V A -|. . . . . . . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O 9 -|. . . . . . . . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . L 8 -|. . . . . . . . . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . U 7 -|. . . . . . . . . . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . M 6 -|. . . . . . . . . . . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E 5 -|. . . . . . . . . . . . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 -|. . . . . . . . . . . . . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 -|. . . . . . . . . . . . . . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 -|. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 -|. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . # . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 `+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | D E F E D C B A 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ; Envelope definition DECLE 2 DECLE $DEFE, $DCBA, $9876, $5432 DECLE $1000, $0000, $0000, $0000 DECLE $0000, $0000, $0000, $0000 DECLE $0000, $0000, $0000, $0000 Drums Drums are a special kind of instrument that are defined globally. A drum is a short and fixed sequence of tones with optional noise modulation. No pitch effects, vibrato, or envelopes are applied to drums. The drums section includes the patterns for each drum instrument, along with the instrument definitions themselves. A drum instrument pattern is a series of eight instrument definitions that describe the sound of the drum over time. This allows the shaping of the drum sound with varying measures of tones and noise, resulting in a richer sound. The library includes the macro Drum() that facilitates the definition of drum sounds. The macro is used as follows: Drum(TONE_PERIOD, NOISE_PERIOD, TONE, NOISE, VOLUME) ; #1 Drum(TONE_PERIOD, NOISE_PERIOD, TONE, NOISE, VOLUME) ; #2 ... Drum(TONE_PERIOD, NOISE_PERIOD, TONE, NOISE, VOLUME) ; #8 TONE_PERIOD: Corresponds to a 16-bit value describing the period of the tone to use. NOISE_PERIOD: Corresponds to a 16-bit value describing the period of the noise to apply. TONE: Declares whether to use the tone generator for this drum instrument: 1 = On 0 = Off NOISE: Declares whether to use the noise generator for this drum instrument: 1 = On 0 = Off VOLUME: Corresponds to a value in the range [0..15] describing the volume of this drum. Below is an example of a simple hi-hat cymbal instrument definition: @@hithat DRUM($380, $04, 0, 1, $D) DRUM($380, $04, 0, 1, $6) DRUM(0, 0, 0, 0, 0) DRUM(0, 0, 0, 0, 0) DRUM(0, 0, 0, 0, 0) DRUM(0, 0, 0, 0, 0) DRUM(0, 0, 0, 0, 0) DRUM(0, 0, 0, 0, 0) Song A song is a collection of patterns describing the notes and instruments to be played. The song definition includes a header, the sequence of patterns to play, and the pattern definitions. Header The song header describes the overall definition of the song, and takes the following format: DECLE SPEED, PATTERNS, INSTRUMENTS SPEED: The playing speed, expressed in frames. It actually represents the number of frames that each row in a pattern will last. PATTERNS: A pointer to the pattern definitions table. INSTRUMENTS: A pointer to the instrument definitions table to be used. Pattern Sequence The pattern sequence describes the order in which the patterns will be played. The sequence is comprised of the definition index of each pattern in the sequence. The pattern sequence is the actual musical sequence of the song, so only those patterns included in it will be played. The sequence may be terminated by a negative value identifying a looping point. The tracker will then backtrack that many patterns and repeat the sequence from that point. If the song is to terminate without looping, the magic constant $F000 may be use to tell the tracker to stop playing and clear its registers. Below is an example of a pattern sequence: DECLE 0, 1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 2, 4, -4 The above will play the patterns listed in order, and loop indefinitely through the last four patterns. Replacing -4 with $F000 will instead cause the tracker to stop playing at the end of the song. Patterns A pattern is defined by its length, followed by pointers to sub-patterns for all three channels. The length of a pattern is expressed in rows, where a row represents a discrete musical event in time. (The speed of the song defined in the header corresponds to the number of frames between each pattern row.) It is important to think of patterns not in terms of beats and measures like a musical score, but as rows of tracker events that alter the output of a particular channel over time. The format of patterns is as follows: DECLE length, sub_pattern_a, sub_pattern_b, sub_pattern_c Where the length is the number of rows in the pattern, and sub_pattern_a, sub_pattern_b, and sub_pattern_c are pointers to sub-pattern definitions for channels A, B, and C, respectively. NOTE: The tracker assumes that all patterns have the same length. You are advised to ensure this is the case, or else Bad Things may happen during execution. Instruments This section holds all song instrument definitions. Each instrument includes information about pitch effects, optional amplitude modulation (vibrato), and an envelope. The instrument definition takes on the following format: DECLE PITCH, VIBRATO, ENVELOPE PITCH: A pointer to a pitch effect object previously defined in the global header. VIBRATO: The amount of vibrato effect to apply, in the range of [0..3]: 0 = no vibrato 1 = low 2 = medium 3 = high ENVELOPE: A pointer to an envelope object previously defined in the global header. Up to 15 different instruments can be defined. Sub-Patterns A sub-pattern indicates the actual notes to be played in a pattern, the instrument to be used for each note, and its volume. A note in this context describes a discrete tracker event which alters the output produced by a channel over a series of rows. The tracker library includes the macro NOTE() to define notes. For standard instruments (i.e., not drums), the macro takes as argument a string in the form: NOTE("NnO IVL") N = Musical note (from A to G) n = # for sharp; - for regular O = Octave (from 1 to 7) I = Instrument (from 1 to F, with '0' meaning no change) V = Volume (from 0 to F) L = Length, in rows (from 0 to F) The length is the number of rows to wait before the next event, and corresponds to the length of the note minus 1. For instance, a length of 7 corresponds to a note lasting for eight rows: the tracker will apply the note event on the current row, and wait for seven more until the next event. For drum instruments, the "NnO" parameter is replaced by the "DRM" keyword: NOTE("DRM IVL") I = Drum instrument (from 1 to F) V = Volume (from 0 to F) L = Length, in rows (from 0 to F) The library also includes the macro NOTES(), which defines four notes at a time. Any unused arguments can be padded with empty strings. For example: @@p003 NOTES("A-5 3F7", "G-5 3F7", "E-5 3F7", "F-5 3F1") NOTES("E-5 3F5", "", "", "") The "NnO" parameter may also be replaced by the "NUL" keyword, which means that no note change has occurred for this event. This makes it possible to define notes with a length greater than 15. EDIT: Corrected typos and edited for clarity.

Introducing IBN-to-IMT: A program to convert music data from IntyBASIC Notation (IBN) to Intellivision Music Tracker format (IMT). Description: The program will translate a music module composed in IntyBASIC Notation (IBN), into the data format used by the Intellivision Music Tracker (IMT). The result is an assembly source file with the original song represented in the target format. The output file includes instrument definitions that attempt to reproduce the IntyBASIC sounds. By default, IBN-to-IMT will produce output to support 6 channels, following the default configuration of the Intellivision Music Tracker. It will also try to determine automatically the most optimal length of patterns to use, removing duplicate patterns across all channels. The default behaviour can be altered with command line options. How It Works: The crucial problem that IBN-to-IMT attempts to address is how to identify patterns, and how to determine an optimal pattern length in which to split the song data. The solution it employs is actually to apply brute-force. First, the program scans the original BASIC source file and identifies all the labels and music player commands, extracting a stream of note events (the song stream) and splitting them into channels. Any music subroutines encountered via the command "MUSIC GOSUB" are unrolled and included inline as part of the song stream. Throughout this entire pre-processing step, the volume and active instrument of each channel in the original source is tracked. Then, operating on each extracted channel in turn, the program splits the song stream repeatedly into patterns of various row lengths. At each split, it attempts to deduplicate re-occurring patterns across all channels, and computes an estimate of the size of the data needed to reproduce it. When all lengths are tested, the program compares the relative sizes of the data for each iteration, and chooses the smallest one. This is assumed to be the optimal length with a balance between rows and data size. The selected pattern split is then rendered in the Intellivision Music Tracker (IMT) format by emitting the sequence of reused patterns, the channel patterns, and their individual note event sub-patterns. Any patterns corresponding to a labeled section in the original, will include a comment with its corresponding label for reference. Caveats: You must ensure that the source file contains only song statements in valid IntyBASIC Notation (IBN). Variable song speed is not supported by the Intellivision Music Tracker. Therefore, the "MUSIC SPEED" command simply sets the speed for the entire song. The program works best when the original song is naturally organized into repeating groups of notes or musical passages of the same length. Because the implementation of the Intellivision Music Tracker synthesizer is different from that of the IntyBASIC music player, the instrument sounds will only be approximations. The commands "MUSIC STOP" and "MUSIC REPEAT" are interpreted as the end of the song. Therefore, any following statements will be ignored unless referenced in some other way. You should take care to ensure that control-flow commands such as "MUSIC JUMP" and "MUSIC GOSUB" follow a coherent and logical flow. Chaotic jumping around in your song may not translate correctly. Be very careful when exiting a subroutine prematurely via a "MUSIC JUMP" command. This may result in unbalanced "GOSUB/RETURN" pairs. Because pattern extraction occurs independently of label positioning, there is a chance that labels wil not line up with the start of a pattern. Consequently, determining the backtracking from the target of a "MUSIC JUMP" command may fail. In such event, the program will default to an end-of-song marker. Known Issues & Limitations: Error checking is superficial at best. (What can I say, I'm an optimist. And lazy.) Drum arguments are read and extracted, but completely ignored during processing. The control-flow command "MUSIC JUMP" is treated in a special way: If it points forward into the song stream, it will skip all notes until that point If it points backwards to a previously encountered label, it will signal the end of the song and set the target as the repeat offset for backtracking at the end of the sequence. If a target pattern cannot be determined for some reason, it will default to the end-of-song marker. The performance command "MUSIC SPEED" will override the actual speed of the entire song, not just of the following sections. How To Use: For details on how to use IBN-to-IMT and for a comprehensive description of its features and available options, please see the User's Manual included with the program. Requirements: IBN-to-IMT is implemented as a Perl script. Therefore, you need an installation of the Perl programming language in your computer. On Mac, Unix, or Linux systems, Perl is usually included automatically in the standard operating system distribution. For Windows PCs, you may need to download one and install it. There are many distributions out there, most of them free for non-commercial use. One I've used in the past is ActivePerl from ActiveState. Acknowledgements: This program would not have any reason to exist if it were not for the fabulous work by Arnauld Chevallier (@Arnauld) and Oscar Toledo (@nanochess), respective authors of the original Intellivision Music Tracker and IntyBASIC. I would also like to thank @Nyuundere and @First Spear for suggesting the idea for this tool, and for providing sample files from their own personal repertoires on which to test. Most of my initial testing was done on a few sample IBN files I found in this forum, which happen to be published by @First Spear. Download: IBN-to-IMT is now included as part of the Intellivision Music Tracker distribution package. You are encouraged to get the latest version of the tracker from its dedicated thread. Nonetheless, below is the conversion program on its own, along with a copy of the user's manual. trk-utils.zip ibn2imt-manual.txt UPDATES: 2021-03-04: Updated attachments to latest version (from trk-distro-r4).

I made a thread about this in the Atari 7800 forum, but I'm not sure how much overlap there is with that in this forum. So I thought I would make a thread that I'll keep updating with stuff I write on both forums. https://www.dropbox.com/s/e0kt2uihubvd3h9/dbASF.mp3?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/2xqr51wq3f8rivs/dbAS.bin?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/6z4bhlll8b8s1xw/float.mp3?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/7kec2h0q85fquwe/bigrace.mp3?dl=0

Many moons ago and being member of the Dallas Computer Clubs I played around and sold Music Studio for Casio and Yamaha keyboards. I would like for anyone who has Music Studio song files to get in touch with me. I also would like to know how to make a copy of the 3,5 inch original disk that I have and took forever to find, any clues appreciated. I also have a 5,5 inch floppy of Music Studio. Also would like to know if anyone has a copy in 3.5 inch format of Music Studio or knows how I can get a back up copy. Just real reluctant to use the only copy I have until I have a back up. In the future I will be reproducing Music Studio song files.

Hello, In my aim to make the Intellivision Music Tracker useful and increasing its appeal to IntyBASIC programmers, I want to make sure it at least offers at a minimum any critical features that the IntyBASIC music player has. One thing that was missing, and that some have already asked me about, is the ability to disable channels in the tracker so that you can use them for sound effects. Unfortunately, the Intellivision Music Tracker messes with all PSG channels during playback, even if it's just to re-assert silence. I added a simple enhancement that allows the programmer to configure the tracker at runtime to leave some PSG channels untouched. It works by organizing the channels into a prioritized list, and only using the number of channels requested, starting from the one with the highest priority. In order to emulate something like "PLAY SIMPLE" in IntyBASIC, I chose to assign the lowest priority to the third channel of each PSG. The priority list then looks like this: A (Main PSG) - Highest priority B (Main PSG) D (ECS PSG) E (ECS PSG) F (ECS PSG) C (Main PSG) - Lowest priority +-----------+-----------+ | MAIN PSG | ECS PSG | +---+---+---+---+---+---+ | A | B | C | D | E | F | +---+---+---+---+---+---+ | 1 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 5 | +---+---+---+---+---+---+ So, for example, if you are only using the main PSG without the ECS, and you request 2 active channels, the tracker will use "A" and "B" and leave "C" untouched. Likewise, if you plan to take advantage of the ECS extra PSG to play additional music channels, you can request 5 active channels and the tracker will use "A", "B", and the three ECS channels, and still leave "C" untouched. That allows you to predictably reserve "C" for sound effects, and still take advantage of the extra sound channels of the ECS for the tracker, just like when using "PLAY SIMPLE" in IntyBASIC. However, in contrast to "PLAY SIMPLE," you are not constrained to just reserving one or two channels; you can configure the tracker to use anywhere from 1 to 5 channels, disabling the rest and reserving them for external use. All you need to do is use the macro "SET_ACTIVE_CHANNELS(n)" where "n" is the number of channels to use. The default is 6, letting the tracker use them all. ' Enable 5 channels for tracker use. ' This reserves channel "C" for other things. SET_ACTIVE_CHANNELS(5) ' The song will start playing immediately. CALL TRKLOADSONG(VARPTR MYSONG(0)) (Obviously the feature is available using the native Assembly Language interface of the Intellivision Music Tracker as well.) The full set of channel priority configurations are as follows: +------------------------+-----------+-----------+ | | MAIN PSG | ECS PSG | +------------------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | SET_ACTIVE_CHANNELS(n) | A | B | C | D | E | F | +------------------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | 1 | X | - | - | - | - | - | +------------------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | 2 | X | X | - | - | - | - | +------------------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | 3 | X | X | - | X | - | - | +------------------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | 4 | X | X | - | X | X | - | +------------------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | 5 | X | X | - | X | X | X | +------------------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | 6 | X | X | X | X | X | X | +------------------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+ LEGEND: [ - ] => Inactive [ X ] => Active One important thing to note is that, because channels "A" and "D" are the only ones in which the tracker supports drums, we may want to keep those at a higher priority, or else you lose the ability to use drums when using less than the full set of channels. What do you guys think? I know it is a useful feature to be able to reserve some channels for non-tracker use, but is this a good interface? Would it be helpful, or is it too confusing? Is the priority order too wonky? Any feedback will be welcomed! -dZ.

More than a few months ago I started working on a tool to compress VGM music files, such as those found at http://www.smspower.org/, so they could be used on the TI. A few weeks ago, I finally had everything working to my satisfaction, and released it. Today I am also releasing a ColecoVision version of the playback code, as I also like to do Coleco work. The compressor itself runs as a Windows command-line application - I am still considering Linux, since it should port easily enough. For those who want to get right to the important stuff, it's at http://harmlesslion.com/software/vgmcomp The tool is capable of merging up to 16 VGM files into a single output file, applying a variety of tricks to pack it down. While not quite as tight as gzip, it's usually within 10%, and does not require a decompression buffer to play back. In addition, the player optionally supports 30hz playback instead of 60hz, and sound effects with priority (also optionally). The player code is written in C and compiles to under 1k of ROM, and uses from 120-220 bytes of RAM (depending on whether you have enabled the sound effect code). A sample app is available both in the full download, and as standalone at the above link. It is tested on hardware and in BlueMSX. VGMs compatible with the Coleco can be sourced from the Master System, Game Gear, and of course other ColecoVision games (although I think Antarctic Adventure is the only Coleco VGM I ever saw). In addition, the tracker tool Mod2PSG2 can export VGM (although the website at www.kontechs.com seems to be down, there is this alternate http://www.smspower.org/Music/Mod2PSG2). Of course, I can also list my Protracker MOD converter at http://harmlesslion.com/software/modconvertpsg

I've been a fan of Herb Alpert since I was a kid. We just about wore out the Tijuana Brass Christmas Album playing it every year. Then for some reason, in my early teens, I started really getting into their music. I'm not sure why, other than it was probably because I was getting into collecting records at the time (the Monkees), my folks already had a number of TJB records at home, and I was playing trumpet in band at school. And, well, the music was fun and catchy. It was already at least a dozen years out-of-date by then, but it was so unique, listenable and undeniably happy, myself and a couple of friends really got into it. Non-ironically, too. But I really didn't know anything about Herb or the TJB. In fact, when I went to ask our high school band director if we could play some Herb Alpert music, he said, "We already are." Little did I know, Herb had just had a massive hit with the #1 song Rise, and we were playing 1980 - the opening track on that album (you should be able to guess the year this all happened ). I don't think Rise ever got any play on the radio station I was listening to at the time, which was AM top 40. I certainly don't remember hearing it before getting the album. (If Rise sounds familiar to you young 'uns out there, this was sampled by Biggie Smalls and became a hit all over again, generating even more royalties for Herb. Nice work if you can get it.) But at that point I started following Herb as a solo artist, and each new album was... Well, hang on. I've already written this somewhere. Let me find it. It's here somewhere... It's really too bad Categories don't exist in the blogs here anymore. It would make this a lot easier. Gimme a minute... Okay, here we go. So I've written about Herb's solo career here: https://atariage.com/forums/blogs/entry/1311-time-marches-on/?tab=comments#comment-2826 And here: https://atariage.com/forums/blogs/entry/6419-mutton-beef-and-trout/ And here: https://atariage.com/forums/blogs/entry/8097-new-old-music-part-4/ And here: https://atariage.com/forums/blogs/entry/13004-new-old-music-parts-8-9-10/ And here: https://atariage.com/forums/blogs/entry/15180-new-old-music-parts-13-14-15/ And even then, there have been two more albums released since then that I haven't reviewed yet. The point is he's recorded a lot of music. Not counting Greatest Hits compilations, I have 47 of his albums (which are all of the ones I'm aware of), 30 of which were recorded after he disbanded the TJB. And he's continually changing what he's doing. He never stands still, and rarely does the same thing twice. Always exploring. Following his instincts. Creating what sounds good to him, not necessarily what he thinks will be a hit. Plus, Herb's a painter. And a sculpter. And a very wealthy philanthropist. You see, the TJB earned him a lot of money. He sold over 72 million records. That includes 15 gold records, 14 platinum records, several #1's, and 9 Grammy awards. He was also the "A" in A&M Records. He and co-founder Jerry Moss sold that to PolyGram in 1990 for $500 million. Not bad for a couple of guys who started in a garage with a tape recorder. So, from this unassuming trumpet player playing "happy music", to a multimillionaire industry giant, to a remarkably humble artist and generous philanthropist. This is all stuff that I learned over many years of following him, reading articles here and there, and of course piecing things together on the internet. Now of course, you can look up a lot of this on Herb's website or Wikipedia. One-stop shopping. But that doesn't really show you who Herb Alpert is. (How's that for a segue? Even after months off, you're still getting the same quality writing you've come to expect from my blog! Note that I didn't say "good" quality. Just "same" quality.) But this new documentary does. Herb Alpert Is... was originally intended for a theatrical release, but the Coronavirus pretty-much took care of that. But you can get it on various streaming platforms. In my case, I bought it on iTunes. Even though I knew much of the information factually, when you can see and hear Herb talk about his career, and watch vintage performances, hear first-hand accounts and interviews, it becomes a far more engaging and engrossing story. More than half of the documentary focuses on Herb's early career and years with the TJB and A&M. Of course, that's where people know him from. It largely skims over his solo years, stopping briefly to focus on some work he did with Hugh Masekela, the recording of Rise, and his collaboration with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, but it doesn't really do a thorough job of showing how much music he's recorded as a solo artist. That said, this is more of a biography than a discography, and it does show who Herb Alpert is... as a person, an artist, and how he's arrived at who he is now: a vibrant, passionate, committed husband, artist, philanthropist and musician. At the age of 85. There are a few fun facts it would've been nice for them to touch on - Herb playing at the Super Bowl, or being an extra in The Ten Commandments, but it still covers a remarkable amount of ground. For my money, it could've easily gone another 30 minutes. I would've loved to have heard more about his creative process with the TJB and his solo career. Maybe they'll release some bonus footage or an extended cut someday. Still, it's a compelling and inspiring story. It's positive and uplifting. And the music is still happy. Right now, we could use pretty-much all of that. Herb Alpert Is... a 9/10. (There's also a BBC documentary from ten years ago, which covers much of the same ground. It's only an hour long, and the approach is more factual and less personal, but it's still very good.)

About two-and-a-half years ago, I had to gang up three Herb Alpert reviews in one, because he'd been putting out music faster than I could review it. Since then, he's actually released four more albums. Not bad for a guy who's 83! I'm only reviewing three of the four at this point, but I'll catch up on the other one (a Christmas album) later in the month. 2016: Human Nature In late 2016 Herb released Human Nature. It was originally presented as more of an EP than an album, but even with just 9 tracks, it still clocks in at a respectable 31 minutes - as long as many of the Tijuana Brass albums he did back-in-the-day. Human Nature breaks stylistically with the previous few albums Herb had done - a little less acoustic, a little more electronic. Still centered around the same band he's had for years, there's a notable increase in keyboards, synths, and more of a pop driven feel to some of the tracks. While still owing to the previous jazz-driven albums, this album is the beginning of a departure, and stands apart from the previous albums enough to have its own identity. Herb's playing throughout is excellent and ageless. Playing this for someone unfamiliar with Herb's career, I don't think anyone could guess Herb's age, or for that matter, what year (or decade) this was recorded. Although clearly modern, it could've been recorded probably anytime in the last 30 years, and would fit in just as well as it does now. There's a great mix of up-tempo and quieter, almost melancholy tracks. From the oft-recorded Alfie, to Michael Jackson's "Human Nature", to the Tijuana Brass staple "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" (not the Elton John song), Herb chooses melodies that are timeless to him, and makes them uniquely his own. The sequencing is excellent, and everything fits together remarkably well. Of his recent work, I keep going back to this one more than most. Human Nature gets a 7.5/10 2017: Music Volume 1 Music Volume 1 is a pretty radical departure from Herb's work of the last decade. Rather than being centered around his long-term group of musicians, it's effectively just him and synth programmer Jochem van der Saag. Herb takes a dozen classic songs from Gershwin's "Strike Up The Band" to the Beatles' "Michelle" and strips away everything except his trumpet playing and minimal accompaniment. That accompaniment ranges from synthesized strings and samples to drum machines, but it isn't used in a heavy-handed, modern approach. Rather, it's all rather subdued, and at times is "aged" sonically, with noise and equalization added to make the recordings sound artificially old. To me, the results of those effects are kind of mixed - if you're going to make something sound antique, I'd prefer it be done authentically using vintage instruments and recording equipment. But it's not obtrusive, and since it sits largely in the background, it does what it's supposed to do: supports Herb's playing and really lets him shine. If anything, Herb is actually getting better with age. His playing on this album is excellent and completely, uniquely his own. Nobody else sounds like Herb, and he's as instantly recognizable here as he was 50 years ago. Herb's intent with this album was, in his own words, "To make up-lifting music in a time when the whole world feels like it could use some." He succeeded brilliantly. This is the perfect antidote for having a bad day, and it's hard not to be put into a good mood listening to this album. The one piece that breaks from that is John Lennon's "Imagine", which closes out the album. It's performed so quietly and introspectively, that it actually ends the album more on a wistful note than a joyful one. As a former trumpet player myself, I also have to share Herb's excellent video for "I'm Yours" from Music Volume 1: Music Volume 1 gets a 7/10 Along that same sort of theme, earlier this year Herb released a cover of "What A Wonderful World", featuring a bevy of international musicians. I expected this to be on his next album, but it turned out to be just a one-off track. Still, it fits in nicely with Music Volume 1 as a follow-up, and proceeds from it* benefit the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, which is never a bad thing. Here's the video from it: *Note: I have yet to figure out how to actually buy the track. 2018: Music Volume 3 - Herb Alpert Reimagines The Tijuana Brass Most recently, Herb released Music Volume 3 - Herb Alpert Reimagines The Tijuana Brass. So, what happened to Volume 2? Well, that was released in 1963. Music Volume 3 consists entirely of reworked Tijuana Brass tracks, including "The Lonely Bull", "Spanish Flea", "A Taste of Honey", and others which would be almost instantly recognizable to any Tijuana Brass fan. But this album isn't designed to appeal so much to us original fans, but rather to introduce the TJB to a younger, modern audience. Like Volume 1, Herb works with Jochem van der Saag again, but on several tracks adds additional brass players to fill out the sound. Some of the arrangements are completely new and offer fresh takes on the originals, but a few of the tracks just sound like the original tracks were remixed with a heavy beat, and nothing really interesting was done with them. Herb did something similar with a remixed version of Whipped Cream & Other Delights about a dozen years ago, although Music Volume 3 has more in the way of newly recorded material, and is more consistent because he only worked with one producer. This is far from the first time Herb has revisited songs he had recorded before - I counted well over a dozen others he's recorded multiple times over the years. The thing is though - usually he genuinely reimagines those songs when he re-records them. With Volume 3 - much of it sounded all-too-familiar. Yes - they had a modern twist of sorts, but much of the original arrangements, tempos and instrumentation seemed held over from the Tijuana Brass versions. There are a few notable exceptions, but for the most part, it was less reimagining than recycling. Even the crowd noises from the original recordings of "The Lonely Bull" and "El Presidente" were reused. Also, four of the tracks were already revisited once before on the aforementioned remixed Whipped Cream album, so comparisons there are inevitable. That said, there are a few tracks that really break from tradition, notably "Wade in the Water" and "America" (from West Side Story). "America" is played almost mournfully, much like "Imagine" at the end of Music Volume 1. A complete contrast from the Tijuana Brass' original joyful, celebratory version. When I buy a new Herb Alpert album - I look forward to it because I expect something new. This is a guy who for over 50 years has never stood still. Even during the Tijuana Brass years, the sound changed and evolved. During his solo career, he rarely did the same thing twice. So Music Volume 3 is a bit disappointing in its familiarity. But still, I'd say it was certainly listenable and enjoyable enough to recommend... except for one thing... The bass. When I listen to this on my home stereo, or in my car, or any system with speakers that have good bass response, the album becomes insufferable. The drum machine or synthesized bass, or whatever it is that's thumping away, is dull, loud, repetitive, and obnoxious. It just pounds away with a booming "thud, thud, thud, thud" that absolutely drives me up the wall. Clearly, this album was mixed for a generation of kids who have already lost most of their hearing by having earbuds endlessly jammed into their skulls. The whole album sounds like it was designed to be played on one of those overpowered car stereos that rattle your home's windows when they drive by - several blocks away. And no... it's not my stereo. I carefully calibrate all of my sound systems, and the 7,876 other songs that I play on those systems all sound just fine, thank you. Does this make me old? No, my age makes me old. This makes me selective about the kind of music I want to listen to. And what I don't want to listen to is something so bass-heavy that it completely overwhelms any musicality that may be buried underneath. The only place I can listen to this album is on my computer, because my desktop speakers don't have very good bass. Even though this was meant to appeal to a new generation of listeners, frankly, I can't recommend this one to any generation. Herb has far too many other good albums to waste your time on this one. If you really want something of his to listen to, pick up Main Event - Live. Or Midnight Sun. Or Fandango. Or Beyond. Or Under A Spanish Moon. Or Rise. Or... well, you get the idea. Just not this one. Because the volume has to be turned down to a 3 to listen to it, and because it's not very imaginative, Music Volume 3 - Herb Alpert Reimagines the Tijuana Brass gets a 3/10. Sorry Herb. But I am looking forward to your next album. Just please leave the synth programmer out of it.

After being delayed for several months, Herb Alpert's new album - Anything Goes (featuring his wife - Lani Hall) is finally here! Recorded live during a brief tour last year, this is Herb's most jazz-centric album since 1992's Midnight Sun (currently out-of-print, unfortunately). There's nary a trace of the Tijuana Brass years here, and yet Herb's playing is as instantly identifiable as ever, as is Lani's singing (in case you're unfamiliar, she was the lead vocalist for Sérgio Mendes's Brasil '66). Anything Goes is mostly a collection of standards, but they're treated in Herb and Lani's own unique style, so while certainly respectful to the originals, they aren't merely retreads of something done before. Lani sings a couple of numbers in Portuguese (sadly, no translation was included in the booklet), and there a couple of original compositions by the band's pianist - Bill Cantos. Yet despite the variety of material, the whole album has a very cohesive feel to it. The musicians are all first-rate and blend together as if they've been playing together for years. What's rather amazing is that Herb and Lani have rarely collaborated musically, and yet they mesh together effortlessly, and the result is an intimacy to the music that's really a delight to listen to. There's romance, humor, and such a strong connection between them, that there's a real sense that everyone involved is just thoroughly enjoying the music - and it's contagious. I find myself enjoying this album the more I listen to it, and at times almost feel like I'm sitting in the room with them. Lani's voice doesn't sound like she's aged a day, and Herb's playing (at 74!) is equally timeless. Lani has a terrific voice, from handling the rapid-fire lyrics of Pararaio to the sultriness of Anything Goes, from the playfulness of Morning Coffee to the wistfulness of Who Are You?, she shows an amazing breadth of talent and expressiveness. Herb's improvisational skills have always been, in my opinion, highly underrated, and he excels here. His identity as a trumpet player is completely his own - there's nobody else that sounds or plays like him. The word "effortless" comes to mind again, as he weaves in and out of the melodies and improvisations. He's never flashy or showy, but thoughtful - making every note count in much the way that Louis Armstrong would. If I had a least-favorite track on the album, it would probably be The Trolley Song, where the cloth mute Herb is using oddly muffles the sound. Elsewhere though, Herb makes very effective use of a Harmon mute (which makes a soft, "buzzing" sound) on a number of tracks, including on It's Only A Paper Moon, where he uses a specially built double-belled trumpet nicknamed "The Mutant" to switch between an open bell and the mute with the flick of a rotary valve. The net effect is that it almost sounds like he's playing both parts of a duet. My favorite track though is the closer - Laura. Besides it's inherently beautiful melody, this arrangement is a joy to listen to as it changes tempos, moods, and gives Herb and the band a chance to really showcase their playing. It's a great way to end a live show, and this CD. Herb and Lani are touring again this year, playing with the same group and performing many of the songs from this album. I missed the chance to see them in concert last time around. I won't make that mistake again. Herb has always made the music that he wanted to make. Sometimes to the chagrin of die-hard Tijuana Brass fans who'd rather listen to "A Taste of Honey" for the six-thousandth time, than be challenged by or treated to something musically new and different. But that's their loss. I haven't been a fan of everything Herb has released, but I always look forward to his next album because I know it's never going to be the same thing he did that last time. And while I'll admit sometimes I wish he'd do more of one thing or less of another, I admire and respect his willingness to go out on a limb and create something simply because he wants to. This is an excellent album, an excellent jazz album, and yet another re-invention of Herb Alpert as an artist. Never one to sit still or live in the past, his musical stylings have changed radically over the years from the Tijuana Brass years, to disco, funk, R&B, orchestral, latin, pop, easy listening... and yet underneath it all, has always been Alpert's first musical love - jazz. Here, he unabashedly gets to celebrate his love of jazz, his love of his wife, and the joy of working together with the both of them. Track listing: Fascinating Rhythm Para-Raio (Pah-dah-hi-yoo) The Trolley Song That Old Black Magic Dinorah (Gee-no-rah)/Morning It's Only A Paper Moon Let's Face The Music And Dance Morning Coffee I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face Who Are You? Besame Mucho Anything Goes* I've Got You Under My Skin Laura Anything Goes gets a 9.5/10 (It would've gotten a 10, but apparently the Japanese release gets a bonus track that we're denied!) Here's a promotional video for the album: *Note: The title track is some obscure version by a guy named "Cole Porter" , rather than the version we're all more familiar with.

It's been awhile since I wrote reviews for Herb Alpert's music. But that doesn't mean he's stopped making it. Previously, I reviewed a pair of duet albums he did with his wife (here and here). Since then, Herb (still going strong at 81) has cranked out a new album every year for the past three years. 2013: Steppin' Out 2014: In The Mood 2015: Come Fly With Me I'm going to review these together because... well, they're all very similar. Which for Herb, is kind of an oddity. Even his Tijuana Brass work, which always had identifiable underlying style to it, evolved over the course of its thirteen year run. But his solo career which followed was constantly changing. Music has been a moving target for Herb, exploring different styles, genres, cultures, moods, instrumentation and arrangements. From melancholy and introspective to bright and cheerful, from disco to hip hop, Latin to orchestral, soft jazz to electronica, you'd be hard pressed to define him as a particular type of musician, other than "trumpet player". With Steppin' Out, In the Mood, and Come Fly With Me, the album titles themselves (taken from vintage songs) imply retrospection, and Herb does revisit many classic songs in the albums. From Irving Berlin to the Beatles, or from Duke Ellington to, well... Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass (reimagining his original hit - "The Lonely Bull", along with a few others). On the Sunny Side of the Street, Danny Boy, America The Beautiful, Ol' Man River, and a host of other familiar titles pepper the three albums. Herb has said he's drawn to classic, memorable melodies. A good song is a good song. But then he puts his own spin on them. There are new songs as well, so it's not all a trip down memory lane, except that even then, a lot of it feels oddly familiar. Where in previous solo efforts, Herb would usually stick to a particular style throughout a given album, many of the tracks on these albums feel like they're taken from another time - as if he were revisiting some of his earlier solo work stylistically. Some of this has to do with who he worked with on some of the tracks - Randy Badazz Alpert (his nephew) produced some of his work in the early 80's (notably Rise), and Jeff Lorber produced some of his more jazz-oriented work in the mid-90's. They have distinctive styles that reassert themselves in the tracks they arranged or produced on the three new albums. Other tracks have the orchestral feel of his album Under A Spanish Moon (The Lonely Bull, Europa - from Steppin' Out; Ol' Man River - from In The Mood), or the more haunting, melancholy feel of his first solo LP - Just You and Me (Oblivion - from Steppin' Out, Love Affair - from Come Fly With Me). Our Song (from Steppin' Out) sounds like it could have come off of his soft jazz album Midnight Sun. The tracks featuring his wife Lani Hall sound like they could have come from either of their two collaborative efforts. And there are other tracks which seem reminiscent of various other albums of his as well - although after a solo career spanning 40 years and over two-dozen albums, there's bound to be some familiar ground that gets covered from time to time. I suppose with Herb, since he's tried so many different things musically over the years, when he stays in one place for awhile, it seems kind of strange. Many artists make entire careers out of never moving from one spot. And that's not to say all of Herb's previous efforts have been completely to my liking - but I can always find some tracks on each album that I really like, that mark those albums as unique. Still, on these three albums, there are some tracks which defy attempts to neatly categorize. La Vie En Rose (from Steppin' Out) and Let It Be Me (from In The Mood) are almost completely stripped down to just Herb and some minimal accompaniment. Elsewhere, Herb samples one of his own Tijuana Brass songs (Summertime - from the album Summertime) as the hook for Don't Cry (from In The Mood), turning into a completely new track. Night Ride (from Come Fly With Me) is one of my favorite tracks, since it's a completely different style altogether (it actually reminds me a little of some of Michael Nesmith's Rays), and Herb does a slowed-down version of Take the "A" Train that Duke Ellington would be hard-pressed to recognize. Confused yet? Well, this may help explain why I haven't reviewed these albums until now. I just couldn't (and still can't) pin them down. It feels like I've got Herb's solo career on random shuffle when I listen to them. I'm not saying this to be critical of the music - all of which is very good. Some of it's excellent. Herb's playing sounds great, and his band is top-notch. There aren't really any skip-worthy tracks on the albums. The problem is more sequencing than anything. As they stand now, the albums feel largely disjointed. I think taking all of the tracks from the three albums (45 in total), and carefully reshuffling them, would probably result in three different, yet overall more cohesive albums. What lends consistency to it all is, first and foremost, Herb. His playing is the very definition of timelessness. Some trumpet players do not age well, and lose their chops. But Herb has never been one for what I call "trumpet heroics". He's not a high-powered, high-speed, high-note player. That was never his thing. He is completely comfortable with, and true to his own unique style of playing, and if anything, he's actually getting better at it. Miles Davis once said, "You hear three notes and you know it's Herb Alpert". He plays with great feeling and thought. Every note counts. The second thing which helps with consistency is the instrumentation. Apart from a few additional strings and sidemen, he's still using the same band he's been recording and touring with now for ten years. This is his most persistent line-up since his Tijuana Brass days. And the fact is - it's working for him. They are a tight-knit group, and they make great music. Taken as a whole, the albums make a solid, enjoyable collection of music. The problem is, taken as individual albums, they each lack a unique identity. Apart from Come Fly With Me, (which has the benefit of a self-titled track), I have a hard time remembering which tracks belong to which album. I'm listening to one of them as I type this, and I honestly couldn't tell you which album it is without looking. There aren't any tracks which really define any of the albums for me. Even for the music videos (see below) that he made to promote two of the albums - I still have to look to see which is from which. It's not that I don't enjoy the music... it's just that I wish each of the albums were more unique unto themselves. Herb (reportedly) has another new album coming out September 30th. I'm looking forward to it. I always welcome new albums from him. I know it will be good. But I'm hoping it will be great. Come Steppin' Out In The Mood And Fly With Me gets a 7/10.

Hi guys! Waiting for something better I've re-done (or rather re-covered) one demo music from Raster Music Tracker for Atari 8 bit. Attached .lnx and .lyx files, .ogg file recorded from mednafen and even its source in Chipper (set program to 480Hz to play this one properly). Enjoy! ? freedom.zip

I started looking at a disassembly of Melody Blaster, after I became curious as to which ECS games supported tape expansions. My hope is to create virtual tape images for jzintv that can be used to allow extra music into the game. As an intermediate step, I'll try creating a ROM hack with new music in it. The ROM follows the standard memory map for 12K Mattel games: 8K in the $5000-6FFF range, and 4K in the $Dxxx range. Most of what's in $6xxx is the Help text, and it overflows a little into $D0xx. After that is the 11 tunes. There are a bunch of calls in the code to functions at $40xx and $41xx, so the ECS "Executive ROM" must be located there. The ECS does have onboard RAM, and I'm pretty sure tunes are loaded there and then parsed by the ECS EXEC. The list of pointers to the starting addresses of each tune starts at $57E7 (cartridge ROM), with the low-order byte listed first, and the starting address for the current tune is loaded into $354 (16-bit system RAM address). The game allows for one extra tune to be loaded into memory, either from a tape or by playing a tune (one channel only). I hope tape tunes aren't limited to a single channel, but I don't know yet. All the music data fits into 8-bit words, probably because that's the width of the ECS RAM. As for the tunes, the first 18 bytes comprise the title. I looked at the first 2 tunes so far, which both had a 9-byte signature starting with 0 1 1 9 6 6 9 4. After that was the data for each of the 4 channels used by the game (2 sprite-based notes per channel). The channels' lines are listed separately, in order from low to high, and not all of them are used. The music data consists of byte pairs: a note ($18 is Middle-C) or $80 for a rest, and then a duration in "ticks". In most cases, channel data is separated by the signatue 1 1 $80 1, but I found an exception in Tune 2 "ROW,ROW THE BOAT". That signature appears twice in a row in Tune 1 "BLASTER'S BLUES" because one channel is not used. In many cases, channels' music data is prefaced with a rest, because another channel has a starting pick-up. The first channel for BLASTER'S BLUES is the left-hand harmony line, which has a small pause to allow the pickup in the right hand melody line. Then the channel-separator signature appears twice, followed by the melody line. Strangely, the fourth channel has a series of rests which add up to 234 ticks, where it is then used to play a second note in the right hand at the tune's end. There are a total of 9 consecutive rests here, the first 8 of which are 25 ticks each ("$19"), and the last of which is 34 ticks ("$22"). There's a little more data here which I haven't yet deciphered. ROW,ROW THE BOAT is played as a round, with the harmony line picking up a measure behind the melody line. The same value $18 is used for the C note in their respective octaves, which leaves me to believe that the ninth byte in the signature following the title contains bits to tell us which channels have octave offsets (in other words, are meant to be played by the left hand or the right hand). The end-of-channel signature is also absent at one point, so maybe the header signature tells us which channels are not used at all? That's as far as I got so far. I'll take the time to study the other tunes later today. Another interesting point is that there will sometimes be tiny spaces between notes at what appear to be arbitrary points: a note played for 2 ticks followed by a 1-tick rest in one hand and for the full 3 ticks in the other hand. That indicates to me that the music data was created by a device that a MIDI keyboard was connected to, and that data was only moderately cleaned up afterwards to get a consistent tempo across all channels.

Hello, all! I just recently got an Atari Jaguar and I'm happy to be a part of the community! I was hoping you guys could possibly help me with an issue. I ordered a few games since the tail end of June, and one I really looked forward to having was Zool 2. I just got it today, but when I tested it out there was no music playing at all. Sound effects played in levels, however. I thought I could fix it in Options, but there was no way to toggle the audio. I think it's a problem with the cart because my other games (Cybermorph, DOOM) worked fine, audio and all. I had a cartridge issue with my Jaguar before, as I was getting the Red Screen with my copy of Iron Soldier, and it finally worked after I cleaned the contacts and lifted the cartridge up slightly. But even after giving the contacts a light cleaning with some rubbing alcohol, my copy of Zool 2 still has the same problem. Did anyone else ever experience this with a Jag game?

Is there any MIDI software that uses BANK SELECT on the Atari ST? I used to use Master Tracks Pro 3.6 back in the mid-90s with a Yamaha PSS-795. The software can only handle up to 128 programs (patches) and was published in 1990 which was before General MIDI was introduced. So with newer keyboards that have much more than 128 patches, there is no way to assign a certain instrument unless the software supports "bank select" which is standard with General MIDI 2. My new keyboard uses the newer MIDI protocols and sadly, MTP 3.6 doesn't seem compatible. Is anyone using Atari software with keyboards from the late 1990s or newer? Thanks, Steve

I fell for an ad... It looked so nice on the web page. Thomann sold a Novation Launchpad Mini Mk2 for €58. Writing music is a very melodic thing for me. I sit by my piano and play something. Record it to MIDI and convert it to HandyMusic SASS format. But for the next game I kind of need a bit more electronic, main stream music so I thought I could learn something by trying out the Launchpad with the software Ableton Lite. It was a very educational experience. I sat by my computer banging on the pad till past midnight. Unfortunately most of the samples are analog so there is not much I could do for making Lynx music. But the pad was super. I tried to run some launchpad libraries but they did not recognize the tablet. So I just started to bang on the tablet socket and within 30 minutes I had full control of the keys and the leds on the tablet. The Ableton interface was much too complicated for practical Lynx work. But I liked some of the concepts. At the top of the pad there is a row of buttons labeled 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 The first 4 columns will represent the Lynx sound channels. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 o o o o . . . . A o o o o . . . . B o o o o . . . . C o o o o . . . . D o o o o . . . . E o o o o . . . . F o o o o . . . . G o o o o . . . . H Every button "o" will contain a one or two bar clip. It can be any kind of instrument. You can activate only one button per column at a time. To mute/unmute a channel you can press the number pad on the top row. The next thing I liked a lot was the rightmost column of letters. Pressing a letter A..H activates the entire row (all 4 channels) In order to visualize the rhythm the letters A..H light up one at a time in the tempo of the music. Which brings me to the next problem. How to set the tempo? For this purpose I decided to use button 7. You change the tempo by tapping button 7. There is just two LED's per button (red + green) with 2 bits for intensity of one LED. red = 0, green = 0 -> black (no data in this button) red = 3, green = 3 -> yellow (there is a playable clip in this button) red = 0, green = 3 -> green (this clip is currently playing) Then I need to be able to present a clip library with pre-defined drum beats, bass lines, licks, riffs, counter rhythms, breaks. For browsing through the library I plan to use columns 5 and 6. Both columns are independent from each other. By pressing button 5 you get the next page of clips in column 5. Same for column 6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 . . . . o o . . A . . . . o o . . B . . . . o o . . C . . . . o o . . D . . . . o o . . E . . . . o o . . F . . . . o o . . G . . . . o o . . H So for browsing the clip library you just press any button in column 5. It may contain pretty much anything for one or two bars. If you like the clip and want to copy it to a channel you press the clip button for a long time till it starts blinking. Now you can press any button in columns 1..4 and it will be copied in place for performace. To delete a clip you copy a cell without content and paste it. Then we have the problem with the melody. There is still two columns unused and that will be our piano. We have space for one octave. The # keys are the black keys on a piano. + is for octave up. - is for octave down. The instrument can be dropped in the box 'o' between the black keys. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 . . . . . . + C A . . . . . . # H B . . . . . . # A C . . . . . . # G D . . . . . . o F E . . . . . . # E F . . . . . . # D G . . . . . . - C H OMG. We have obviously wasted one button. The button 8 has no function. So we allocate that one for changing the operation mode for the whole Launchpad. It will toggle between the clip mode you have just seen and the build mode where you put together the clips from individual sounds. The code will run on a Raspberry Pi. The Launchpad is attached to an USB port. I also plan to use another USB port for an USB->serial conversion using FT232. This allows me to communicate with ComLynx at full speed. I am currently writing this in Python 3. Everything will be recorded to json files so you can playback your creation later. There is no "record" button. From this recording I plan to write some kind of music conversion into Handy Music format. ... to be continued ... The colours of the Launchpad are usable. Not "amazing". Here you can see the "piano" to the right. The beat counter is running down (at B just now). Plus there is two active channels. Channel 1 is playing clip nr 3. The "piano" is also green (row E, button 7). I still have not written the Lynx software that plays the actual clips. But that part should be fairly easy to do.

A little something produced about 20 minutes ago. Free for anyone to take+use for whatever project they have. I thought it sounds like something that might show after a level/board is cleared, or maybe on a loop (modified slightly from this) when time is running low in a clock-based game. Enjoy. songproto-BonusFrenetic1.bin songproto-BonusFrenetic1.cfg songproto-BonusFrenetic1.bas Mode 0,1,0,1,0 Wait Border 1,0 Scroll 4,4,0 For borderNew=0 to 200 Step 20 : Poke $200+borderNew, $2000: Poke $213+borderNew, $2000 : Next borderNew Wait Wait Print At 21 Color 7 , "Frenetic" Print At 41 Color 7 , "Bonus" Print At 141 Color 5 , "Start: Top side" Print At 161 Color 6 , "Exit: Bottom side" MusicPage = MusicPage ecsCheck = peek($4000) Poke $4000 , ecsCheck + 1 If Peek($4000) = ecsCheck + 1 then Print At 101 Color 4 , "PSG+ECS" Else Print At 101 Color 4 , "PSG only" End If Wait Play Simple Wait : Wait Goto PlayLoop PlayLoop: Wait If Cont.B0 Then Wait : Play Off : Wait : Play MusicInit : Play FrenBonus If Cont.B1 Then Goto ExitThis If Cont.B2 Then Goto ExitThis Wait Goto PlayLoop ExitThis: Wait Print At 213 Color (Rand and 7) , "Bye." For spinWait = 0 to 5 Wait Next Play Off Goto ExitThis MusicInit: Data 5 Music - , - Music - , - Music - , - Music - , - Music Stop FrenBonus: Data 5 Music G3#X , - Music S , - Music F3# , - Music F3# , C3#W Music G3# , B2X Music S , S Music F3# , C3W Music F3# , - Music G3# , - Music S , - Music F3# , C3# Music F3# , - Music A3# , B2 Music S , S Music F3# , C3# Music F3# , - Music G3# , - Music S , - Music F3# , - Music F3# , C3# Music G3# , B2 Music C3# , S Music F3# , C3# Music F3# , G3# Music D3 , S Music - , S Music F3# , D3 Music F3# , A3W Music A3 , - Music - , - Music G3 , - Music S , - Music S , - Music S , - Music S , - Music Repeat (Yes, I'm back, kind-of)

I got a new piano for 2020 as a surprise from my wife. It is an absolutely adorable Nord Grand. Compared to the Lynx it sounds like a dream come true. While reading the manual I found out that you can create your own instruments from your own samples. This led to ideas of how to connect the kbd to the Lynx etc. But after a while I realized that the optimal Handy Music composer could be easier to create on a tablet! The plan is to record the good sounds of the instruments from a real Lynx. Like the sounds that are used in my games. The goal is to create loop sounds that can be repeated. There would be three levels in the composer. Top level: Tempo Compose level: Blocks to play Block level: Interactive drums for creating sfx and interactive piano for melody patterns. Once the blocks are complete you could create small loops like with The output format would be SASS source that can directly be compiled and used in games. Anyone interested to join in on developement?