Handy Music instruments on WhiteLynx.fi

[+karri]

I have started to go through all kind of instrument sounds that I have used on Handy Music. The code plus a small audio sample will be available for other Lynx musicians to ease creating sounds. The sound will be in different categories.

 

The first one is

Handy Music Percussion

[Turbo Laser Lynx]

Wow, that first kick sound is really... kick ass! When I went to music school (LAFO) near Närpes they called the base drum "kickelin".

Edited April 20, 2020 by Turbo Laser Lynx

[+karri]

14 minutes ago, Turbo Laser Lynx said:

Wow, that first kick sound is really... kick ass! When I went to music school (LAFO) near Närpes they called the base drum "kickelin".

Thanks! Wait, there will be more. Lots more thanks to @TailChao. He did publish a lot of great instruments and during my "Find a way to my heart", "On Duty", "Silly Sister" I have created tens of cool instruments and sound effects.

 

All these instruments are in use in my next project - "The Lynx Pad". Jamming the night away...

 

PS. Also feel free to mail me any cool instruments you have found. I will put them up on my HM Instrument pages.

[+karri]

All sections so far:
Handy Music Percussion

Handy Music Strings
Handy Music Wind

Handy Music Solo

Handy Music Effects

[TailChao]

Hah, I thought some of the instrument names looked familiar.

 

The layout of these pages is really cool - having a script above a little play button was where I eventually wanted to go with the tools. Thanks so much for putting this together!

[Turbo Laser Lynx]

Really nice sounds, thanks for sharing!

Sorry, I've looked into it, but haven't played around with Handy Music yet since Chipper has gotten the job done quite nicely so far, but I guess it should be possible to create those "bubbly arpeggio-ish" sounds that play an important part of chip music (at least in the chip music that arose in Europe in the 80s and continues to this day) in Handy music too?

 

Would it be possible to translate for example this nice sound from Chipper to Handy music?
 

 

 

Edited April 21, 2020 by Turbo Laser Lynx

[TailChao]

7 hours ago, Turbo Laser Lynx said:

Would it be possible to translate for example this nice sound from Chipper to Handy music?

Not easily, the HandyMusic driver was never designed for arpeggios like this. So I recommend sticking with Chipper's native driver.

[Clint Thompson]

Sounds like there's a ton of potential with this! Are you running this code through an emulator and then recording it? That kick does sound amazing! ETA for this? I want to plaaaaay ?

[+karri]

Thanks! There is still a lot more sounds to come. I also intend to record a library of clips that you can use for composing the music. Or you can create your own clips on the Lynx.

 

I record the sounds in mednafen like:

mednafen -recordaudio snd.wav lynxpad.lnx

 

The ETA is real soon. I am still fine-tuning the application in Python. But the Python part is not intended to produce the sounds. The "big idea" is to run Handy Music in a structured way in the Lynx. The music runs exactly as it would in a game but the score is patched in real time when you press pad buttons.

 

Everything gets recorded in memory and after the memory is full or the tune stops it will be transferred over ComLynx to a PC.

 

This is intended to be used on SD cart / Aga cart systems. But I also plan to create a limited boxed release to be given out to some dance videos created to Lynx Pad tunes.  

 

In any case Lynx Pad is giveaway code for letting people be creative during isolation. The sources and the Lynx code is in https://bitbucket.com/karri/lynxpad.git

 

It is barely operational in Python3 now. The Lynx stuff may be operational next week.

[Turbo Laser Lynx]

18 hours ago, TailChao said:

Not easily, the HandyMusic driver was never designed for arpeggios like this. So I recommend sticking with Chipper's native driver.

Ah, too bad. But since you say "not easily" I guess it's still possibly possible I'd need to experiment at some point, perhaps it's possible by just creating fast arpeggios. But I have a feeling there's some other parameter(s) that change while the sound is playing too to create that distinct sound, and not only changing notes.

Unfortunately I don't properly understand how sounds are created (or the parameters that create sounds) on the Lynx, or how those "fake chords" / fast arpeggiating sounds are "properly" created on any system. I'd need to look into that and/or ask around if a chip musician could explain it a bit.

Yeah, I like chipper because it's quite fast creating small songs with the the tracker/UI, but HandyMusic seems nice since it uses less space and the instrument creation seems fairly straight forward in comparison. Perhaps creating sounds / instruments in chipper is easy too if you know what you're doing. I wonder if there's some documentation or tutorial(s) somewhere on how to create chip sounds. I know it involves changing different parameters of the sounds "on the fly".

Edited April 22, 2020 by Turbo Laser Lynx

[+karri]

It would be interesting trying to create an arpeggio instrument. In principle something like:

 

loop 5

    frequency 0
    rest "a little time"
    frequency "upp med en ters"

    rest "a little time"

endloop

 

[TailChao]

4 hours ago, Turbo Laser Lynx said:

Ah, too bad. But since you say "not easily" I guess it's still possibly possible I'd need to experiment at some point, perhaps it's possible by just creating fast arpeggios. But I have a feeling there's some other parameter(s) that change while the sound is playing too to create that distinct sound, and not only changing notes.

You can change just the frequency, or both the frequency and and amplitude. Doing both can help avoid a grating telephone ring sound.

 

The example Karri gave above would work, but both frequency offsets wouldn't be consistent along the entire scale. You can get away with this depending upon how wide of a frequency range the instrument is being used with (some NES games do) - but this is a shortcoming in all the drivers I wrote. You'd usually want a table with your scale and detuning by a few cents.

 

 

4 hours ago, Turbo Laser Lynx said:

Unfortunately I don't properly understand how sounds are created (or the parameters that create sounds) on the Lynx, or how those "fake chords" / fast arpeggiating sounds are "properly" created on any system. I'd need to look into that and/or ask around if a chip musician could explain it a bit.

Yeah, I like chipper because it's quite fast creating small songs with the the tracker/UI, but HandyMusic seems nice since it uses less space and the instrument creation seems fairly straight forward in comparison. Perhaps creating sounds / instruments in chipper is easy too if you know what you're doing. I wonder if there's some documentation or tutorial(s) somewhere on how to create chip sounds. I know it involves changing different parameters of the sounds "on the fly".

Another option is to use a visualizer and observe what other games did, techniques used on the NES, SMS, MSX, etc - are all applicable here.

 

HandyMusic and its SASS language were derived from my experience working with Atari / Epyx's sound tools, which are not very well known. Using something closer to MML might have been a better choice. I'm hesitant to say the tools should be used as any sort of reference since I last used them over half a decade ago and remember more than a few poor decisions in the driver structure.

[+karri]

The reason that made me use Handy Music is:

- smaller memory footprint
- it is easy to re-use sounds, clips, songs

- smaller memory footprint

- priority system that allows to write music for more than 4 channels

and finally

- smaller memory footprint

[phuzaxeman]

I'm a musician as well and producer that knows midi but I don't know anything in terms of lynx music.  I just know it has one of the best sounds on any atari.  Would love to learn how to create some tunes with the lynx.

[sage]

find some nice instruments and map them to the notes/instruments from your midi files.

 

Thats the short cut.

 

[+karri]

The Lynx native sound is a bit special. Trying to emulate acoustic instruments may not be the way to go. It is better to experiment with frequency slides and sounds that you can find on the Lynx. But I am still just scratching the surface. There is some great potential in Lynx music.

[enthusi]

It can get quite funky

 

[sage]

On 5/25/2020 at 7:15 AM, phuzaxeman said:

I'm a musician as well and producer that knows midi but I don't know anything in terms of lynx music.  I just know it has one of the best sounds on any atari.  Would love to learn how to create some tunes with the lynx.

so, maybe a bit more seriously:

 

a) you have "only" four channels in parallel, so no black midi

b) you have to create/find good instruments which

b1) sound good over the frequency /note range you use for that instrument

b2) fit to the other you use

 

so translating the notes fro midi to something a player on the lynx understand is the simplest part. and there are tools for that.

 

 

 

[+karri]

My feeling is - less is more - when it comes to Lynx. One channel will be taken up by sound effects in the game. One channel by percussion instruments. This leaves just 2 channels for the melody. Imho it is easier to concentrate on how to use these 2 notes than trying to dump midi. I would go for a bass instrument for the background and use just one instrument for the melody. Remember: we are talking about just one note at a time for an instrument.

 

Edit: here is a small game sample with a frequence slide at the end of a note. This slide was done by creating an instrument in HandyMusic that slides down by one octave.

 

http://79.125.115.174/pics/ShootingDuck.ogg

 

Pulse25Down
    waveform $7     ; Initiate sounds, volume, tuning
    volume 80 -2
    tuning 4.0
    {
        rest 13         ; While the key is pressed we play a steady sound
        volume 50 0
        frequency 0 -1
        rest 2
        loop -1
            frequency -2 1
            rest 4
        endloop
        noteoff          ; After the key is released we decide to start a frequency and volume slide
        frequency 0
        volume 60 -2
        frequency 2 3
        rest 40
        end
    }

 

[phuzaxeman]

15 hours ago, karri said:

My feeling is - less is more - when it comes to Lynx. One channel will be taken up by sound effects in the game. One channel by percussion instruments. This leaves just 2 channels for the melody. Imho it is easier to concentrate on how to use these 2 notes than trying to dump midi. I would go for a bass instrument for the background and use just one instrument for the melody. Remember: we are talking about just one note at a time for an instrument.

 

Edit: here is a small game sample with a frequence slide at the end of a note. This slide was done by creating an instrument in HandyMusic that slides down by one octave.

 

http://79.125.115.174/pics/ShootingDuck.ogg

 

Pulse25Down
    waveform $7     ; Initiate sounds, volume, tuning
    volume 80 -2
    tuning 4.0
    {
        rest 13         ; While the key is pressed we play a steady sound
        volume 50 0
        frequency 0 -1
        rest 2
        loop -1
            frequency -2 1
            rest 4
        endloop
        noteoff          ; After the key is released we decide to start a frequency and volume slide
        frequency 0
        volume 60 -2
        frequency 2 3
        rest 40
        end
    }

 

Sounds cool.  What software or tools are you using to create the music?  Is there like an app or software that you can mess around with?  I have no idea how to make music on a lynx.  I do know how produce music.

[+karri]

1 hour ago, phuzaxeman said:

Sounds cool.  What software or tools are you using to create the music?  Is there like an app or software that you can mess around with?  I have no idea how to make music on a lynx.  I do know how produce music.

There is a software called MuseScore that has a central role.

 

Usually I start by playing the piano. Or it is actually a Roland E96 arranger.

 

For me making the music requires some cool rhythmic style and some walking bass.

 

Here is a screenstream of MuseScore in SillySis SillySis MuseScore

 

Note that every instrument has its own channel. I also use rehearsal marks for marking the elements. Especially for the Lynx it is important to re-use the elements.

 

The final game is here.

 

sillysis.lnx

 

After writing the score I import the parts with MID2SASS and then I copy the part marked by the rehearsal mark to the instrument file. Here is the melody channel.

 

Ragtime 100
{
    pan $ff
    using TinttiPiano
    loop -1
        call RagtimeMelodyI
        call RagtimeMelodyI
        call RagtimeMelodyI1
        call RagtimeMelodyA
        call RagtimeMelodyA1
        call RagtimeMelodyA
        call RagtimeMelodyA2
        call RagtimeMelodyB
        call RagtimeMelodyB1
        call RagtimeMelodyC
        call RagtimeMelodyC
        call RagtimeMelodyD
        call RagtimeMelodyI
        call RagtimeMelodyI
        call RagtimeMelodyI2
        call RagtimeMelodyD
        call RagtimeMelodyI
        call RagtimeMelodyI
        call RagtimeMelodyI3
        call RagtimeMelodyA
        call RagtimeMelodyA1
        call RagtimeMelodyA
        call RagtimeMelodyA3
    endloop
    end
}

RagtimeMelodyI
{
    ; 1
    a.6 3
    rest 7
    g.6 3
    rest 7
    ds6 3
    rest 7
    as6 3

    ; 2
    rest 17
    g.6 3
    rest 7
    as6 3
    rest 7
    g.6 3
    rest 7
    return
}

RagtimeMelodyI1
{
    ; 5
    a.6 3
    rest 7
    g.6 3
    rest 7
    ds6 3
    rest 7
    c.6 3
    rest 7

    ; 6
    d.6 3
    rest 7
    c.6 3
    rest 7
    fs5 3
    rest 7
    d.5 3
    rest 7

    ; 7
    g.5 3
    rest 17
    g.5 3
    rest 7
    g.5 3
    rest 7

    ; 8
    c.5 3
    rest 7
    c.6 3
    rest 7
    d.6 3
    rest 7
    ds6 1
    e.5 9
    return
}

Edit: Oh, by this kind of music and gameplay you get the LAST POSITION in a SillyVentures programming competition for he Lynx. So try to listen to other guys for guidance  

[gamercomposer]

Hi @karri

 

Great work on the instruments you made so far! They sound wonderful!

 

I wanted to inquire if you would not mind sending me a link to the SillySis Musescore please? The link that I clicked in the above thread does not seem to work anymore. Thank you kindly in advance.

[+karri]

1 hour ago, gamercomposer said:

SillySis Musescore please

The music is produced in Musescore - not the Lynx. Unfortunately the Lynx version played the same notes. But with the Lynx sound quality.

 

 

[gamercomposer]

53 minutes ago, karri said:

The music is produced in Musescore - not the Lynx. Unfortunately the Lynx version played the same notes. But with the Lynx sound quality.

 

 

Ah nice. Thank you so much for sharing this again. This is great! I appreciate it. Thankfully I I have been using MuseScore for years for my game composition live arrangements. So, this process won't be difficult until I need to translate it to the Lynx.

[+karri]

Translating to the lynx is pretty tedious. I am using something called HandyMusic. It is kind of a music notation but you can use keywords like "loop" and "call" to re-use patterns.

 

Currently I am still doing the mapping by hand. It would be great to have a MuseScore mapper to do the work.

 

My musical tune in SillyVentures consisted of 3 channels. The bass, melody and 2nd melody. These are human readable files.

sillymelody.txt sillystemma.txt sillybass.txt