WIP tool: Atari Sound Forger

[kisrael]

https://alienbill.com/2600/atari-sound-forger/

 

I might be reinventing the wheel here, but I was craving a tool to make it easier to experiment with Atari sounds in a real time way, so I made one, and am about halfway to my ambition.

 

There have been various tool to find good frequencies (including on real hardware) but I hadn't seen much encouraging real time play, treating the computer keyboard like a musical instrument. And some of the powerful off-atari tools are pretty hard for a duffer musician to understand. 

 

there are mappings sets (that you can configure and store locally) that let you map any computer key to any Voice/Frequency combination, and optionally display those mappings on a piano keyboard.

 

 

I think it's fun and maybe a little useful as it is, but I'd like to be able to record tracks in real time - not sure if a browser based tool will be quite precise enough, but worth a shot. And the take the recordings and generate code, starting with batari BASIC. 

 

For now the plan is for a simple "voice is on, voice is off" approach. It might be interesting to try some sounds that have ADSR type properties, or blend voices. 
 

I'm aiming for simple (and fun to bang around on) but powerful.

 

[+splendidnut]

Neat.  Found a couple of issues though.

 

There seems to be a wrap around issue with the musical keyboard display when the blend 4/12 is selected:

 

 

Also, the forward slash seems to get stuck on with this combo selected.

[orange808]

The ability to work with MIDI would be welcome. 

 

Too bad it's not a standalone program.  I'd really like to have a capable Atari synth.  With that, I could hear the VCS play notes in real time in my current workflow.

 

Looks cool that you can map your own sounda.  When I coded my own MIDI to VCS tool, I went ahead and abandoned absolute "pitch perfect" sound to make sure there wouldn't be dropped notes.  For instance, I tried Miditari and the results would have required way too much hand tuning to be useful.

 

Looks really promising.  Can't wait to check it out!

[kisrael]

1 hour ago, splendidnut said:

Neat.  Found a couple of issues though.

 

There seems to be a wrap around issue with the musical keyboard display when the blend 4/12 is selected:

 

Also, the forward slash seems to get stuck on with this combo selected.

Yeah, you can either live with it, make the window wider if you have room, or use ctrl or cmd - to zoom out so it all fits...  not sure it's good to make a keyboard wider than the screen. maybe I could make it break on octaves instead of anywhere

 

re the slash-- was that consistent? I definitely got some stuck keys (hence the "stop all sounds" button :-D) but on my mac the slash seems ok on that setting. (It's very suspect though, since it's an escape character)

[kisrael]

1 hour ago, orange808 said:

The ability to work with MIDI would be welcome. 

 

Too bad it's not a standalone program.  I'd really like to have a capable Atari synth.  With that, I could hear the VCS play notes in real time in my current workflow.

 

Looks cool that you can map your own sounda.  When I coded my own MIDI to VCS tool, I went ahead and abandoned absolute "pitch perfect" sound to make sure there wouldn't be dropped notes.  For instance, I tried Miditari and the results would have required way too much hand tuning to be useful.

 

Looks really promising.  Can't wait to check it out!

Standalone like how? Like being a windows or Mac program? or are you thinking even grander, like pushing stuff more directly to an atari in real time? 

Some of this all comes from my lack of mojo w/ midi tools. I arrange stuff for my brass street band in MuseScore, which I guess can output Midi, but it seems pretty ambitious to try to jam any of that into an atari (and I'm too lazy to learn how to write stripped down MIDI that would survive the trip )

[orange808]

33 minutes ago, kisrael said:

Standalone like how? Like being a windows or Mac program? or are you thinking even grander, like pushing stuff more directly to an atari in real time? 

Some of this all comes from my lack of mojo w/ midi tools. I arrange stuff for my brass street band in MuseScore, which I guess can output Midi, but it seems pretty ambitious to try to jam any of that into an atari (and I'm too lazy to learn how to write stripped down MIDI that would survive the trip )

Yes.  I was thinking a Windows program or plug in instrument.  I wouldn't want the hassle of hauling the VCS around the house.  Even after I hauled a VCS/7800 to the other room, I'd still need to find a way to get the audio into the mixer.  No thanks.  :)

 

I've never used MuseScore (and I'm too lazy to learn another piece of software).  For bigger projects, I got locked into Cubase years ago, but that's overkill for the VCS. 

 

I don't mind writing stripped down MIDI.  Just me and my Juno; same as it ever was.  I guess stripped down MIDI makes sense to me, because that's how I used it for a long time.  I remember being excited to get a MIDI kit installed, but I'm really showing my age...

[+splendidnut]

9 hours ago, kisrael said:

Yeah, you can either live with it, make the window wider if you have room, or use ctrl or cmd - to zoom out so it all fits...  not sure it's good to make a keyboard wider than the screen. maybe I could make it break on octaves instead of anywhere

Or you could make the keys themselves smaller:

 

9 hours ago, kisrael said:

re the slash-- was that consistent? I definitely got some stuck keys (hence the "stop all sounds" button :-D) but on my mac the slash seems ok on that setting. (It's very suspect though, since it's an escape character)

It happens every single time... And yet there are no issues with the backslash (the more prominent escape character).

[bluswimmer]

9 hours ago, kisrael said:

re the slash-- was that consistent? I definitely got some stuck keys (hence the "stop all sounds" button :-D) but on my mac the slash seems ok on that setting. (It's very suspect though, since it's an escape character)

In Firefox this appears to activate the "Quick Find" function, as does the quote key. I assume that has something to do with the stuck keys?

[kisrael]

16 minutes ago, bluswimmer said:

In Firefox this appears to activate the "Quick Find" function, as does the quote key. I assume that has something to do with the stuck keys?

yeah, that's it. I'll look to patch that soon.

[kisrael]

Ok, new version, fixes that mapping (tho one problem is, if you've ever changed a mapping, it won't load the new defaults unless you clear out your changes, hmmm) , a cosmetic fix, and it remembers which mapping set you last used.