QuadPlayer - Four channel sound

Post by **benryves** » Mon 18 Apr, 2005 9:12 am

Download the preliminary release here: http://benryves.com/bin/qplayer_prelim.zip
(Note that the TI-83 version is probably horribly buggy - I haven't tried it (I don't own a TI-83), but it uses the same code as the 83+ so might work fine).

It comes with three songs I knocked out so you can try it out. If you don't have an adapter, I have recorded my TI and zipped up some MP3 files:
http://members.gamedev.net/benryves/quadplayer_mp3.zip

The song format is more logical than CalcMod or similar - you break up a song into sections (intro, end, verse, chorus etc) and then specify the order in which to play them, which means you could write a compressor to crunch down the size of the files. It's beyond me how you'd write such a tool, though.

Enjoy!

Post by **tr1p1ea** » Mon 18 Apr, 2005 10:24 am

Wow, some really good sound developmnt for calcs has happened in the first quarter of this year. I will have to try this out once i get my link cable working. Good stuff as per usual ben

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Post by **benryves** » Mon 18 Apr, 2005 10:55 am

tr1p1ea wrote:Good stuff as per usual ben .

Thank you! It's only preliminary at the moment because of the untested 83 version and a lack of songs. I've knocked out an include file which makes writing songs easy (lots of macros!) - maybe I should have had the foresight to upload that too...

I've also recalculated all the note periods (the ones in CalcMod looked wrong - anyone who knows anything about music and sound should know that if you halve the period, you go up one octave, and the constants in CalcMod didn't follow that pattern at all).[/code]

mnc2fan · Post by **mnc2fan** » Mon 18 Apr, 2005 3:07 pm

that sounds extremely good for a calc. I'm amazed!

Post by **benryves** » Mon 18 Apr, 2005 3:12 pm

mnc2fan wrote:that sounds extremely good for a calc. I'm amazed!

The MP3 files sound pretty muffled and distorted (low bitrate!). If you've just heard the MP3s, the calc sound is much brighter. For best results, connect a pair of small capacitors in series between the ring/tip and headphones - the sound is louder and smoothed a little.

Shadow Phoenix · Post by **Shadow Phoenix** » Mon 18 Apr, 2005 3:36 pm

o.m.g Ipod is getting competition, SInce someone will create a cheap 20 gigs upgrade for calculators.

Post by **benryves** » Tue 19 Apr, 2005 9:30 am

An update - I know the interest is probably zero, but here we go:

Windows-based player: http://benryves.com/bin/qplayer/qplayer_win.zip (for testing songs).
Include file and sample songs source code: http://benryves.com/bin/qplayer/qp_make_songs.zip

Madskillz · Post by **Madskillz** » Tue 19 Apr, 2005 1:20 pm

sweet...I'll check it out when I get back home tomorrow! As usual awesome work!

dysfunction · Post by **dysfunction** » Wed 20 Apr, 2005 7:30 pm

Wow, sounds sweet! I can't find my adaptor atm,but I listened to the Windows player.

pacHa · Post by **pacHa** » Thu 21 Apr, 2005 8:45 am

does it work thanks to an interrupt ?
I guess so, so why not making a demo w/ sound now ? =)

Post by **benryves** » Thu 21 Apr, 2005 12:09 pm

pacHa wrote:does it work thanks to an interrupt ?
I guess so, so why not making a demo w/ sound now ? =)

Sadly not. It's a 100%-CPU hogging beast. Well, 99.9%, I manage to squeeze in some direct key input for the FF and Stop button handlers

If you look down the announce your projects there's a grrovy interrupt-driven sound demo, but it's TI-83+SE only. Which is pretty annoying for me, as I've only got a TI-83+BSE (bog standard edition).

As far as "updates" go - I developed this entirely in Latenite and have been adding features to that as I go (some nice features too, if I say so myself) and the Windows player has a couple of "annoyance" fixes in it (mostly under-the-bonnet stuff). The actual player itself remains the same.

If anyone has a TI-83, could they please (pretty please?) test the TI-83 version? Even if you don't have the adapter, just try and play a song in it and see if it crashes or not. I have no way of testing it, and fear that the link port might work differently on the TI-83. Where's Timendus when you need him?

GuillaumeH · Post by **GuillaumeH** » Thu 21 Apr, 2005 2:45 pm

Too bad i don't have a pc-ti cable, i would have tested it with pleasure

pacHa · Post by **pacHa** » Thu 21 Apr, 2005 3:40 pm

Unfortunately I only have a 82.
Have you tried on PindurTI ? It seems very accurate and could be a good clue.

DJ_O · Post by **DJ_O** » Thu 21 Apr, 2005 4:10 pm

Wow it look nice! 4 channel sound is gonna rival the nintendo 8 bits. Do you think Jim e could implement this in his interrupt based sound routine to have sound in games on the TI-83+SE/84+ or does it take too much CPU?

Jim e · Post by **Jim e** » Thu 21 Apr, 2005 4:25 pm

Not really, I could adapt mine to his format but that would be it.
Everyone should know that the interrupt sound thing I did was just a weekend project. Some thing i knew people would like to see(hear) in action that hasn't been done before.

I've also recalculated all the note periods (the ones in CalcMod looked wrong - anyone who knows anything about music and sound should know that if you halve the period, you go up one octave, and the constants in CalcMod didn't follow that pattern at all).

I have no Idea how music works, I just mimicked what calcmod did, clearly ben knows what he's doing.

I'd hand the project over to somebody who had an interest in sound and knew what they were doing. I guess ben would one person, and I remember Digitan tried sound and did good.