how can i do music on megadrive?

For anything related to sound (YM2612, PSG, Z80, PCM...)

Moderator: BigEvilCorporation

Post Reply
stalepie
Very interested
Posts: 101
Joined: Sun Dec 10, 2006 1:18 pm

how can i do music on megadrive?

Post by stalepie » Sun Dec 10, 2006 4:50 pm

Hello again. I was wondering something. What kind of software is there for making music with the 2612? I wish to avoid a tracker or a MIDI conversion program.

Thanks.

stalepie
Very interested
Posts: 101
Joined: Sun Dec 10, 2006 1:18 pm

Post by stalepie » Mon Dec 11, 2006 12:39 pm

If there are no good music software, how difficult is it to rip tracks from existing MD ROMs and put the ASM code into a new game for the MD? Maybe I could be like Tarantino with Kill Bill.

TmEE co.(TM)
Very interested
Posts: 2440
Joined: Tue Dec 05, 2006 1:37 pm
Location: Estonia, Rapla City
Contact:

Post by TmEE co.(TM) » Mon Dec 11, 2006 1:54 pm

Ripping can be quite pain, first you must find the track, second you must find the sound driver or exa´mine the track and write your own driver.
Anyway, my game, Glass Breaker MD is almost complete and I'm going to start writing BGM/SFX engine for it as soon as I learn z80 ASM.
Mida sa loed ? Nagunii aru ei saa ;)
http://www.tmeeco.eu
Files of all broken links and images of mine are found here : http://www.tmeeco.eu/FileDen

stalepie
Very interested
Posts: 101
Joined: Sun Dec 10, 2006 1:18 pm

Post by stalepie » Mon Dec 11, 2006 2:10 pm

What does writing my own sound driver entail?

TmEE co.(TM)
Very interested
Posts: 2440
Joined: Tue Dec 05, 2006 1:37 pm
Location: Estonia, Rapla City
Contact:

Post by TmEE co.(TM) » Tue Dec 12, 2006 6:35 am

Learning Z80 assembly and how YM2612 and PSG works. Try getting an old soundcard with OPL3 FM synthesizer and try programming it, YM2612 and OPL3 are programmed in similiar ways.
Mida sa loed ? Nagunii aru ei saa ;)
http://www.tmeeco.eu
Files of all broken links and images of mine are found here : http://www.tmeeco.eu/FileDen

stalepie
Very interested
Posts: 101
Joined: Sun Dec 10, 2006 1:18 pm

Post by stalepie » Tue Dec 12, 2006 9:26 am

Thank you for the help. I will look into this.


Something about this subject also here:
http://forums.project2612.org/showthread.php?t=64

KanedaFr
Administrateur
Posts: 1139
Joined: Tue Aug 29, 2006 10:56 am
Contact:

Post by KanedaFr » Tue Dec 12, 2006 9:56 am

...it seems i need to release the new version of MVSTracker.... ;)

cdoty
Very interested
Posts: 117
Joined: Wed Nov 29, 2006 2:54 pm
Location: Houston, TX
Contact:

Post by cdoty » Tue Dec 12, 2006 3:59 pm

TmEE co.(TM) wrote:Learning Z80 assembly and how YM2612 and PSG works. Try getting an old soundcard with OPL3 FM synthesizer and try programming it, YM2612 and OPL3 are programmed in similiar ways.
Here's a guide to OPL3:
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articl ... cle447.asp

How close is standard Adlib to the YM2612?

I know you said that you wanted to avoid trackers, but here's a decent looking tracker for OPL2/3:

http://bero.0ok.de/blog/projects/berominitracker/

And, it can import HSC files, so you would have music to test it out with.

stalepie
Very interested
Posts: 101
Joined: Sun Dec 10, 2006 1:18 pm

Post by stalepie » Tue Dec 12, 2006 6:20 pm

Plans are to make a new Genesis game someday and have music for it. Did the Japanese musicians just magically code the music into those games? Did they cast spells in order for the music to exist?
Surprised that all of the companies had their own separate, individually-coded-from-the-ground-up software for making music and graphics. I would think Sega would have had the decency to supply it, but I guess that was expected of the developers, and why the games costed so much money. There's a lot that I don't understand, and I don't have the brains to grasp computers, so I am going to stop posting, and I think I give up. goodbye.

TmEE co.(TM)
Very interested
Posts: 2440
Joined: Tue Dec 05, 2006 1:37 pm
Location: Estonia, Rapla City
Contact:

Post by TmEE co.(TM) » Tue Dec 12, 2006 8:01 pm

cdoty wrote:
How close is standard Adlib to the YM2612?
Actually they're not very close, but programmed in similiar way, 1 port for reg index, 1 for data. OPL3 is more close than OPL2 as it has two reg sets and can do stereo but that's all.
Mida sa loed ? Nagunii aru ei saa ;)
http://www.tmeeco.eu
Files of all broken links and images of mine are found here : http://www.tmeeco.eu/FileDen

Fonzie
Genny lover
Posts: 323
Joined: Tue Aug 29, 2006 11:17 am
Contact:

Post by Fonzie » Tue Dec 12, 2006 8:04 pm

"Surprised that all of the companies had their own separate, individually-coded-from-the-ground-up software for making music and graphics. "

there were two (at least) music drivers sold by sega... GEMS and TTS something.... Both had some tools comming with (mac tools)... Nobody never leaked those tools/docs...
Many other companies prefered to use homemade sound system because sega one was too expensive (maybe?)...

Stef
Very interested
Posts: 3131
Joined: Thu Nov 30, 2006 9:46 pm
Location: France - Sevres
Contact:

Post by Stef » Wed Dec 13, 2006 9:20 am

cdoty wrote:
TmEE co.(TM) wrote:Learning Z80 assembly and how YM2612 and PSG works. Try getting an old soundcard with OPL3 FM synthesizer and try programming it, YM2612 and OPL3 are programmed in similiar ways.
Here's a guide to OPL3:
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articl ... cle447.asp

How close is standard Adlib to the YM2612?

I know you said that you wanted to avoid trackers, but here's a decent looking tracker for OPL2/3:

http://bero.0ok.de/blog/projects/berominitracker/

And, it can import HSC files, so you would have music to test it out with.
OPL chip are simpler than OPM and OPN.
YM2612 is OPN.
OPL3 has basically more channels but each channel has only 2 slots where OPN channels has 4 slots.
You can configure OPL3 to enable 4 slots by channel but then number of channel is reduced. Anyway, even in this mode the OPL produces simpler sound than OPN because it doesn't have as many algorythm (slots connection shem) nor it doesn't have "self feedback" for the first slot.

The YM2612 is 2 YM2203 and a 8 bits DAC in a single chip.

TmEE co.(TM)
Very interested
Posts: 2440
Joined: Tue Dec 05, 2006 1:37 pm
Location: Estonia, Rapla City
Contact:

Post by TmEE co.(TM) » Wed Dec 13, 2006 9:35 am

Stef wrote: it doesn't have "self feedback" for the first slot.
As far as I know (and tested), OPL2/OPL3 have 8 levels of feedback on their operators.
Stef wrote: The YM2612 is 2 YM2203 and a 8 bits DAC in a single chip.
OPL3 has some form of 8-bit DAC but it cannot be used when FM sounds are enabled (that DAC sounds like these resistor DACs).

YM2612 (OPN) is better than YMF262 (OPL3). Too bad that I cannot buy YM2612 from store...
Mida sa loed ? Nagunii aru ei saa ;)
http://www.tmeeco.eu
Files of all broken links and images of mine are found here : http://www.tmeeco.eu/FileDen

stalepie
Very interested
Posts: 101
Joined: Sun Dec 10, 2006 1:18 pm

Post by stalepie » Wed Dec 13, 2006 11:10 am

there were two (at least) music drivers sold by sega... GEMS and TTS something.... Both had some tools comming with (mac tools)... Nobody never leaked those tools/docs...
Many other companies prefered to use homemade sound system because sega one was too expensive (maybe?)...
Mega Drive/Genesis Sound Engine List
http://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php ... ngine_List

music hacking guide for Sonic
http://info.sonicretro.org/SCHG:Music_H ... ter_format

Sonic One Music Editor in the sound editor section:
http://www.hacking-cult.org/?utils

plee
Very interested
Posts: 66
Joined: Wed Nov 29, 2006 11:32 am
Location: Houston, Texas

Post by plee » Wed Dec 13, 2006 10:13 pm

stalepie wrote:
there were two (at least) music drivers sold by sega... GEMS and TTS something.... Both had some tools comming with (mac tools)... Nobody never leaked those tools/docs...
Many other companies prefered to use homemade sound system because sega one was too expensive (maybe?)...
Mega Drive/Genesis Sound Engine List
http://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php ... ngine_List

music hacking guide for Sonic
http://info.sonicretro.org/SCHG:Music_H ... ter_format

Sonic One Music Editor in the sound editor section:
http://www.hacking-cult.org/?utils
I have the source code to Barkley Shut Up and Jam!(I'll try to dig it up and check it) but from memory (not sure) it's sampled sounds being played back. I also have some source code that came with my dev. board that (if memory is correct) does do some sound effects...

Post Reply