YM2612 instrument formats...

TmEE co.(TM) · Post by **TmEE co.(TM)** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 10:20 am

Since the Z80 module player is slowly starting to work nicely, I'm in a need of instruments for YM2612. There's quite some formats available but I know little about them. There's some inf (in fact all inf required) in TFM tracker help file, but my Russian is not very good...
My Z80 module player will use my own format, but only if I don't find existing ones satisfying enough.

Also there's a need for 128 General MIDI instruments in FM flavor, as real as possible (and I'm VERY picky on these)... there's some very nice sets available by Tulio and Shiru. Is there any proggy that lets me just listen these files ?

Shiru · Post by **Shiru** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 2:38 pm

I'm posted english translation of instrument formats description on 4th page of thread about TFM MM. Check this direct link.

You can listen instruments in TFM MM, because it supports multi-load (you can load up to 255 instruments at once) and *.tfi, *.ins, *.dat, *.y12 formats.

TmEE co.(TM) · Post by **TmEE co.(TM)** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 3:29 pm

I meant by listening, that I double click on the instrument and a program I associated the file with plays the instrument...

Shiru · Post by **Shiru** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 4:31 pm

I think that's bad idea. You must listen different instruments with different pitch (for example, bass drum must be played on lower notes). Also you must test sustain/release (some instruments must fade with time, some not), which impossible with simple instrument autoplay.

TmEE co.(TM) · Post by **TmEE co.(TM)** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 4:49 pm

Players could be anything... say, thing plays the instrument, but has options to mess with other things aswell. Maybe add such feature to TFM MM (and I know that next version comes out most likely 2008). Or once my PC to MD cable things is figured out... I'll make a proggy for such purpose (I'm not planning to start any windows dev in near future).

TmEE co.(TM) · Post by **TmEE co.(TM)** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 3:26 pm

To Shiru : Do you load the SSG-EG value in TFI directly to synth emu, or you do something with it first... 8 means no SSG-EG, but according to YM2612 manual 0 is no SSG-EG...

Shiru · Post by **Shiru** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 3:42 pm

TmEE co.(TM) wrote:according to YM2612 manual 0 is no SSG-EG...

Which one? Most of Sega/YM2612 manuals states that YM2612 has no SSG-EG at all (or 'must be zero', 'reserved', etc).

You must load value directly. Bit 3 of that register enables/disables SSG-EG feature (enabled if set), bits 0..2 selects one of 8 possible types. So, values 0..7 disables SSG-EG, and 8..15 enables one of types.

TmEE co.(TM) · Post by **TmEE co.(TM)** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 3:56 pm

Thanks !!! I didn't know that bit 3 disables/enables SSG-EG...

Well, SSG-EG works on YM2612 to some extent, so if some waveforms won't work, others do or if they work differently, they still can be used in the instrument... I'll do some deeper investigation once my Z80 MSE starts to output FM.

Stef · Post by **Stef** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 9:46 pm

TmEE co.(TM) wrote:Thanks !!! I didn't know that bit 3 disables/enables SSG-EG...

Well, SSG-EG works on YM2612 to some extent, so if some waveforms won't work, others do or if they work differently, they still can be used in the instrument... I'll do some deeper investigation once my Z80 MSE starts to output FM.

SSG-EG bits does affects sound generation on the YM2612. I added a prelemenary SSG-EG envelope support in the YM2612 Gens core, it fixed the music for 1 game but lot of others were broken (because of some bugs in my implementation i guess) :p