shrunkenmaster
Active member
I wish you could put the C64 Commando music onto the arcade version, that would be most excellent!
1942 - New Music! (v3.0)
- Thread starter minwah
- Start date
Ok so after realising my schoolboy error, I've made some good progress. Main channel is finished (intro, verse in 2 keys and bridge), timing all good. 2nd channel (bassline) is done except the bridge...although I'm thinking of doing it all again slightly differently.
Once that is done I can get onto the fun part, 3rd channel of embelishments...
I haven't looked at that yet, although I'm sure I will. I'm interested how the different envelope types can be used. I've played around with them a little bit and noticed I can get the 'drum' sound, but it also affects the note sustain in other channels. Makes me wonder if I could use the second AY for the drum sounds without affecting the melody etc...
Once that is done I can get onto the fun part, 3rd channel of embelishments...
cmonkey said:
I haven't looked at that yet, although I'm sure I will. I'm interested how the different envelope types can be used. I've played around with them a little bit and noticed I can get the 'drum' sound, but it also affects the note sustain in other channels. Makes me wonder if I could use the second AY for the drum sounds without affecting the melody etc...
Bass channel now pretty much finished (just 4 bars at the end need tidying).
Also have done about half of the channel 3 'embelishments'.
One interesting (also very annoying) thing I noticed is that one particular note seems to be out of tune in at least one octave, but fine in others. I did quadruple-check that I hadn't made a mistake so I'm not sure if this is a Mame inaccuracy, or how the sound chip behaves. Either way, to save my ears I've avoided the 'bad' notes which were cropping in the bassline during one part of the bridge.
Hopefully by the end of tonight I will have something like a finished song!
Also have done about half of the channel 3 'embelishments'.
One interesting (also very annoying) thing I noticed is that one particular note seems to be out of tune in at least one octave, but fine in others. I did quadruple-check that I hadn't made a mistake so I'm not sure if this is a Mame inaccuracy, or how the sound chip behaves. Either way, to save my ears I've avoided the 'bad' notes which were cropping in the bassline during one part of the bridge.
Hopefully by the end of tonight I will have something like a finished song!
Sounds like it's coming along swimmingly.
You could always try fine tuning the bad note's frequency by changing its value in the note frequency table that begins @ $00f4. That table is a table of 96 little endian word values which control the frequency of each note. Identify the duff note in that table and then raise or lower its value slightly to fine tune it. But don't forget that altering that note frequency will alter all other tunes that use that note, so be careful.
Good luck! Looking forward to hearing what you've come up with.
You could always try fine tuning the bad note's frequency by changing its value in the note frequency table that begins @ $00f4. That table is a table of 96 little endian word values which control the frequency of each note. Identify the duff note in that table and then raise or lower its value slightly to fine tune it. But don't forget that altering that note frequency will alter all other tunes that use that note, so be careful.
Good luck! Looking forward to hearing what you've come up with.
Looking forward to seeing what you've come up with mate.
Ade you seem to be quite good at cajoling people into giving it a go.
Steve when you release this can you want to start a new post in the homebrew section as I think that will give this more exposure.
Ade you seem to be quite good at cajoling people into giving it a go.
Steve when you release this can you want to start a new post in the homebrew section as I think that will give this more exposure.
Hurray Banana said:Looking forward to seeing what you've come up with mate.
Ade you seem to be quite good at cajoling people into giving it a go.
Steve when you release this can you want to start a new post in the homebrew section as I think that will give this more exposure.
Will do...I've checked that I can make a patch for the sound rom - all good.
minwah said:Hurray Banana said:Looking forward to seeing what you've come up with mate.
Ade you seem to be quite good at cajoling people into giving it a go.
Steve when you release this can you want to start a new post in the homebrew section as I think that will give this more exposure.
Will do...I've checked that I can make a patch for the sound rom - all good.
Ok so here's an awful quality recording of what I've done. Tomorrow I'll stick it in my cabinet (just Mame I'm afraid) and see how I feel about it...
https://www.ukvac.com/forum/data/uploads/1536/1942_music.zip
https://www.ukvac.com/forum/data/uploads/1536/1942_music.zip
I'll certainly consider it James. Credit counter is at $e010/$e011 in main cpu ram and after a quick look it seems the code isn't protected in any way and there's tons of free rom space around $7440, so a free-play with attract mode is a distinct possibility. I'm not gonna say yay or nay at the moment though.
Steve that is fing amazing, fantastic effort
, why capcom couldn't of put more effort in is beyond me.
Thanks chaps!
First go on my cabinet, and I got furthest I've ever got and got a new PB, so I guess that's a seal of approval
I felt while making the music that it was a bit too fast, but playing the game properly I think it actually fits the frantic pace of the game quite well.
I might do a bit more tweaking but for now I think I've seen enough hex for a little while! Patch to follow...
First go on my cabinet, and I got furthest I've ever got and got a new PB, so I guess that's a seal of approval
I felt while making the music that it was a bit too fast, but playing the game properly I think it actually fits the frantic pace of the game quite well.
I might do a bit more tweaking but for now I think I've seen enough hex for a little while! Patch to follow...
I just downloaded the patch file and patched the sr-01.c11 audio rom and the main game music didn't work. I tracked it down to a dangling pointer at $107a. This is the pointer to the audio data itself. Your patch file alters that pointer from its default value of $107f to a new value of $2a81 (for reasons known only to you!) but in fact it should alter the pointer to a value of $1a00, which is where your new audio data is placed.
You need to update the patch file with this.
One thing I did note is that, in certain sections of the game (I only played the first level), the audio stutters, as though your tune is trying to compete with other audio effects (enemy shots, etc) and the audio engine seems to be a bit confused as to what to play.
This may well explain why Capcom used the crappy in game tune that they did, as maybe they were using more channels of the AY chips for sound effects leaving less available for an in-game tune. Now that you've put a proper in-game tune in the game it may be having the side effect of competing against other sound effects and losing out.
But even with the stutter I still think it's a million times better than the original crap effort from Crapcom. Well done, and welcome to the game hacking world!
You need to update the patch file with this.
One thing I did note is that, in certain sections of the game (I only played the first level), the audio stutters, as though your tune is trying to compete with other audio effects (enemy shots, etc) and the audio engine seems to be a bit confused as to what to play.
This may well explain why Capcom used the crappy in game tune that they did, as maybe they were using more channels of the AY chips for sound effects leaving less available for an in-game tune. Now that you've put a proper in-game tune in the game it may be having the side effect of competing against other sound effects and losing out.
But even with the stutter I still think it's a million times better than the original crap effort from Crapcom. Well done, and welcome to the game hacking world!
Thanks for giving it a try!
I also diff'd my 'working' version with the patched version and it creates a diff file of 140 bytes...I get the same size diff file when I diff the working version with itself. I'm not sure what the 140 bytes are exactly but seems like a good thing that this is the case in both of these diffs.
I wonder if applying the patch got that part wrong for you if other things are incorrect in the file?
Hmm. I can't say I've noticed stuttering as such, although I noticed earlier when a large plane came on the sound effect made it difficult to hear one of the high pitch 'flurries'. You might be right, perhaps the sound effect is using the same channel as the flurry in this case.
I've only had one proper play so I will play it again later and see what I can make out.
minwah2015-05-20 12:14:51
That's odd - $107A/B is definitely set to 00 1A in my version, and I just applied the patch to the original rom and checked the result, and it looks ok as well?cmonkey said:
I also diff'd my 'working' version with the patched version and it creates a diff file of 140 bytes...I get the same size diff file when I diff the working version with itself. I'm not sure what the 140 bytes are exactly but seems like a good thing that this is the case in both of these diffs.
I wonder if applying the patch got that part wrong for you if other things are incorrect in the file?
Hmm. I can't say I've noticed stuttering as such, although I noticed earlier when a large plane came on the sound effect made it difficult to hear one of the high pitch 'flurries'. You might be right, perhaps the sound effect is using the same channel as the flurry in this case.
I've only had one proper play so I will play it again later and see what I can make out.
minwah2015-05-20 12:14:51
I think I know what the problem is....
I'm pretty sure I bspatch'ed my already hacked sound rom, the one which I'd experimented with in replacing the in-game tune with a repeating major scale. If that's the case then the pointer at $107a would have already been altered to point to my new data at $2000. As bsdiff/bspatch work on the principal of difference subtraction when I applied the patch to my rom it made a mess of the pointer at $107a by subtracting wrong values from the adjusted pointer that was already there.
I'm at work now but I'll give this another try tonight with an original rom but I'm sure it'll be fine.
Still doesn't explain why I get bad stuttering and you don't, unless your tune data extends as far as $2000 in the rom (which I doubt as that would make you tune data 1.5Kb in size).
I'm pretty sure I bspatch'ed my already hacked sound rom, the one which I'd experimented with in replacing the in-game tune with a repeating major scale. If that's the case then the pointer at $107a would have already been altered to point to my new data at $2000. As bsdiff/bspatch work on the principal of difference subtraction when I applied the patch to my rom it made a mess of the pointer at $107a by subtracting wrong values from the adjusted pointer that was already there.
I'm at work now but I'll give this another try tonight with an original rom but I'm sure it'll be fine.
Still doesn't explain why I get bad stuttering and you don't, unless your tune data extends as far as $2000 in the rom (which I doubt as that would make you tune data 1.5Kb in size).