[SDL] Portable speaker api?

[David Olofson]

On Thursday 08 March 2001 17:34, Jan Krutisch wrote:
[...]
> 1) There is a VERY good implementation of a SID emulation. There is even a
> "not so good", but older and not "that" CPU intensive one. Search for
> PlaySID and ReSID. For the Windows-Heads out there: There's a Winamp-Plug
> on winamp.com. And then search for HVSC (High Voltage Sid Collection) for a
> complete set of old C64 hits.

Listening to SIDs on SIDPlay + RealPlay (a text based UI) all day... :-)


> 2) IMHO haveing a  SID-Player as an API in SDL makes just very little
> sense.

I agree.


> Would be nice to have to make all those "classic conversions" a
> little more authentic,

I'm not really focused on "conversions", but rather on taking the real time 
music synthesis model to a level where it can be considered a serious 
alternative to mp3 and CD tracks in games.

The idea is basically to run the engine as a synth together with 
Cubase/Cakewalk/Logic/<your favourite sequencer>, and then just throw the 
MIDI files into the game along with the synth. Of course, the bonus feature 
that connects that to where this thread started is the option to "abuse" the 
synth for sound effects as well.


> but even though I like the sound very much, it
> make's (IMHO) no sense to have all that "Emulating C64" overhead.

Right; there are ways to get even very authentic SID sound without the cost 
of true emulation. Why emulate the CPU and the CPU/SID interaction, for 
starters? It makes no difference to the sound whatsoever; it's just handy if 
you're into playing *original* C64 music...


> On the
> AMIGA (Oh that good ole times), we had a program which was able to recreate
> the C64 sound to the fullest, but kept the song files free from "useless"
> C64 code. It used some simple form of Wavetable synthesis,

That's basically what all virtual analog synths do; very few actually 
generate waveforms algorithmically on the fly, as the SID and most other 
chips (analog as well as digital) do.

How about the filter, BTW? The SID and practically every real synth has one 
or more resonant filters, but virtually *no* computer sound chips do; the 
Amiga included. (No big deal nowadays, but on the Amiga, you had to drop the 
hardware "resampling" and do *everything* in software - and a 7.14 MHz 68k 
isn't really up to that...)


> some kind of
> "Micro sequencer" (to emulate the WaveSequence feature of SID, or however
> that was called)

That's not a feature of the SID, but just a synthesize method that was almost 
forgotten during the SoundTracker style tracker era. It's supported by some 
trackers, as well as the SidStation and some "normal" professional synths.


> and a very nice and easy tracker interface. It was called
> THX (later renamed into AHX for apparent reasons) and is also available as
> a winamp plugin and as an obscure SDK for Windows. Unfortunately I haven't
> been able to track it down (all servers seem to be down) until now, but
> that would be definitely cool :)

Well, I'm not particularly fond of tracker style interfaces nowadays, but the 
rest is basically what talking about here. :-)

As to a professionally usable version, that would be a MAIA plugin project, 
but I haven't really started, as the API is yet to be finished. (Oh, there is 
SoftSynth/DUSS, of course, but that's hardly usable at all... as the new name 
"Dave's Useless Soft Synth" implies. ;-) It's just a fun hack I've been 
playing with to try the lowlatency stuff out.)


//David

.- M A I A -------------------------------------------------.
|      Multimedia Application Integration Architecture      |
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.- David Olofson -------------------------------------------.
| Audio Hacker - Open Source Advocate - Singer - Songwriter |
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