MML and Squirrel

[Arkhan]

The only thing really stopping me from using Squirrel is the lack of sound effect support. A sound library is useless if it doesn't support both without workarounds or unintuitive hacks; it's merely demo fodder if it only plays music.

Or ADPCM sound effect + chip music fodder! (for now).

[touko]

A tutorial on how to convert an existing midi file would be nice for beginners.

i agree with that, it's my main request ..
But a video tutorial would be great .

[Arkhan]

It's going to be a video file on how to convert a MIDI file, probably.

[touko]

It's going to be a video file on how to convert a MIDI file, probably.

Excellent ..

[Arkhan]

It should be interesting.  I expect naysayers.

[touko]

You don't care about, all initiatives to create musics/sounds are excellent, regardless of the method.
The tutorials are even more.

A simple tutorial is better than nothing .

[Vecanti]

Squirrel is pretty awesome, just wish I had more time to play around with it.  I did for a while there.  

The only thing I could think to make it easier would be to get hucard support working.  (maybe it is now already - I need to catch up)  People were mentioning making it easier/quicker to hear results.  When I was using it I had to make an ISO, then go and mount the ISO each time before I could listen ( I couldn't overwrite an ISO if it was mounted).  So would be nice to skip this step.  Or maybe there is a better way than I am doing it?

But I always wanted to make music on the Turbob and Ark made this possible.  It's so awesome.   Thanks Ark.   

[Arkhan]

The huCard version has been available for awhile now, complete with a test program that builds a .PCE that plays teh tunez.

[Vecanti]

The huCard version has been available for awhile now, complete with a test program that builds a .PCE that plays teh tunez.

Thanks Arkhan, haven't been around much so I didn't know if it was completed.  Well, then I don't have any great ideas to improve it.


I think the more people that play with it and openly post there CODE for other to look at would be good.  So, maybe just a thread dedicated to people posting there music code for others to look at and listen to.  See how it's done and all.  Though it already comes with bunch of great songs.  A thread might drive people to innovate.


That's what I was thinking.  This may be way out there.  I know you can load images and things pretty easily already.  But maybe a some sort of "KIT" of graphics effects (Plasmas? Scrolling text effects? etc)  to go along with MML.  Then we have a Demo Scene starter tool in a box!!  That would be cool to get a bunch of us making little demos to see what we can create.  Maybe I'm getting too far off. ;-)

[Arkhan]

thats a neat idea.   

I have an entire MML section on Aetherbyte's forum... but it isn't too active. lol

[Vecanti]

Maybe there's a better place to post this, but just downloaded latest Squirrel so I can play around again and start posting stuff.  

Posted this as example of what happens when I compile CD vs PCE.

http://soundcloud.com/vecanti

A bunch of stuff is missing, not not mention speed is way faster on PCE.


I'm just changing the bat file and using the default rtype mml:

mml2pce MMLSongs/rtype.mml
huc -s -scd soundtest.c
pceas -scd soundtest.s

versus

mml2pce MMLSongs/rtype.mml
huc -s soundtest.c
pceas soundtest.s


Any ideas?  Just have a default install of huc.

[nat]

I've had the idea for a while to use Squirrel to convert some Genesis FM chiptunes over to the Turbo to see how they might sound, and then optimize them for the hardware if the results are good (or even decent).

Sadly, I have no musical expertise and I've been far too busy to play around with Squirrel as of yet.

[sunteam_paul]

I've had the idea for a while to use Squirrel to convert some Genesis FM chiptunes over to the Turbo to see how they might sound, and then optimize them for the hardware if the results are good (or even decent).

Sadly, I have no musical expertise and I've been far too busy to play around with Squirrel as of yet.

If you've got midi files and convert them with 3MLE it's really easy. Picking the right waveforms is the hard bit, and that's where I get stuck.

[Arkhan]

Maybe there's a better place to post this, but just downloaded latest Squirrel so I can play around again and start posting stuff.  

Posted this as example of what happens when I compile CD vs PCE.

http://soundcloud.com/vecanti

A bunch of stuff is missing, not not mention speed is way faster on PCE.


I'm just changing the bat file and using the default rtype mml:

mml2pce MMLSongs/rtype.mml
huc -s -scd soundtest.c
pceas -scd soundtest.s

versus

mml2pce MMLSongs/rtype.mml
huc -s soundtest.c
pceas soundtest.s


Any ideas?  Just have a default install of huc.

That's... odd.

You grabbed the latest Squirrel off of Aetherbyte?

show me the file you're using, or is it the exact one I provided?

edit: I did it here, and it's goony too.  I think something got borked between updates.  Going to see if outdated files accidentally stuck around in the .zip on Aetherbyte.com and try to figure it out ASAP.

[Hu-man]

Hello, all!

I've been following you guys for a while now, but this is my first post.

First off, Squirrel is the probably biggest step forward in PC-Engine dev tools since HuC. Arkhan, you're a damn good programmer, and this was a huge undertaking. Thanks for all the time you spent on it! Your balls are bigger than all of the enemies in Vigilante, including the final boss.

That said, I have only attempted to use it a couple of times, and I'm not actively using it for any of my games just yet.

What deters me is that it "sort of supports" HuCards. I don't know exactly what that means, but I don't particularly want to find out the hard way. I'm currently coding for HuCard exclusively because it's the easiest for me right now. HuC is kinda flakey as it is, so I don't want to throw another wrench in the works just yet.

Also deterring me is the fact that the current version doesn't really support sound effects. I don't want to use both BT Garner's "snd.c" and Squirrel. It just seems a little redundant.

Personally, I'd prefer a newer version that resolves my two concerns, but I'll still use it when I'm farther along in my development even without one.