CPU Bach for 3D0

[Kitsunexus]

If you don't know what it is, here's a good rundown:

http://www.gamespot.com/features/sidlegacy/cpubach.html



Can anybody post a video or maybe an MP3 of what this game sounds like? I'm curious as to how good the softsynth in this thing really is.

[MissaFX]

I have not loaded it for a long time, but I remember it took up a lot of save ram.  I would call the music it makes "interesting".  Unless someone else does, I will load it up on my PC to capture the sound (hopefully I will be able to do this without it skipping on the recording).  It sounds at least as good as the SNES from memory.  It was one of my whattheheck buys on ebay, disc only, and I never really played it much because I don't like clearing off memory for it.

Basically it is a program though to generate music and you can choose the type of song and I think you can change the instruments as well.  I think it also has some weak visualizations, nothing nearly as good as Digital Dreamware.

[Kitsunexus]

I have not loaded it for a long time, but I remember it took up a lot of save ram.  I would call the music it makes "interesting".  Unless someone else does, I will load it up on my PC to capture the sound (hopefully I will be able to do this without it skipping on the recording).  It sounds at least as good as the SNES from memory.  It was one of my whattheheck buys on ebay, disc only, and I never really played it much because I don't like clearing off memory for it.

Basically it is a program though to generate music and you can choose the type of song and I think you can change the instruments as well.  I think it also has some weak visualizations, nothing nearly as good as Digital Dreamware.

Cool, please do rip some samples! Yeah, I heard it was like an algorithmic music generator, and I have seen some of the visualizations on that old tech program NextStep (did anybody else stay up WAY past their bedtime to watch that in the 90's?), but I think the music was dubbed in from actual music. If my memory is correct at all, the visualizations were just paintings and nature scenes in a slideshow? Or am I thinking of something else?

[MissaFX]

Cool, please do rip some samples! Yeah, I heard it was like an algorithmic music generator, and I have seen some of the visualizations on that old tech program NextStep (did anybody else stay up WAY past their bedtime to watch that in the 90's?), but I think the music was dubbed in from actual music. If my memory is correct at all, the visualizations were just paintings and nature scenes in a slideshow? Or am I thinking of something else?

Ok, the program has 5 visualizations.  1 is clipart, 1 is the music score with info about the music, 2 are generated graphics and I forget the 5th.  I put 5 different songs generated by the program in 1 MP3, click here.

Sorry it took me so long, but this program just doesn't like to emulate.  There's still some minor popping I cannot avoid.  It just has to be run on the origional hardware.

[Kitsunexus]

Missa, you are the rockingest person on Planet Earth. Thank you! 

EDIT: Corrupted download? I dunno, I'll retry...

[Kitsunexus]

The mp3 is just six minutes of silence.

[MissaFX]

The mp3 is just six minutes of silence.

I didn't test it but it should have worked.  Let me mess with it again.

Apparently I was recording the midi   I'm uploading a new one.

-->Click me<--

[Kitsunexus]

Thanks for the recording, very hi-fi, I approve! ^_^

On to the criticism then:

THIS SYNTHESIZER ENGINE IS FREAKING AMAZING, ESPECIALLY FOR A CONSOLE OF THAT ERA! I'm trying to figure out what synth the samples came from (the piano is so good I swear it could have been sampled from a real grand, but the strings are so obviously synth in origin, and undoubtedly Yamaha to boot), but they're nice and clear, and they're great multi-samples!

The closest thing I could compare it to is Taito's Dungeon Magic, which if you look at the sound chip, is nothing more than a Gravis Ultrasound.

The only nitpick I have is that for whatever reason, the harpsichord is apparently undergoing a slight phasing, sounding for a couple of notes a bit like a clavinet. What's up with that?  Some sort of 3D0 spatializer?

As far as the music generation algorithm goes, umm... at least it sounds like music, but Bach it is not. It sounds some of those (compositionally wise) like those pirate multi-cart games, and those generic TV/handheld multi-games. If you have a VG Pocket Caplet, you know what I'm talking about. It's classical, but without an underlying theme or motif, and thus, not interesting to come back to.

I'm very impressed with the synth, not so much with the compositional portion. Although you could theoretically use this to crank out some nice music for like a freeware RPG or something, and no one would be the wiser. 

Thanks again Missa! ^_^

[MissaFX]

Thanks for the recording, very hi-fi, I approve! ^_^

On to the criticism then:

THIS SYNTHESIZER ENGINE IS FREAKING AMAZING, ESPECIALLY FOR A CONSOLE OF THAT ERA! I'm trying to figure out what synth the samples came from (the piano is so good I swear it could have been sampled from a real grand, but the strings are so obviously synth in origin, and undoubtedly Yamaha to boot), but they're nice and clear, and they're great multi-samples!

The closest thing I could compare it to is Taito's Dungeon Magic, which if you look at the sound chip, is nothing more than a Gravis Ultrasound.

The only nitpick I have is that for whatever reason, the harpsichord is apparently undergoing a slight phasing, sounding for a couple of notes a bit like a clavinet. What's up with that?  Some sort of 3D0 spatializer?

As far as the music generation algorithm goes, umm... at least it sounds like music, but Bach it is not. It sounds some of those (compositionally wise) like those pirate multi-cart games, and those generic TV/handheld multi-games. If you have a VG Pocket Caplet, you know what I'm talking about. It's classical, but without an underlying theme or motif, and thus, not interesting to come back to.

I'm very impressed with the synth, not so much with the compositional portion. Although you could theoretically use this to crank out some nice music for like a freeware RPG or something, and no one would be the wiser. 

Thanks again Missa! ^_^

I do know that when it is playing it does not load from disc, so that means since the graphics end is close to pushing the limits of the 3DO at times, they cannot load any program data into the video ram.  What samples they use probably have to fit into 3/4ths a megabyte to half a megabyte of ram, and it can load up to 4 different instruments into that space.

I've thought myself about the possibility of using it to make copyright free music for various purposes, like leave it running for a few hours and then pick out a few good songs from all of it.

I'm glad you liked the quality though, I'm one of those people who cannot stand it when people put a mic up to a speaker and call it a recording either.

[Kitsunexus]

I'm glad you liked the quality though, I'm one of those people who cannot stand it when people put a mic up to a speaker and call it a recording either.

Too bad we can't tell the guy who ripped the Zelda CD-I soundtracks, that game has great music, but the recording sounds like it was a digital transfer from a Talkboy tape recording of the TV speaker (and it probably was).

Whenever I record something, if it's not recorded internally, it's ALWAYS minijack/phono plugs to LINE-IN jack.

I do know that when it is playing it does not load from disc, so that means since the graphics end is close to pushing the limits of the 3DO at times, they cannot load any program data into the video ram.  What samples they use probably have to fit into 3/4ths a megabyte to half a megabyte of ram, and it can load up to 4 different instruments into that space.

So the multi-timbrality and polyphony is actually dictated by memory, not the 3D0's CPU? Fascinating. ^_^

If you stick the CD into your PC's drive, can you make out what might be the file containing the samples? It's probably all in some sort of CD image format, but if you can extract the file that holds the samples, you can import it into Goldwave as a binary file and manually chop the samples, and stick them in a sampler VST.

Yeah it's a lot of work to do, and you can either just go buy a 90's MIDI orchestra model (the E-MU Virtuoso, Korg Symphony, and Roland M-SE1 come to mind) or get a software collection like Garritan, but that's what everybody else does. No one actively uses CPU Bach for music, unless they use the synth the samples came from (and usually they probably don't realize it) and ripping the samples is more feasible/worth it than modifying the code for MIDI because 1: that's going to take a lotta time, sweat, and Red Bull, and 2: you said the 3D0 is already maximizing the memory usage anyway; it probably can't fit one more thing in there and 3: it seems like the CPU devotes a lot of time to music processing, so it probably wouldn't be very responsive as a MIDI device, and 5, the most important: that's going to take some major hardware hacking as well, and 3D0's  not exactly being available on store shelves worldwide, well, let's just say you wouldn't want to f*ck with the internals, lest you lose a expensive old console.

So yeah, I need to get me a disc and rip the samples.

[MissaFX]

So the multi-timbrality and polyphony is actually dictated by memory, not the 3D0's CPU? Fascinating. ^_^

With this program nothing is on the fly, so yes.  It loads all the resources it needs for the audio and video then runs.  Once the song is over.  It dumps the memory and loads new information into it.  Many 3DO games use the video ram for sound data or other program data.  For the graphics this program shows though, it has to be using the full meg for the graphics in some of the modes.

If you stick the CD into your PC's drive, can you make out what might be the file containing the samples? It's probably all in some sort of CD image format, but if you can extract the file that holds the samples, you can import it into Goldwave as a binary file and manually chop the samples, and stick them in a sampler VST.

I do not have the 3DO file system installed so I cannot see inside the CDs, I can only load them through freeDO.  The program data has to be less than 80 megs for this "game" though.

Yeah it's a lot of work to do, and you can either just go buy a 90's MIDI orchestra model (the E-MU Virtuoso, Korg Symphony, and Roland M-SE1 come to mind) or get a software collection like Garritan, but that's what everybody else does. No one actively uses CPU Bach for music, unless they use the synth the samples came from (and usually they probably don't realize it) and ripping the samples is more feasible/worth it than modifying the code for MIDI because 1: that's going to take a lotta time, sweat, and Red Bull, and 2: you said the 3D0 is already maximizing the memory usage anyway; it probably can't fit one more thing in there and 3: it seems like the CPU devotes a lot of time to music processing, so it probably wouldn't be very responsive as a MIDI device, and 5, the most important: that's going to take some major hardware hacking as well, and 3D0's  not exactly being available on store shelves worldwide, well, let's just say you wouldn't want to f*ck with the internals, lest you lose a expensive old console.

I'm not going to say it can't be done on the 3DO, but it wouldn't be worth the time to even try to set up the hardware for it and to then code some software for it (which can be done with a MAC workstation from back then).  If you want the samples there probably is a fairly painless way to get them because they are not going to be in one of the weird 3DO mp2 formats.  You would just need to install the right drivers to be able to see the 3DO file system.

So yeah, I need to get me a disc and rip the samples.

I got mine from some people on ebay who sell lots of disc only 3DO software for 2-4 dollars, you might be able to find one cheap on ebay as long as you don't want the manual.

[Kitsunexus]

Wait wait wait, nothing is done on the fly? So the audio is rendered out to some form of MPG2? Wow, the base samples might be REALLY SHIT then, and it just calculates some of the finer nuances and renders it out, kind of like a Kurzweil board, but not in real-time.

Come to think of it, it is very plausible, as sample-based subtractive synthesis of that caliber would need a HELLA lot more than a fourth of a megabyte to sound that good. 

[MissaFX]

Wait wait wait, nothing is done on the fly? So the audio is rendered out to some form of MPG2? Wow, the base samples might be REALLY SHIT then, and it just calculates some of the finer nuances and renders it out, kind of like a Kurzweil board, but not in real-time.

Come to think of it, it is very plausible, as sample-based subtractive synthesis of that caliber would need a HELLA lot more than a fourth of a megabyte to sound that good. 

I am guessing the audio is rendered from umcompressed pcm samples (at much less than CD quality), much like how a mod file does it using a small range of notes and faking the rest.

What this program does is it generates a random song (well as random as you let it) and it also loads the graphics and sound data needed during this genration process.  It takes about 10-20 seconds to generate a song if you do not change the graphics, longer if you make it load that data too.  Once the song is generated, everything is loaded into 3 megs of ram, and then it begins to play.

[Kitsunexus]

Wait wait wait, nothing is done on the fly? So the audio is rendered out to some form of MPG2? Wow, the base samples might be REALLY SHIT then, and it just calculates some of the finer nuances and renders it out, kind of like a Kurzweil board, but not in real-time.

Come to think of it, it is very plausible, as sample-based subtractive synthesis of that caliber would need a HELLA lot more than a fourth of a megabyte to sound that good. 

I am guessing the audio is rendered from umcompressed pcm samples (at much less than CD quality), much like how a mod file does it using a small range of notes and faking the rest.

What this program does is it generates a random song (well as random as you let it) and it also loads the graphics and sound data needed during this genration process.  It takes about 10-20 seconds to generate a song if you do not change the graphics, longer if you make it load that data too.  Once the song is generated, everything is loaded into 3 megs of ram, and then it begins to play.

Oh, my bad, so it is tracker-style, but the composition is pre-rendered, not the audio. That makes more sense, and the 3MB of RAM is a definite improvement from what I thought originally (the Proteus/2 orchestral module only has 4MB of RAM, and it's actually only slightly better).

[MissaFX]

Oh, my bad, so it is tracker-style, but the composition is pre-rendered, not the audio. That makes more sense, and the 3MB of RAM is a definite improvement from what I thought originally (the Proteus/2 orchestral module only has 4MB of RAM, and it's actually only slightly better).

The 3DO has very interesting memory.  It has 2 Megs of ram and 1 meg of video ram.  However you can use all of the 1 meg of video ram as normal ram.  You can also use the 2nd meg of ram as video ram.  This allowed programmers to focus on what game element they wanted to stand out and allowed the 3DO to have some rather varied software.  Digital Dreamware is one of the few titles that uses normal ram as video ram as the only other thing it has to worry about is streaming a mp2 file off the CD which is hardware decoded.