Hi,

The AKG is not really meant to support multiPsg, because it will be simply too slow. On a “normal” 8-bit computer, this would be not be usable in a game or a demo, so I simply don’t think it is worth the trouble.

Now I really don’t understand why there would be noise problems with AKY. In case you don’t know (sorry if you do), using noise on multiple channels on the SAME PSG may sound strange, because the same value of noise is used on all the channels using noise (the PSG only has one noise generator). But if you tell me that using two channels of noise of TWO DIFFERENT PSGs provokes “distortion”, then there may a problem in the player (which would be unlikely, as it is had been well tested, but hey, no one’s perfect :)).

Or is it a problem with the Spectrum Next hardware itself? I have used 9-channel songs on our Playcity hardware on CPC, and never had any problem.

… The AKG certainly takes more than 25 scanlines for a 9 channels song. I would say a bit more even for a 3 channels song! I wish it were than fast :).

The AKG is not, on a normal 8-bit system, suited for complex sound effects such as high quality samples. AKY is better for that, because it’s much faster. On CPC we can play digidrums with the AKG, but if I wanted to play “real” samples” along with music, I would use AKY.

Right now, AKG does NOT play sample, simply because it would be too slow.

That’s the whole point. My players don’t play samples, because playing sample is always very specific to the machine. On CPC, we would OUT on the PSG, and wait a specific amount of NOPs before making the OUT again, in a loop. We can do that because on CPC, we don’t have a DMA, and each instruction has the same duration, always. This is not the case of other machines.

You’re talking about a DMA, which is specific to the SpecNext. I’m sorry but I cannot help you about how to program it, since the only thing I know about the SpecNext is how to address the PSGs!

But this should be easy. Basically:
– Play a frame of the AKY player, normally.
– Detects if a sample must be played. You can use the Events for that.
– If a sample must be played, send the sample data (or continue the previous sample, if any) to the DMA.
– Wait for the next frame flyback and restart!

As for the samples, AT2 can export samples for you in 4 bits, if that’s what your DMA requires.

One problem I think about, I guess your DMA send the samples to one of the channels where the music is playing. Maybe this won’t be a problem, but if you feel the sample has a bad quality, this may be because the music “overlaps” with the sample for a few scanlines. Ideally, the sample channel should be untouched by the AKY player, when a sample is played.

First tell if it it’s working as it is, and we’ll find a way to bypass the AKY PSG access when a sample is present. This shouldn’t be difficult at all!

Ah ok, you want to use “real” samples directly from the notes. This is problematic because there is no “notes” in AKY!! AKY only handles registers!

Then you have to use AKG, your have no choice. Sorry if I was misleading, but I wasn’t sure about what you wanted. If you’re in a hurry you can check the source, it’s quite easy to know when a note is read. Then transmit that to your DMA player and it should be easy! Especially since your DMA are not using the PSG’s channels!

The only thing I’m note sure about is how the exported will export the “sample” instrument… When playing them, the AKG “should” play “silence”, ideally. I’ll try to check that soon :).