{"id":1399,"date":"2024-10-13T22:33:12","date_gmt":"2024-10-13T22:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/?page_id=1399"},"modified":"2025-10-03T10:54:55","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T08:54:55","slug":"players-overview","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/players-overview\/","title":{"rendered":"Players overview"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Arkos Tracker 3 comes with several players. Which one to use depends on your needs, and their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/player-availability\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"2978\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">availability<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/the-akg-player\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"1375\">AKG<\/a><\/strong>: Your go-to player. Good balance between speed and memory.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/the-aky-player\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"1384\">AKY<\/a>:<\/strong> Fast player (12 scanlines on CPC!). But the music are also bigger. In league with FAP (see below).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/the-akm-player\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"1392\">AKM<\/a><\/strong>: Optimized in memory. An interesting alternative to CNGSoft&#8217;s Chip&#8217;n&#8217;Sfx. But much more powerful!<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/fap-player\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"2504\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>FAP<\/strong><\/a>: CPU stable, fastest with an excellent compression ratio, by Hicks\/Vanity and Gozeur\/Vanity! For demos.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/sound-effects\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"1294\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>SE<\/strong><\/a>: Stand-alone <strong>S<\/strong>ound <strong>e<\/strong>ffect players. Useful if you don&#8217;t need music, only sound effects.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/the-mod-player\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"1396\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>MOD<\/strong><\/a>: Player for MODule (full-sample).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What player to use?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>To make it simple:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Working on a <strong>game<\/strong>? AKG or AKM (more limited).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Working on a <strong>demo<\/strong>? FAP (CPC only) or AKY (multi-platform), compare.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Working on a <strong>sized-limited demo<\/strong>? AKM.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Need <strong>more than 3 channels<\/strong>? AKY.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Need <strong>samples<\/strong> (no PSG sound!)? MOD.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Need <strong>short samples<\/strong> along PSG sounds (i.e. digidrums)? AKY (see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/digidrums\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"2543\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">this tutorial<\/a>).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Need <strong>pitched samples<\/strong> along with PSG sounds? AKY (see this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/samplepsg-player\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"2568\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">tutorial<\/a>).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Don&#8217;t need music, only <strong>sound effects<\/strong>? SE.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">RAM\/ROM players<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The RAM players are using self-modifying code as an optimization. This is a drawback for ROM productions, so ROM players have been developed: they use a buffer instead, at a small cost of CPU (the size of the buffer is indicated in the sources). Check their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/player-availability\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"2978\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">availability<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"samples-support\">Samples support<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Full samples songs can use the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/the-mod-player\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"1396\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">MOD player<\/a>&nbsp;(which is 100% sample, no PSG).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Digidrums can use <a href=\"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/digidrums\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">this player<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>One-sample+PSG can be done via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/samplepsg-player\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"2568\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">this player<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Platform interoperability<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Can a song exported in a PSG of 1 mHz (like on an Amstrad CPC) sounds well on a Spectrum? It depends mostly on the player, and a bit on the song:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>AKY encodes all periods, software and hardware. So it <em>will<\/em> sound different from a platform to another. You should export the song once again, targeting the right PSG frequency.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>AKG and AKM songs are composed of notes, not period. So in theory, the song can be directly used to another platform.&nbsp;<strong>However,<\/strong>&nbsp;pitch effects are period-based, so they will sound differently.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Morality: listen to the song on the real hardware, or load the song in AT3 and set the PSG according to the hardware your are using. Correct the pitch effects\/tables if needed! So this means that you may need several versions of a song if you plan on targeting several platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Arkos Tracker 3 comes with several players. Which one to use depends on your needs, and their availability. What player to use? [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":174,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1399","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1399"}],"version-history":[{"count":63,"href":"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2985,"href":"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1399\/revisions\/2985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.julien-nevo.com\/arkostracker\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}