While doing my Chip research I stumbled upon many different formats to store “chip music information”.
Some of them contain the full assembly code used by the original console/video game
-SID (C64 6510 assembly)
-NSF (NES)
-SAP (Atari 8bit computers with POKEY chips in them)
(etc)
Others only contained the actual register values WRITES along with their timestamps:
-VGM (SN, YM2612, YM2151 etc)
Both have pros and cons, But I do prefer the VGM approach, since it abstracts the chip from its processor, it allows much easier re-purposing of the music data streams. For instance, in order to use a direct PIC interface, parallel port, arduino, what-have-you to play the data back on a real chip.
For my continuing analysis and cross checking, I need to do bunch of tests on chip register data (especially for SID and POKEY).
I also need to edit entries, filter some registers, add comments to specific writes, play the result, record, analyze in a sound editor, using various home made tools.
I usually also had to type or procedurally generate long lists of chip register commands in order to hear how some chips behave under specific scenarios, and also to record a long series of chromatic notes for a sampler mapping (SID combined waveforms in chipsounds using SFZ mapping) etc, without having to delve into this or that system's native assembly each time. (I had to do that too many times that I dont miss it much)
I thought of using the VGM format and extending it but:
1)Its binary only
2)Only logs writes at 44100 Hz, (while some emulators run at full master clock of 3.57MHz or more, so you DO lose information)
3)Its been patched a lot through revisions, and is hard to maintain.
4)NIH :)
So really I just went with the simplest thing I could come up with.
VGMX!! (Extended VGM or VGM XML) .. how original
The format is very simple it doesn't require a DTD (especially since most of us use modified TinyXML source trees right?)
It goes something like this:
Note: clock and rate are two different things. Clock is the actual oscillator frequency feeding the chip, while rate is the time base for the writes. (emulator timebase in many case)
This is very preliminary, but I hope that this interest somebody.
In closing here are a few examples of real files and rendered results from my protoboard+pic setup
1)7800 Ballblazer (VGMX) (MP3)
2)C64 Great Gianna Sisters Doom (VGMX) (MP3)
Some of them contain the full assembly code used by the original console/video game
-SID (C64 6510 assembly)
-NSF (NES)
-SAP (Atari 8bit computers with POKEY chips in them)
(etc)
Others only contained the actual register values WRITES along with their timestamps:
-VGM (SN, YM2612, YM2151 etc)
Both have pros and cons, But I do prefer the VGM approach, since it abstracts the chip from its processor, it allows much easier re-purposing of the music data streams. For instance, in order to use a direct PIC interface, parallel port, arduino, what-have-you to play the data back on a real chip.
For my continuing analysis and cross checking, I need to do bunch of tests on chip register data (especially for SID and POKEY).
I also need to edit entries, filter some registers, add comments to specific writes, play the result, record, analyze in a sound editor, using various home made tools.
I usually also had to type or procedurally generate long lists of chip register commands in order to hear how some chips behave under specific scenarios, and also to record a long series of chromatic notes for a sampler mapping (SID combined waveforms in chipsounds using SFZ mapping) etc, without having to delve into this or that system's native assembly each time. (I had to do that too many times that I dont miss it much)
I thought of using the VGM format and extending it but:
1)Its binary only
2)Only logs writes at 44100 Hz, (while some emulators run at full master clock of 3.57MHz or more, so you DO lose information)
3)Its been patched a lot through revisions, and is hard to maintain.
4)NIH :)
So really I just went with the simplest thing I could come up with.
VGMX!! (Extended VGM or VGM XML) .. how original
The format is very simple it doesn't require a DTD (especially since most of us use modified TinyXML source trees right?)
It goes something like this:
Note: clock and rate are two different things. Clock is the actual oscillator frequency feeding the chip, while rate is the time base for the writes. (emulator timebase in many case)
This is very preliminary, but I hope that this interest somebody.
In closing here are a few examples of real files and rendered results from my protoboard+pic setup
1)7800 Ballblazer (VGMX) (MP3)
2)C64 Great Gianna Sisters Doom (VGMX) (MP3)
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