Hi everyone, do you have any idea of a good sequencer or drum machine to use with Carnivore2 since it has it inside
- SCC, SCC+, FMPAC (with backup RAM support) and PSG
Which of these chips is best for music composition or playing a tracker?
Which trackers and which tracker files do you recommend? Does it also play from MIDI files, i.e. does it have a sound bank?
Interesting question. Certainly, as far as PSG is concerned, I recommend arkos tracker, which I use in all my games. Also because the Carnivore PSG should have configurable ports and therefore you can have an msx with double PSG and arkos tracker supports multiple PSGs.
However, there are other trackers that use the SCC chip for example (if I'm not mistaken, trilotracker does so). I'm not a chip tune expert so my knowledge is limited to this, but if needed I could gather info elsewhere and gradually post it here
@thegeps Thanks, I saw it too https://www.generation-msx.nl/software/bit2/synthe-saurus-ver-11/release/1137/ which uses MSX Audio (FM-PAC) and I remember that in the days of amiga and PC there were a lot of trackers, mid files and mods but I saw that there are other types, but I think the order of sound beauty be it SCC, SCC+, FM-PAC and therefore PSG?
@andreadidio the PSG is the basic audio processor, therefore the most limited. Then we have the Konami SCC which is definitely better and has been the most used up to now, but the best of the three is the FMPAC because it also uses sampled sounds and has more audio channels: it can reproduce 9 FM channels (without drums) or 6 FM channels + 5 drums channels.
It contains 64 preset sounds and the user can create new ones. However, only one user instrument can be used at a time during playback (along with all those already present). Lately it has been used a lot in new productions.
@thegeps Thank you!!! so for the sequencer and music production I would use FMPAC, instead speaking of tracker, what is the best format for note files? I only know midi clearly, but I know that mods existed and I also see other things around, there is a good database of songs for Archos tracker and what extensions should I look for. I ask these questions so when I know these things I'm ready to try it, thanks!
@andreadidio I don't know if there are databases for arkos tracker. They could because it is multiplatform and runs on PC. I don't know if there is a stand alone replayer on MSX (but I suspect that Roboplay by Robosoft (Marco Blom, author of Attack of the petscii robots) plays them (I'll check and let you know). If so you should look for AKG files. Being multiplatform ( because the PSG has been mounted on several computers including Amstrad CPC, Spectrum 128 and +2 +3, Atari ST among others) you should search around 😅
In the meantime, here is the link to RoboPlay which unfortunately does not support arkos tracker files but supports several others for several audio chips (as you can read on the first page of its gitlab at this link)
https://gitlab.com/torihino/roboplay
@andreadidio Hi Andrea, to work with FMPAC and a tracker, I would suggest Moonblaster V1.4. Many popular MSX songs have already been made with it. https://msxhub.com/MOONBLAS