Feb 192010
 

Good news from Arkos: The Arkos Tracker, a Windows based music tracker program, will be released within a few weeks. You can compose songs on the PC which will be later played on the CPC or any other computer which uses the same music chip (AY-3-891x and YM2149). It will be released with a pack of Z80 players and tons of music and sounds.

For now, you can have a look at the video:

 

UPDATE: Targhan, the developer of the Arkos Tracker, provided more information about it in the CPC Wiki forums. Here are the features of the Arkos Tracker:

Features:

  • 256 patterns available.
  • Each pattern is composed of 3 independent tracks.
  • 512 tracks available, each being reusable in any pattern, or even several times in the same pattern.
  • Each track can be transposed independently in a pattern.
  • A track has a height from 1 to 128 lines, independently of the pattern that uses it.
  • 255 instruments available.
  • The instrument editor allows you to modify each registers of the PSG.
  • Replay frequency of 13, 25, 50, 100, 150 or 300hz.
  • Possibility to put "events" in your song. They can either be used to synchronize your music with your production, or trigger digidrums for exemple.
  • Big news: instruments are divised into two channels : a Software, and Hardware one. These channels can be independant or dependent from each other. Allows using two waves at the same time!
  • Allows you to play sound effects in a very flexible and powerful way. You can also play the SFXs without any music.
  • You can import any STarKos song.
  • NO SID/DMA for CPC+ for now. I may plan that…

About the Player:

  • Only 25 scanlines maximum used!
  • On top of being faster than the STarKos player, it’s lighter: one and a half kb.
  • The player works on Amstrad CPC, MSX, Spectrum or Pentagon (using conditional assembling : only the necessary code is used).
  • The generated songs are very light (about as much as the STarKos song. Sometimes a bit lighter, sometimes not).
  • Can be used in Basic (call the player by yourself, or use it under interruptions), and Assembler.
  • The source of the player is given, and documented.
  • The format of the music is given. So you’ll be able to create your own custom tools (conversion, new players…).
  • Fade in/out available.

About the sound effects:

  • Every instrument of your song becomes a sound effect.
  • You can play/stop a sound effect on any, or all, of the 3 channels.
  • You can choose the note, volume, speed of any triggered SFX.
  • You can add Pitch to them (useful to add randomness to the sounds, for example).
  • Sound effects are in a seperate file : you can use the same sound bank even if you change the music.
Jun 172009
 

Targhan has released a bugfix version of his great music tracker STarKos. The new version can be (as always) downloaded as ROM or disk version from Grim’s Wiki pages (btw. have a look at them, they are an awesome CPC documentation collection, too).

Changelog for version 1.21:

  • A single but important bugfixe found by Tom&Jerry, introduced by the 1.2 release. If two channels pointed on the same track, a modification of the third wouldn’t be taken in account.
Starkos Tracker
Starkos Tracker
starkos.v1.21.arkos.zip
Version: 1.21
102.7 KiB
499 Downloads
Details
Starkos Tracker ROMs
Starkos Tracker ROMs
starkos.v1.2.rom.arkos.zip
Version: 1.21
34.7 KiB
437 Downloads
Details
Jun 022009
 

Phew, so many news after the last meeting weekend :-)…

Ultrasyd just released a small music disc which contains four original Starkos Tracker songs. You can download it directly here.

ultrasyd-musicdisc

Ultrasyd Music Disk 1
Ultrasyd Music Disk 1
ultrasydmusic-disk1.zip
14.9 KiB
385 Downloads
Details
May 112009
 

Targhan has just released a new version of his great music tracker STarKos. The new version can be (as always) downloaded as ROM or disk version from Grim’s Wiki pages (btw. have a look at them, they are an awesome CPC documentation collection, too).

Changelog for version 1.2:

Features:

  • Highlight of every X lines in the pattern editor (customisable).
  • A few colorsets.
  • Ability to find a new and unused track in the Linker (U key)

Bug fixes:

  • The players could alter one byte in the memory in rare occasions. DO NOT USE THE PREVIOUS PLAYERS ANYMORE !
  • The player generator could save on drive A when it should save on B.
  • When generating a song, the Execution in the header gives its start (but the Start remains unusable).
  • In very rare occasions, the current instrument could be destroyed after a disc access.
  • Modifying the second or third track would not validate the change if the first one was pointing the same track.
  • File selecting shifted bug corrected.
  • Wrong looping behaviour corrected.
  • Clipboard buffers were not set correctly. I had to shrink a bit the manual clipboards (Shift+F7/F8/F0).
  • Better disc code. No more crashes, and a little faster.
  • … A lot of tiny bugs corrected.

Tweakings:

  • Bigger pattern editor.
  • Shift+Control + Up/Down on a note to increase its octave.
  • Q on a transposition to invert the sign.
  • Del on a transposition to set it to 0.
  • Ask to confirm when erasing a file.
  • Numbers of song/instruments on a disc written in decimal.
  • In the Instrument Editor, F0/. copy the line by default instead of creating an empty line.
  • Prevent the cycling of the notes when playing the highest keys.
  • You can set a different ùuser when running STarKos and the Generators, and the programs will use it.

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