FM music (again!)

From: Richard Atkinson (rga24_at_hermes.cam.ac.uk)
Date: 1999-09-15 19:24:02

Hello all. I'm about to send out the Sound Expanders promised to various
people, but unfortunately I have lost my X1541 cable so I couldn't upload
the Composer and Editor programs, both of which need cracking. Rest
assured I will do this after the weekend, as soon as I find that cable! I
have also entered the first movement of a Beethoven sonata into the
Composer, which uses a Grand Piano sound (sort of) so you will have some
nice music to listen to.

Anyway, in an attempt to find some *SOFTWARE* to run on these expanders, I
did some research into the MSX computers and the Sega Master System, and
it seems there's a wealth of FM-enabled games out there, mainly in Japan.
I am going to rip the sound routines out of my favourite Master System
games and write a player for the C64, but first I need to find a YM2413
chip. Does anyone, probably in the Netherlands, have access to an FM-PAC
for the MSX (or any MSX 2+ computer with MSX-MUSIC built-in), or even a
Japanese Sega Master System?

The interesting thing is that YM2413 is OPLL, or really low cost FM, but
it seems you need YM3812 OPL2 to emulate it exactly. YM3526 as found in
the standard SFX Sound Expanders doesn't include the waveform select bits,
whereas the cheapo OPLL uses one out of the two waveform bits, ergo you
need a YM3812 upgrade in your Sound Expander to hear my Master System
tunes emulated exactly.

Not that it will make a great deal of difference, though, as a normal
YM3526 will still play the tunes better than any PC emulated YM2413 can :)

I need a YM2413 to extract the instrument table data from the internal
ROM, and this will be useful for MAME arcade emulator writers as well as
my own projects. So, does anyone have an FM-PAC or an MSX-MUSIC machine?


Richard

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