Posted By
Csabo
on 2003-04-15
|  Re: Music
The music in Tetris uses a so called Digi-Converter. Those definitely sound better that the two channel square-sound of the Plus/4.
The Digi-Converter basically "plays" a C64 converted SID tune. Those tunes try to control the SID (the C64's music chip) by writing to $D400 in the memory - that area is just simple ordinary RAM on the Plus/4, so really nothing happens. The Digi-Converter however constantly reads those values, and constantly outputs digital audio. Three channels mixed, with the waveforms + ADSR + all that. So in a way it EMULATES the SID. The advantage: the sound is cool  The disadvantage: it takes WAY too much processing power. That is, you can't have too many complicated effects (or a graphics intensive game) running along with a Digi-Converter.
The Freq-Converters are similar. They let the C64 music run, but with the values they read from $D400 they output regular TED sound. Advantage: pretty fast. (Still slower than dedicated TED music, but you can do pretty much any demo or effect with this converter.) Disadvantage: The sound can be a bit plain. For people who grew up listenning to the TED sound, it's cool, because you are used to it, but I've heard ordinary people describing the TED's music as "annoying beeping".
If you want cool music, check out TLC's "Stormlord" conversion from the CD3. In my opinion, that piece is the very best music on Plus/4 you can listen to. 4 channels! Other cool stuff: Last ninja 3 demo by Ceekay (very cool music), the whole Bluekeeps demo from Wit (cool digis), TLC's First Demo (there is a part in it in which he uses RASTERS with a Digi-Converter, that particular converter has gotta be one of the best ones.) Shameless plug: you can also check out my own Drum-Mix III.
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